Build Pipeline

Build Engines

Two reusable workflows handle all builds. They share the same runner setup and KAS invocation but differ in what happens with the output.

buildkas-target.yaml — development builds

Used by onpush-scarthgap.yaml, manual-scarthgap.yaml, schedule-pvtests.yaml, and manual-pvtests.yaml.

• Runs kas build inside the KAS container on a self-hosted runner.
• Copies build artifacts to GitHub Actions artifacts (wic images, pvrexports, SDK, pvtest-distro).
• Does not upload to S3 and does not create a GitHub Release.

buildkas-upload.yaml — release builds

Used by release.yaml (tag builds only).

• Same build steps as buildkas-target.yaml.
• Additionally calls upload.sh to push artifacts to S3 and update releases.json.

Runner environment

Detail	Value
Runner label	self-hosted
Container image	ghcr.io/pantacor/kas/kas:next-v7
sstate cache	/shared/sstate (Docker volume shared)
Download dir	/shared/dldir (Docker volume shared)
Build user	builder (non-root, container switches with su - builder)
Temp dir	tmp-scarthgap

Artifacts

Every build produces some subset of the following:

Artifact name	Contents	Engine
<target>-<machine>	wic flash image (*.rootfs.wic*)	both
pvrexports-<machine>	pvrexport tarballs (*pvrexport.tgz)	both
pantavisor-bsp-<machine>	BSP pvrexport only	both
pvtest-distro-<machine>	unpacked appengine distro directory	both
pv-flash-bundle-<machine>	UUU factory flash bundle (pv-flash-bundle-*.tar.gz) — Toradex, Variscite, NXP MEK	both
sdk-artifact-<machine>	Yocto SDK installer (panta*.sh)	both

UUU Factory-Flash Builds (Toradex, Variscite, NXP MEK)

Toradex machines (verdin-imx8mm, colibri-imx6ull) use a multi-target build that produces three artifacts in a single kas build invocation:

target:
  - pantavisor-starter          # main Pantavisor image (wic / ubifs)
  - mc:tezi-recovery:u-boot-toradex  # recovery U-Boot via tezi-recovery multiconfig
  - pv-flash-bundle             # self-contained factory flash archive

Variscite machines (imx8mm-var-dart, imx8mn-var-som) and the NXP eval board (imx8qxp-b0-mek) only need two targets — no recovery multiconfig, since their production bootloader already works for UUU flashing (see the pv-flash-bundle section below):

target:
  - pantavisor-starter          # main Pantavisor image (wic)
  - pv-flash-bundle             # self-contained factory flash archive

tezi-recovery multiconfig

BBMULTICONFIG = "tezi-recovery" is set by the kas/platforms/toradex.yaml fragment. The multiconfig uses DISTRO = "tezi" (from meta-toradex-tezi) and builds in a separate tmp-scarthgap-tezi-recovery/ tmpdir. It produces the recovery U-Boot artifacts that pv-flash-bundle picks up:

Machine	Recovery artifact	Production NAND artifact
verdin-imx8mm	imx-boot-recoverytezi	— (eMMC, no separate NAND binary)
colibri-imx6ull	u-boot.imx-recoverytezi	u-boot.imx-rawnand

meta-toradex-tezi is masked (via BBMASK) in the main panta-distro build to prevent Tezi-specific recipes from conflicting. Only the recipes-bsp/ U-Boot bbappends are active in the main build context.

pv-flash-bundle

recipes-bsp/pv-flash/pv-flash-bundle.bb assembles a self-contained archive that operators use for factory flashing:

Machine	Image payload	Flash method
verdin-imx8mm	.wic.gz (eMMC)	SDP + SDPV → fastboot → FB: flash -raw2sparse all
colibri-imx6ull	.ubifs (NAND)	SDP → fastboot → nand write + ubi write
imx8mm-var-dart	.wic.gz (eMMC)	SDP + SDPV → fastboot → FB: flash -raw2sparse all
imx8mn-var-som	.wic.gz (eMMC)	SDP + SDPV → fastboot → FB: flash -raw2sparse all
imx8qxp-b0-mek	.wic.gz (eMMC)	SDPS (stream mode) → fastboot → FB: flash -raw2sparse all

