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Migrate from CircleCI to Harness CI

Harness CI and CircleCI are both cloud-native CI products that help developers build and test code.

What makes Harness CI unique?​

Harness CI provides proprietary technologies, like Cache Intelligence and Test Intelligence, which make Harness CI four times faster than other leading CI tools.

  • Harness Test Intelligence (TI) is a proprietary technology that accelerates test cycles by running only the tests necessary to confirm the quality of the code changes that triggered a build. Visualizations show which code changes caused which tests to be selected, and TI can help you identify gaps in your test plan. TI also detects negative trends and provides actionable insights to improve quality. With TI, it's possible to reduce build cycle times by up to 90% without compromising application quality.
  • Harness Cache Intelligence is a proprietary technology that reduces pipeline execution time by automatically caching well-known directories for languages like Java and Node.js.

Harness CI is part of The Harness Platform, which is a self-service CI/CD platform that enables end-to-end software delivery. The Harness Platform includes features, functionality, and additional modules to help you build, test, deploy, and verify software. For example:

  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) helps you control user and group access to Harness resources according to users' roles. Using RBAC increases security and improves efficiency.
  • Harness Policy as Code is a centralized policy management and rules service that leverages the Open Policy Agent (OPA) to meet compliance requirements across software delivery and enforce governance policies.
  • The Harness Enterprise Ready Self-Managed Edition is an end-to-end solution for continuous, self-managed delivery. You can install and update Harness Self-Managed Enterprise Edition using online or offline (air-gapped) methods.

Comparison: Pipeline architecture​

Both Harness CI and CircleCI use pipelines to organize workflows. CircleCI organizes steps and commands into jobs, and each pipeline has one or more jobs. Similarly, Harness CI organizes steps, which contain commands, into stages, and each each pipeline has one or more stages. The following truncated examples provide a simple comparison of pipeline structure in CircleCI and Harness CI.

stages:
   - stage:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run

For more information about Harness terminology, features, and pipeline components, go to the CI key concepts.

When creating pipelines, CircleCI supports pipeline configuration as code only. In contrast, the Harness CI Pipeline Studio provides both a visual editor and a YAML code editor.

  • The Harness YAML editor includes schema validation and auto-complete recommendations to simplify and expedite pipeline configuration.
  • The Harness visual editor provides a guided experience that enables anyone to easily build, debug, and run pipelines.
  • You can switch back and forth between editors.
Complete pipeline comparison

Here are YAML examples of complete pipelines in CircleCI and Harness CI.

pipeline:
  name: default
  identifier: default
  projectIdentifier: default
  orgIdentifier: default
  tags: {}
  stages:
    - stage:
        name: Stage1
        identifier: stage1
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Background
                  name: Postgres-Dependency-Service
                  identifier: PostgresDependencyService
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                    image: postgres:10.8
                    shell: Sh
                    envVariables:
                      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
                      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: <+secrets.getValue("DbPasswordSecret")>
                      POSTGRES_DB: postgres
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                    image: openjdk:17.0-jdk
                    shell: Bash
                    command: echo "this runs on openjdk"
          platform:
            os: Linux
            arch: Amd64
          runtime:
            type: Cloud
            spec: {}
    - stage:
        name: Stage2
        identifier: Stage2
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                    image: node:13.0.0
                    shell: Bash
                    command: |-
                      echo "pipeline var:" <+pipeline.variables.pipelinevar1>
                      echo "project level var:" <+variable.proj_var>
                      echo "secret example :" <+secrets.getValue("DbPasswordSecret")>
          platform:
            os: Linux
            arch: Amd64
          runtime:
            type: Cloud
            spec: {}
        variables: []
    - stage:
        name: matrix stage
        identifier: Stage4
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    shell: Bash
                    command: echo "Testing on  <+matrix.testparam>"
          platform:
            os: Linux
            arch: Amd64
          runtime:
            type: Cloud
            spec: {}
        strategy:
          matrix:
            testparam:
              - node
              - python
              - ubuntu
          maxConcurrency: 3
  properties:
    ci:
      codebase:
        connectorRef: YOUR_CODE_REPO_CONNECTOR_ID
        repoName: YOUR_CODE_REPO_NAME
        build: <+input>
  variables:
    - name: pipelinevar1
      type: String
      description: ""
      value: someval
Root and non-root users

Steps run as the root user, generally. For example, with Harness Cloud build infrastructure, steps run directly on the host and, therefore, run as the root user.

