Automate XCTest with GitLab’s CI

2022-10-062023-05-20

GitLab has a Continuous Integration (CI) feature that allows you to perform continuous integration without deploying a separate solution dedicated to CI.

Therefore, whenever I push my code to GitLab, XCTest is triggered to run unit tests for macOS and iOS apps.

In this article, I’ll walk you through setting this up.

TOC

Register the runners

In GitLab CI/CD, a Runner runs the process. There are two types of Runners: the Shared Runner, which is shared between projects, and the Specific Runner, which is dedicated to a particular project.

For this instance, I registered a “Shared Runner” to use it across multiple projects(repositories).

Install a Runner

Since this is the Runner used to run XCTest, you need to install it on the Mac that will run XCTest. Here, I used a Mac Mini.

The official website explains instructions for installing GitLab Runner on macOS.

Register a Runner

STEP

Open the “Runners” in the “Admin Area”.

STEP

Click the “Register an instance runner”, and click the “Show runner installation and registration instructions”.

STEP

The detailed instructions are displayed, select macOS from Environment, click the Copy button next to the field labeled “Command” to register Runner, copy the command, and click Close to close.

STEP

Execute the command you copied in STEP 3 on the Mac where the Runner was installed, making sure to run it without sudo.

When running XCTest on a Mac, you must run it in user mode, so you need to run without sudo.

Once executed, you’ll be prompted to interactively enter those settings in the given order.

STEP

Enter the GitLab URL.

Runtime platform                                    arch=amd64 os=darwin pid=10297 revision=76984217 version=15.1.0
Running in system-mode.                            
                                                   
Enter the GitLab instance URL (for example, https://gitlab.com/):
[http://code.rkdev.corp/]:

STEP

You will be asked for your registration token. Press the Enter key since you have already specified a token when executing the command.

Enter the registration token:
[-ABCDEFG4567890YZABC]:

STEP

Enter the description of the Runner. In my case, I entered the machine name.

Enter a description for the runner:
[MacMini2020.local]: MacMini2020

STEP

Enter the tags which will be assigned to the Runner.

In my case:

The machine is a Mac.
It is an Intel Mac.
Its OS will always be the latest.

Based on these factors, the following three tags were set.

mac
mac-intel
mac-intel-latest

Enter tags for the runner (comma-separated):
mac,mac-intel,mac-intel-latest

STEP

Enter the memo for the maintenance. Nothing in particular, so I left it blank.

Enter optional maintenance note for the runner:

STEP

Enter the Executer.

The official website says to use shell for macOS and iOS apps, so I specified shell.

Registering runner... succeeded                     runner=-ABCDEFG
Enter an executor: custom, parallels, shell, ssh, kubernetes, docker, docker-ssh, virtualbox, docker+machine, docker-ssh+machine:
shell

STEP

If the registration is successful, the output is as follows.

Runner registered successfully. Feel free to start it, but if it's running already the config should be automatically reloaded!

STEP

Reload the Runners page in the Admin Area to see the registered Runners.

Configure the CI/CD

Create a repository and code for testing and set up the CI/CD.

Test Code

Here, I aim to verify that XCTest operates correctly via GitLab CI. Thus, I’ve constructed a unit test containing code designed to always fail and code designed to always succeed. I hesitate to call it a test code since we are not testing anything, just making XCTest work.

import XCTest
@testable import CITest

class CITestTests: XCTestCase {

    override func setUpWithError() throws {
    }

    override func tearDownWithError() throws {
    }

    func testExample() throws {
        XCTFail("TEST FAILURE")
    }
    
    func testSuccess() throws {
        XCTAssertTrue(true);
    }
}

Activate the Shared Runner

You must enable Shared Runner on a per-repository basis.

STEP

Open the CI/CD in the project settings.

STEP

Open the Expand of Runners.

STEP

Turn on the “Enable shared runners for this project”.

Add the CI/CD configuration file

Add the CI/CD configuration file by doing the following.

STEP

Open the repository page with the web browser and click the “Set up CI/CD” link.

STEP

Click the “Create new CI/CD pipeline” button.

STEP

Click the “Browse templates’ link, open the “Swift.gitlab-ci.yml” and copy its contents.

STEP

Back to the Pipeline Editor of your repository and paste the copied configuration.

STEP

Change the Xcode project file name, scheme name, etc.

For example, I changed the following values in my test project file.

Configuration	Value
-project	CITest.xcodeproj
-scheme	CITest
-destination	iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 13,OS=15.5
tags	mac-intel-latest
-archivePath	build/CITest
-archivePath	build/CITest.xcarchive
-exportPath	build/CITest.ipa
-exportProvisioningProfile	“”
paths:	build/CITest.ipa

Changed configurations

stages:
  - build
  - test
  - archive
  - deploy

build_project:
  stage: build
  script:
    - xcodebuild clean -project CITest.xcodeproj -scheme CITest | xcpretty
    - xcodebuild test -project CITest.xcodeproj -scheme CITest -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 13,OS=15.5' | xcpretty -s
  tags:
    - mac-intel-latest

archive_project:
  stage: archive
  script:
    - xcodebuild clean archive -archivePath build/CITest -scheme CITest
    - xcodebuild -exportArchive -exportFormat ipa -archivePath "build/CITest.xcarchive" -exportPath "build/CITest.ipa" -exportProvisioningProfile ""
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - build/CITest.ipa
  tags:
    - mac-intel-latest

If you only need testing by CI and do not need archiving, remove the archive_project job and make the following configuration file. In my case, this is what I needed.

stages:
  - build
  - test
  - archive
  - deploy

build_project:
  stage: build
  script:
    - xcodebuild clean -project CITest.xcodeproj -scheme CITest | xcpretty
    - xcodebuild test -project CITest.xcodeproj -scheme CITest -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 13,OS=15.5' | xcpretty -s
  tags:
    - mac-intel-latest

See the following article for details on specifying the -destination option.

Test

Push the created test code to the repository. Since this is a must-fail test, the job will fail after a while, and you will receive an error notification email.

Open the Pipelines of the CI/CD of the project. You can see failed jobs. Click on FAILED.

Open the Failed Jobs tab. If the error is due to test failure as planned, the test case (method) name of the failed test is output as follows.

2022-06-27 18:59:30.903 xcodebuild[18902:109049] [MT] IDETestOperationsObserverDebug: 0.000 sec, +0.000 sec -- start
2022-06-27 18:59:30.903 xcodebuild[18902:109049] [MT] IDETestOperationsObserverDebug: 104.154 sec, +104.154 sec -- end
Failing tests:
	CITestTests:
		CITestTests.testExample()

** TEST FAILED **

ERROR: Job failed: exit status 1

If you are getting other errors, please review the logs and settings.

About the UI testing

Here we have only unit testing with XCTest, but it is no different for UI testing.

Suppose the UI Testing test package is included in the Xcode project and registered in the scheme’s test plan. In that case, UI testing will be performed automatically, just as when testing manually from Xcode.

Troubleshooting

I will post the errors I encountered when I set it up and how to handle them.

Only works when the user is logged in

XCTest must be run by the logged-in current user. Therefore, the Mac running the Runner must be logged in.

When the machine is rebooted

If you follow the official installation procedure, it will be registered as a service, so when you reboot your machine, all you have to do is log in, and Runner will start.

Status remains pending

The status is still pending, and the pipeline build_project shows an error that the Runner corresponding to the tag does not exist.

In this case, the following are possible causes.

The tag is incorrect.
Try to use Shared Runner, but Shared Runner is not enabled in your project.
Runner on Mac is not running in user mode.

2 see “Activate Shared Runner” on this page.

I’m stuck on 3. When registering Runner, the command line output by GitLab has sudo on it, and if I run it as is, Runner won’t work in user mode, so that XCTest won’t work either.

Simulator name or OS version is incorrect.

In this case, the following error is output in the build_project log, which lists the available simulator and OS combinations.

xcodebuild: error: Unable to find a destination matching the provided destination specifier:

Correct the values you specify in the .gitlab-ci.yml file to the appropriate values.

Open the Editor of your project’s CI/CD to edit and commit the .gitlab-ci.yml file from within your web browser.

For information on how to specify the simulator name and OS version, see the following article.