Toradex differs from the other three in where the boot binary comes from: Toradex needs a stripped recovery U-Boot from the tezi-recovery multiconfig (PV_FLASH_RECOVERY_MC/_RECIPE/_IMAGE), because its production bootcmd is overridden by meta-pantavisor's pv.distroboot.cfg. Variscite's imx8mm-var-dart/imx8mn-var-som and NXP's own imx8qxp-b0-mek don't need a second multiconfig — their production imx-boot already self-enters SDP/fastboot mode at the SPL/ROM level regardless of bootcmd, so pv-flash-bundle just globs it straight out of the main build's deploy dir via PV_FLASH_BOOT_IMAGE. imx8qxp-b0-mek additionally differs in protocol, not just boot-binary source: i.MX8QXP silicon uses SDPS: stream mode instead of SDP:/SDPV: (see pv-flash-bundle for why). See docs/how-to-install/toradex.md for the Toradex flashing procedure, and docs/how-to-install/uuu.md for Variscite/MEK.

S3 Distribution (upload.sh)

upload.sh is called by buildkas-upload.yaml once per machine. It:

1. Bundles the wic image and pvrexports into a tarball.
2. Pushes the bundle to s3://<BUCKET>/meta-pantavisor/<TAG>/<MACHINE>/.
3. Reads the existing releases.json from S3, upserts the machine entry under devices, sets release-date on first write, and uploads the file back.

releases.json is the discovery index used by the Pantavisor ecosystem to find the latest image URLs and SHA256 checksums. Schema:

{
  "stable": {
    "029": {
      "release-date": "2026-06-03T10:00+00:00",
      "docs": {
        "name": "pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst",
        "hash": "<sha256>",
        "url": "https://pantavisor-ci.s3.amazonaws.com/meta-pantavisor/029/pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst"
      },
      "devices": [
        {
          "name": "raspberrypi-armv8-scarthgap",
          "full_image": { "url": "https://.../029/raspberrypi-armv8-scarthgap/raspberrypi-armv8-scarthgap-029.tar.gz", "sha256": "<sha256>" },
          "pvrexports":  { "url": "https://.../pvexports-raspberrypi-armv8-scarthgap-029.tar.gz",                      "sha256": "<sha256>" },
          "bsp":         { "url": "https://.../pantavisor-bsp-....pvrexport.tgz",                                      "sha256": "<sha256>" },
          "sdk":         { "url": "https://.../panta-....sh",                                                           "sha256": "<sha256>" }
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "release-candidate": {
    "029-rc1": {
      "release-date": "2026-05-30T08:00+00:00",
      "docs": { "name": "...", "hash": "...", "url": "..." },
      "devices": [ "..." ]
    }
  }
}

release-date is set by the first machine job to finish (using //=) and left unchanged by subsequent parallel jobs. The docs key is written later by tag-docs-scarthgap.yaml.

S3 path layout

s3://<BUCKET>/meta-pantavisor/
  <tag>/
    <machine>/                     ← bundle for this specific tag + machine
    pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst ← combined docs tarball for this tag
  latest/
    stable/
      badges/           ← per-machine badge JSON, updated after every stable tag build
    release-candidate/
      badges/           ← per-machine badge JSON, updated after every RC tag build

Stable vs release-candidate classification

upload.sh and upload-badges both check whether the tag contains -rc:

Tag pattern	Classification	S3 latest path
028, 029	stable	latest/stable/
028-rc1, 028-rc9	release-candidate	latest/release-candidate/

Documentation Tarball (tag-docs-scarthgap.yaml)

tag-docs-scarthgap.yaml runs via workflow_run after the ontag: sync and release workflow (tag-scarthgap.yaml) completes successfully. It is independent of the per-machine build matrix.

Documentation is built using pantavisor-docs.bbclass and pantacor-component-docs.bbclass. See how-to-build/component-docs.md for the full class reference.

The job:

1. Checks out the tagged commit (workflow_run.head_sha) so the docs match the release.
2. Runs kas build kas/build-configs/release/raspberrypi-armv8-scarthgap.yaml -- -c create_pantacor_docs pantavisor-starter inside the KAS container. raspberrypi-armv8-scarthgap.yaml was chosen because pantavisor-starter is its primary target and it pulls in the full set of components — including pvr (used by the pantabox container) — that need documentation. The pantavisor-docs image class triggers do_create_component_docs for every package in the image's dependency tree (via [recrdeptask]), collects the resulting per-component tarballs, adds meta-pantavisor/docs/, and packages everything into a single <IMAGE_LINK_NAME>.rootfs.docs.tar.zst. No full image assembly is needed — BitBake only builds packages up to do_install.
3. Collects the real tarball (non-symlink *.rootfs.docs.tar.zst) from build/tmp-scarthgap/deploy/images/.
4. Renames the tarball: pantavisor-starter-<rest>.rootfs.docs.tar.zst → pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst (strips starter- and .rootfs).
5. Uploads the renamed tarball directly under the tag prefix in S3:

   s3://<BUCKET>/meta-pantavisor/<TAG>/pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst

6. Downloads releases.json from S3, upserts a docs key at the tag level, and writes it back. Machine entries written by upload.sh live under devices in the same object:

{
  "release-candidate": {
    "028-rc10": {
      "release-date": "2026-05-13T21:27+00:00",
      "docs": {
        "name": "pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst",
        "hash": "<sha256>",
        "url": "https://pantavisor-ci.s3.amazonaws.com/meta-pantavisor/028-rc10/pantavisor-<rest>.docs.tar.zst"
      },
      "devices": [
        { "name": "sunxi-orange-pi-3lts-scarthgap", "full_image": {}, ... },
        ...
      ]
    }
  }
}

7. Uploads the original (unstripped) tarball to the GitHub Release via upload-docs.py upload-asset, then sends a repository_dispatch event (event_type: "docs-release", payload {"tag": "<TAG>"}) directly to pantavisor/docs.pantavisor via curl using the PANTAVISOR_DOCS_SYNC secret.

The tag is taken from workflow_run.head_branch (the tag that triggered tag-scarthgap.yaml). Because workflow_run only fires for workflow files present on the default branch, this workflow takes effect once it is on master.

CI Badges (upload-badges)

After all build jobs finish, the summary job in release.yaml calls upload-badges. The script:

1. Queries the GitHub API for all jobs in the current run that match contains("build (").
2. Maps each job's conclusion to a shields.io color (brightgreen / red / lightgrey / yellow).
3. Writes a JSON file per machine: {"schemaVersion":1,"label":"<machine>","message":"passing","color":"brightgreen"}.
4. Uploads each JSON to s3://<BUCKET>/meta-pantavisor/latest/<stable|release-candidate>/badges/<machine>.json.
5. Uploads a tag.json badge showing the tag name.

The badge URLs in README.md and docs/ci/status.md point to these S3 objects via https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=<S3-URL>. Shields.io fetches the JSON on render and produces an SVG badge.

pvtests Pipeline

pvtests run against the docker-x86_64-scarthgap appengine distro image. They require a dedicated pvtest-runner runner with Docker available.

The call-pvtests.yaml reusable workflow:

1. Downloads the pvtest-distro-docker-x86_64-scarthgap artifact.
2. Installs Docker images via test.docker.sh install-docker.
3. Runs test.docker.sh run <test_path> (no retries — failures surface directly).
4. Appends the SUMMARY section of test.docker.log to the step summary.
5. Uploads the pvtest workspace (logs, valgrind output) as an artifact.
6. Cleans up Docker containers and images.

test_path controls which tests run:

• local — tests that run entirely on the runner (no network to Pantahub)
• remote — tests that connect to Pantahub (require PH_USER/PH_PASS secrets)
• empty — run all tests

In release.yaml, pvtest-remote runs with if: always() so it executes even if pvtest-local fails, and its results don't block the summary job.

Component Auto-Updates

schedule-updates.yaml runs update-components.sh every 8 hours. The script reads .github/scripts/components.json, which lists each tracked component with its recipe glob, upstream branch, and GitHub org. For each component:

1. Fetches the latest commit SHA from the upstream branch via git ls-remote.
2. If the SHA differs from the current SRCREV in the recipe, updates the recipe in-place.
3. Appends a short git log to the commit message body for review.

If any updates were found, the workflow opens (or force-updates) a PR on auto-update/components.