For services running on containers (which are steps where you specify a Container Registry and Image to use to execute the step's commands), you can use the Run as User setting to specify a user to use for that container.

With Kubernetes cluster build infrastructure, you can use the Run as User setting to specify a user to use for individual steps, or you can set a default user for all steps and then override the default user as needed for individual steps.

Comparison: CircleCI orbs and Harness plugins​

CircleCI orbs are reusable shareable configuration packages that combine jobs, commands, and executors.

Harness CI has two options for reusable, pre-packaged functionality:

  • Use Plugin steps to run GitHub Actions, Bitrise Workflow Steps, Drone plugins, and other plugins in your CI pipelines. Drone Plugins are Docker containers that perform a predefined task.
  • Create standardized step templates that can be reused across pipelines and teams in your Harness account.

CircleCI local CLI​

The CircleCI local command line interface (CLI) can run Docker-based jobs locally. Harness Cloud infrastructure can execute these jobs in pipeline run steps.

Example CircleCI local CLI step

This example executes a slack/notify job which uses the Slack orb in a pipeline step. This assumes the file .circleci/config.yml which defines the job exists in the cloned repository, and that slack_access_token has been added as a secret in the project.

              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: Install CLI
                  identifier: install_cli
                  description: Install the CircleCI local CLI
                  spec:
                    shell: Sh
                    command: curl -fLSs https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CircleCI-Public/circleci-cli/main/install.sh | bash

              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: Notify
                  identifier: notify
                  description: Run the slack/notify job defined in .circleci/config.yml in the repository
                  spec:
                    shell: Sh
                    command: circleci local execute --env SLACK_ACCESS_TOKEN=<+secrets.getValue("slack_access_token")> slack/notify

CircleCI orbs scripts​

It is possible to run CircleCI orb scripts directly in pipeline run steps.

Example CircleCI orb script

This example uses the Browser Tools orb in a pipeline step by cloning the browser-tools-orb repository, then executing the install-chrome.sh script.

              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: install chrome
                  identifier: install_chrome
                  description: Run the install-chrome.sh script from the browser-tools orb
                  spec:
                    shell: Sh
                    command: |-
                      git clone --branch $BROWSER_TOOLS_ORB_VERSION --depth 1 https://github.com/CircleCI-Public/browser-tools-orb.git /tmp/browser-tools-orb
                      bash /tmp/browser-tools-orb/src/scripts/install-chrome.sh
                    envVariables:
                      BROWSER_TOOLS_ORB_VERSION: v1.4.8
                      ORB_PARAM_REPLACE_EXISTING: "1"
                      ORB_PARAM_CHANNEL: stable
                      ORB_PARAM_CHROME_VERSION: 116.0.5845.187

Parameters are passed to the orb script using environment variables prefixed by ORB_PARAMETER_.

The above Harness step is equivalent to this CircleCI job.

version: '2.1'
orbs:
  browser-tools: circleci/browser-tools@1.4.8
jobs:
  test:
    executor: browser-tools/default
    steps:
      - browser-tools/install-chrome:
          replace-existing: true
          chrome-version: 116.0.5845.187
          channel: stable

Comparison: Specify a codebase or Docker image​

To clone a codebase in CircleCI, you use a checkout step to check out source code to the configured path. In Harness CI, each pipeline has a codebase specification that identifies the code repo (input) that the pipeline uses to build an artifact (output). In Harness CI, codebase configuration has two components:

  • The codebase connector, which specifies the codebase URL and required credentials to access your code repos.
  • A series of settings describing how you want the pipeline to clone and build the repo.

When you create a Harness CI pipeline, you specify a default codebase to use for all stages in the pipeline. By default, each stage automatically clones the designated code repo from your Git provider into the stage's build infrastructure when the pipeline runs.

What are connectors?

Harness integrates with many different types of repositories and providers. A connection from Harness to other platforms is called a connector. Connectors can connect to source control providers, cloud providers, container registries, and more.

In addition to codebase configuration, you can also use connectors in individual steps to specify Docker images or even clone additional codebases in the same pipeline.

For example, in the following YAML example, the connectorRef references a Docker connector. Docker connectors are platform-agnostic and can be used to connect to any Docker container registry.

