Glossary

  • Namespace: A group of pipelines, usually one per team or project. Permissions and global secrets are scoped by namespace. Everything goes in the default namespace unless you say otherwise. See Namespaces.

  • Pipeline: A pipeline is a collection of tasks that can be run at once. Pipelines can be defined via a pipeline configuration file. Once you have a pipeline config file you can create a new pipeline via the CLI (recommended) or API.

  • Pipeline config (version): One saved copy of a pipeline's configuration. Each gofer up stores a new version (v1, v2, ...) instead of replacing the old one. See Updating Pipelines.

  • Deployment: Making a pipeline config version the live one, which is the version new runs use. gofer up deploys by default.

  • Run: A run is a single execution of a pipeline. A run can be started automatically via extensions or manually via the API or CLI

  • Task: A task is the lowest unit in Gofer. It is a small abstraction over running a single container. Through tasks you can define what container you want to run, when to run it in relation to other containers, and what variables/secrets those containers should use.

  • Task Execution: A task execution is the programmatic running of a single task container. Referencing a specific task execution is how you can examine the results, logs, and details of one of your tasks on any given run.

  • Extension: An extension adds functionality to pipelines. Extensions start up with Gofer as long running containers, and pipelines subscribe to them to use them; most commonly to run automatically on a schedule or when something happens elsewhere.

  • Subscription: A pipeline's link to an extension, along with the settings the extension needs for that pipeline (like how often to run). Created with gofer pipeline subscribe. See Running Pipelines Automatically.

  • Pipeline secret / Global secret: Values kept in Gofer's secret store for tasks to use. Pipeline secrets belong to one pipeline. Global secrets are managed by admins and can be shared with any namespaces they allow.

  • Pipeline object / Run object: Values kept in Gofer's object store. Pipeline objects stay until the pipeline hits its object limit; run objects belong to one run and are deleted after a few more runs. Run objects are how tasks pass values to each other.