              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: my-docker-hub-connector
                    image: openjdk:17.0-jdk
                    shell: Bash
                    command: echo "this runs on openjdk"

Comparison: Define a multi-stage build pipeline​

In this example, Stage1 and Stage2 run concurrently. Once they are done, Stage3 runs. Once Stage3 is done, Stage4 runs.

CircleCI uses workflows to execute jobs in parallel, sequential, or mixed fashion.

In Harness CI, stages are executed in order of occurrence in the YAML config. Stages defined under the - parallel tag execute in a parallel fashion.

YAML examples: Multi-stage build pipelines

Here are YAML examples of multi-stage build pipelines in CircleCI and Harness CI.

  stages:
    - parallel:
        - stage:
            name: Stage1
            identifier: Stage1
            type: CI
            spec:
              cloneCodebase: true
              execution:
                steps:
                  - step:
                      type: Run
                      name: step1
                      identifier: step1
                      spec:
                        connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                        image: node:13.0.0
                        shell: Bash
                        command: echo "Download file in parallel with stage 2 "
        - stage:
            name: Stage2
            identifier: stage2
            type: CI
            spec:
              cloneCodebase: true
              execution:
                steps:
                  - step:
                      type: Run
                      name: step1
                      identifier: step1
                      spec:
                        connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                        image: node:13.0.0
                        shell: Bash
                        command: echo "step1"
    - stage:
        name: Stage3
        identifier: Stage3
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                    image: node:13.0.0
                    shell: Bash
                    command: echo "step 1 in stage3 . stage 3 requires stage 1 and 2 "
    - stage:
        name: Stage4
        identifier: Stage4
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: account.harnessImage
                    image: node:13.0.0
                    shell: Bash
                    command: echo "step 1 in stage4 . stage 4 requires stage 3"

Comparison: Environment variables​

In CircleCI, you use the web app to define project-level environment variables, and then you can reference them in a pipeline. You can use Context to use environment variables across multiple projects.

In Harness CI, you can define variables at the project, organization, and account levels. To reference these variables, you use variable expressions formatted as: <+variable.[scope].[variable_id]>. Here are the syntax formats for variables declared at different levels:

  • Account-level variable reference: <+variable.account.[var_id]>
  • Organization-level variable reference: <+variable.org.[var_id]>
  • Project-level variable reference: <+variable.[var_id]>
 - stage:
        name: Stagename
        identifier: Stagename
        spec:
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    command: echo "project var: " <+variable.proj_var>

In addition to project, organization, and account variables, you can use built-in variables or define custom variables within individual pipelines, stages, and steps. To learn more about defining and fetching variables in Harness, go to:

Comparison: Matrix jobs​

In CircleCI, matrix jobs are achieved by using parameters and then referencing those parameters in the pipeline using the following expression syntax: << parameters.param >>

In Harness, matrix looping strategies are one of several looping execution strategies. With matrix looping strategies, your pipelines can execute the same set of tasks multiple times for several different configurations. This is achieved by mentioning user-defined tags and referencing them in the pipeline using the following expression syntax: <+matrix.usertag>

To learn about the looping strategies available in Harness, go to Use looping strategies

  stages:
    - stage:
        name: Stage1
        identifier: Stage1
        type: CI
        spec:
          cloneCodebase: true
          execution:
            steps:
              - step:
                  type: Run
                  name: step1
                  identifier: step1
                  spec:
                    connectorRef: dockerconectorref
                    image: dockerimage:tag
                    shell: Bash
                    command: echo "Testing on  <+matrix.testparam>"
        strategy:
          matrix:
            testparam:
              - node
              - python
              - ubuntu
          maxConcurrency: 3

Comparison: Triggers​

CircleCI supports triggering a pipeline on push and PR to the code repository and scheduled triggers.

Harness CI supports webhook triggers and scheduled triggers. The two most commonly used triggers are webhook triggers based on Git events and scheduled triggers based on a cron expression. To learn more about creating a trigger, go to Triggers.

info

CircleCI configurations are stored in the path .CircleCI/config.yml at the root of your source code repository on the counter.

Harness provides inline pipeline storage or storing Pipeline YAML (Pipeline-as-Code) on Git.

See also​

Review the following information before proceeding with migration: