Task Kinds

This section lists and documents the available task kinds.

build

Builds are tasks that produce an installer or other output that can be run by users or automated tests. This is more restrictive than most definitions of “build” in a Mozilla context: it does not include tasks that run build-like actions for static analysis or to produce instrumented artifacts.

build-fat-aar

Build architecture-independent GeckoView AAR (Android ARchive) files. This build-like tasks is an artifact build (ARMv7, but this is arbitrary) that itself depends on arch-specific Android build jobs. It fetches arch-specific AAR files, extracts arch-specific libraries and preference files, and then assembles a multi-architecture “fat AAR”. Downstream consumers are expected to use per-ABI feature splits to produce arch-specific APKs.

If you want to run this task locally, you need to specify these environment variable:
  • MOZ_ANDROID_FAT_AAR_ARCHITECTURES: must be a comma-separated list of architecture. Eg: “armeabi-v7a,arm64-v8a,x86,x86_64”.

  • each of MOZ_ANDROID_FAT_AAR_ARM64_V8A, MOZ_ANDROID_FAT_AAR_ARMEABI_V7A, MOZ_ANDROID_FAT_AAR_X86, MOZ_ANDROID_FAT_AAR_X86_64 must be a path relative to MOZ_FETCHES_DIR.

build-signing

Many builds must be signed. The build-signing task takes the unsigned build kind artifacts and passes them through signingscriptworker to a signing server and returns signed results.

For mac notarization, we download the signed bits that have been notarized by Apple, and we staple the notarization to the app and pkg.

build-notarization-part-1

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the first task, which signs the files and submits them for notarization.

build-notarization-poller

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the second task, which polls Apple for notarization status. Because this is run in a separate, special notarization poller pool, we free up the mac notarization pool for actual signing work.

artifact-build

This kind performs an artifact build: one based on precompiled binaries discovered via the TaskCluster index. This task verifies that such builds continue to work correctly.

hazard

Hazard builds are similar to “regular’ builds, but use a compiler extension to extract a bunch of data from the build and then analyze that data looking for hazardous behaviors.

l10n

The l10n kind takes the last published nightly build, and generates localized builds from it. You can read more about how to trigger these on the wiki.

shippable-l10n

The nightly l10n kind repacks a specific nightly build (from the same source code) in order to provide localized versions of the same source.

shippable-l10n-signing

The shippable l10n signing kind takes artifacts from the shippable-l10n kind and passes them to signing servers to have their contents signed appropriately, based on an appropriate signing format. One signing job is created for each shippable-l10n job (usually chunked).

For mac notarization, we download the signed bits that have been notarized by Apple, and we staple the notarization to the app and pkg.

shippable-l10n-notarization-part-1

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the first task, which signs the files and submits them for notarization.

shippable-l10n-notarization-poller

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the second task, which polls Apple for notarization status. Because this is run in a separate, special notarization poller pool, we free up the mac notarization pool for actual signing work.

source-test

Source-tests are tasks that run directly from the Gecko source. This can include linting, unit tests, source-code analysis, or measurement work. While source-test tasks run from a source checkout, it is still possible for them to depend on a build artifact, though often they do not.

code-review

Publish issues found by source-test tasks on Phabricator. This is a part of Release Management code review Bot.

upload-symbols

Upload-symbols tasks run after builds and upload the symbols files generated by build tasks to Socorro for later use in crash analysis.

upload-generated-sources

Upload-generated-sources tasks run after builds and upload source files that were generated as part of the build process to an s3 bucket for later use in links from crash reports or when debugging shipped builds.

valgrind

Valgrind tasks produce builds instrumented by valgrind.

searchfox

Searchfox builds generate C++ index data for Searchfox.

static-analysis-autotest

Static analysis autotest utility in order to be sure that there is no regression when upgrading utilities that impact static-analysis.

toolchain

Toolchain builds create the compiler toolchains used to build Firefox. These will eventually be dependencies of the builds themselves, but for the moment are run manually via try pushes and the results uploaded to tooltool.

spidermonkey

Spidermonkey tasks check out the full gecko source tree, then compile only the spidermonkey portion. Each task runs specific tests after the build.

test

See the test kind documentation for more info.

docker-image

Tasks of the docker-image kind build the Docker images in which other Docker tasks run.

The tasks to generate each docker image have predictable labels: docker-image-<name>.

Docker images are built from subdirectories of taskcluster/docker, using docker build. There is currently no capability for one Docker image to depend on another in-tree docker image, without uploading the latter to a Docker repository.

balrog

Balrog tasks are responsible for submitting metadata to our update server (Balrog). They are typically downstream of a beetmover job that moves signed MARs somewhere (eg: beetmover and beetmover-l10n for releases, beetmover-repackage for nightlies).

beetmover

Beetmover, takes specific artifacts, “Beets”, and pushes them to a location outside of Taskcluster’s task artifacts, (archive.mozilla.org as one place) and in the process determines the final location and a “pretty” name (versioned product name)

beetmover-l10n

Beetmover L10n, takes specific artifacts, “Beets”, and pushes them to a location outside of Taskcluster’s task artifacts, (archive.mozilla.org as one place) and in the process determines the final location and a “pretty” name (versioned product name) This separate kind uses logic specific to localized artifacts, such as including the language in the final artifact names.

beetmover-repackage

Beetmover-repackage is beetmover but for tasks that need an intermediate step between signing and packaging, such as OSX. For more details see the definitions of the Beetmover kind above and the repackage kind below.

release-beetmover-push-to-release

release-beetmover-push-to-release publishes promoted releases from the candidates directory to the release directory. This is part of release promotion.

beetmover-snap

Beetmover-source publishes Ubuntu’s snap. This is part of release promotion.

beetmover-source

Beetmover-source publishes release source. This is part of release promotion.

beetmover-geckoview

Beetmover-geckoview publishes the Android library called “geckoview”.

condprof

condprof creates and updates realistic profiles.

release-source-checksums-signing

release-source-checksums-signing take as input the checksums file generated by source-related beetmover task and sign it via the signing scriptworkers. Returns the same file signed and additional detached signature.

beetmover-checksums

Beetmover, takes specific artifact checksums and pushes it to a location outside of Taskcluster’s task artifacts (archive.mozilla.org as one place) and in the process determines the final location and “pretty” names it (version product name)

release-beetmover-source-checksums

Beetmover, takes source specific artifact checksums and pushes it to a location outside of Taskcluster’s task artifacts (archive.mozilla.org as one place) and in the process determines the final location and “pretty” names it (version product name)

perftest

Runs performance tests using mozperftest.

release-balrog-submit-toplevel

Toplevel tasks are responsible for submitting metadata to Balrog that is not specific to any particular platform+locale. For example: fileUrl templates, versions, and platform aliases.

Toplevel tasks are also responsible for updating test channel rules to point at the Release being generated.

release-secondary-balrog-submit-toplevel

Performs the same function as release-balrog-submit-toplevel, but against the beta channel during RC builds.

release-balrog-scheduling

Schedules a Release for shipping in Balrog. If a release_eta was provided when starting the Release, it will be scheduled to go live at that day and time.

release-secondary-balrog-scheduling

Performs the same function as release-balrog-scheduling, except for the beta channel as part of RC Releases.

release-binary-transparency

Binary transparency creates a publicly verifiable log of binary shas for downstream release auditing. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Binary_Transparency

release-snap-repackage

Generate an installer using Ubuntu’s Snap format.

release-flatpak-repackage

Generate an installer using Flathub’s Flatpak format.

release-flatpak-push

Pushes Flatpak repackage on Flathub

release-secondary-flatpak-push

Performs the same function as release-flatpak-push, except for the beta channel as part of RC Releases.

release-notify-av-announce

Notify anti-virus vendors when a release is likely shipping.

release-notify-push

Notify when a release has been pushed to CDNs.

release-notify-ship

Notify when a release has been shipped.

release-secondary-notify-ship

Notify when an RC release has been shipped to the beta channel.

release-notify-promote

Notify when a release has been promoted.

release-notify-started

Notify when a release has been started.

release-bouncer-sub

Submits bouncer information for releases.

release-mark-as-shipped

Marks releases as shipped in Ship-It v1

release-bouncer-aliases

Update Bouncer’s (download.mozilla.org) “latest” aliases.

cron-bouncer-check

Checks Bouncer (download.mozilla.org) uptake.

bouncer-locations

Updates nightly bouncer locations for version bump.

release-bouncer-check

Checks Bouncer (download.mozilla.org) uptake as part of the release tasks.

release-generate-checksums

Generate the per-release checksums along with the summaries

release-generate-checksums-signing

Sign the pre-release checksums produced by the above task

release-generate-checksums-beetmover

Submit to S3 the artifacts produced by the release-checksums task and its signing counterpart.

release-final-verify

Verifies the contents and package of release update MARs.

release-secondary-final-verify

Verifies the contents and package of release update MARs for RC releases.

release-push-langpacks

Publishes language packs onto addons.mozilla.org.

release-beetmover-signed-langpacks

Publishes signed langpacks to archive.mozilla.org

release-beetmover-signed-langpacks-checksums

Publishes signed langpacks to archive.mozilla.org

release-update-verify

Verifies the contents and package of release update MARs. release-secondary-update-verify ——————————- Verifies the contents and package of release update MARs.

release-update-verify-next

Verifies the contents and package of release and updare MARs from the previous ESR release.

release-update-verify-config

Creates configs for release-update-verify tasks

release-secondary-update-verify-config

Creates configs for release-secondary-update-verify tasks

release-update-verify-config-next

Creates configs for release-update-verify-next tasks

release-updates-builder

Top level Balrog blob submission & patcher/update verify config updates.

release-version-bump

Bumps to the next version.

release-source

Generates source for the release

release-source-signing

Signs source for the release

release-partner-repack

Generates customized versions of releases for partners.

release-partner-attribution

Generates attributed versions of releases for partners.

release-partner-repack-chunking-dummy

Chunks the partner repacks by locale.

release-partner-repack-signing

Internal signing of partner repacks.

For mac notarization, we download the signed bits that have been notarized by Apple, and we staple the notarization to the app and pkg.

release-partner-repack-notarization-part-1

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the first task, which signs the files and submits them for notarization.

release-partner-repack-notarization-poller

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the second task, which polls Apple for notarization status. Because this is run in a separate, special notarization poller pool, we free up the mac notarization pool for actual signing work.

release-partner-repack-repackage

Repackaging of partner repacks.

release-partner-repack-repackage-signing

External signing of partner repacks.

release-partner-repack-beetmover

Moves the partner repacks to S3 buckets.

release-partner-attribution-beetmover

Moves the partner attributions to S3 buckets.

release-partner-repack-bouncer-sub

Sets up bouncer products for partners.

release-early-tagging

Utilises treescript to perform tagging that should happen near the start of a release.

release-eme-free-repack

Generates customized versions of releases for eme-free repacks.

release-eme-free-repack-signing

Internal signing of eme-free repacks

For mac notarization, we download the signed bits that have been notarized by Apple, and we staple the notarization to the app and pkg.

release-eme-free-repack-notarization-part-1

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the first task, which signs the files and submits them for notarization.

release-eme-free-repack-notarization-poller

We switched to a 3-part mac notarization workflow in bug 1562412. This is the second task, which polls Apple for notarization status. Because this is run in a separate, special notarization poller pool, we free up the mac notarization pool for actual signing work.

release-eme-free-repack-repackage

Repackaging of eme-free repacks.

release-eme-free-repack-repackage-signing

External signing of eme-free repacks.

release-eme-free-repack-beetmover

Moves the eme-free repacks to S3 buckets.

release-eme-free-repack-beetmover-checksums

Moves the beetmover checksum for eme-free repacks to S3 buckets.

repackage

Repackage tasks take a signed output and package them up into something suitable for shipping to our users. For example, on OSX we return a tarball as the signed output and this task would package that up as an Apple Disk Image (.dmg)

repackage-l10n

Repackage-L10n is a `Repackage` task split up to be suitable for use after l10n repacks.

repackage-signing

Repackage-signing take the repackaged installers (windows) and signs them.

repackage-signing-l10n

Repackage-signing-l10n take the repackaged installers (windows) and signs them for localized versions.

mar-signing

Mar-signing takes the complete update MARs and signs them.

mar-signing-l10n

Mar-signing-l10n takes the complete update MARs and signs them for localized versions.

mar-signing-autograph-stage

These tasks are only to test autograph-stage, when the autograph team asks for their staging environment to be tested.

repackage-msi

Repackage-msi takes the signed full installer and produces an msi installer (that wraps the full installer) Using the `./mach repackage` command

repackage-signing-msi

Repackage-signing-msi takes the repackaged msi installers and signs them.

repackage-msix

Repackage-msix takes a (possibly unsigned) package and produces a Windows MSIX package containing no langpacks using the `./mach repackage` command.

These tasks are supposed intended for rapid iteration in `try`.

repackage-shippable-l10n-msix

Repackage-msix takes a signed package and a list of signed langpacks and produces a Windows MSIX package using the `./mach repackage` command.

The signed langpacks are produced on Linux, since langpacks are platform agnostic.

These tasks are for releases; they are complete, and therefore slower, and not intended for rapid iteration in `try`.

repackage-signing-msix

Repackage-signing-msix takes Windows MSIX packages produced in `repackage-msix` and signs them.

repackage-signing-shippable-l10n-msix

Repackage-signing-shippable-l10n-msix takes Windows MSIX packages produced in `repackage-signing-shippable-l10n-msix` and signs them.

repo-update

Repo-Update tasks are tasks that perform some action on the project repo itself, in order to update its state in some way.

partials

Partials takes the complete.mar files produced in previous tasks and generates partial updates between previous nightly releases and the new one. Requires a release_history in the parameters. See mach release-history if doing this manually.

partials-signing

Partials-signing takes the partial updates produced in Partials and signs them.

post-balrog-dummy

Dummy tasks to consolidate balrog dependencies to avoid taskcluster limits on number of dependencies per task.

post-beetmover-dummy

Dummy tasks to consolidate beetmover dependencies to avoid taskcluster limits on number of dependencies per task.

post-beetmover-checksums-dummy

Dummy tasks to consolidate beetmover-checksums dependencies to avoid taskcluster limits on number of dependencies per task.

post-langpack-dummy

Dummy tasks to consolidate language pack beetmover dependencies to avoid taskcluster limits on number of dependencies per task.

post-update-verify-dummy

Dummy tasks to consolidate update verify dependencies to avoid taskcluster limits on number of dependencies per task.

fetch

Tasks that obtain something from a remote service and re-expose it as a task artifact. These tasks are used to effectively cache and re-host remote content so it is reliably and deterministically available.

packages

Tasks used to build packages for use in docker images.

diffoscope

Tasks used to compare pairs of Firefox builds using https://diffoscope.org/. As of writing, this is mainly meant to be used in try builds, by editing taskcluster/ci/diffoscope/kind.yml for your needs.

addon

Tasks used to build/package add-ons.

openh264-plugin

Tasks used to build the openh264 plugin.

openh264-signing

Signing for the openh264 plugin.

webrender

Tasks used to do testing of WebRender standalone (without gecko). The WebRender code lives in gfx/wr and has its own testing infrastructure.

github-sync

Tasks used to do synchronize parts of Gecko that have downstream GitHub repositories.

instrumented-build

Tasks that generate builds with PGO instrumentation enabled. This is an intermediate build that can be used to generate profiling information for a final PGO build. This is the 1st stage of the full 3-step PGO process.

generate-profile

Tasks that take a build configured for PGO and run the binary against a sample set to generate profile data. This is the 2nd stage of the full 3-step PGO process.

geckodriver-signing

Signing for geckodriver binary.

visual-metrics

Tasks that compute visual performance metrics from videos and images captured by other tasks.

visual-metrics-dep

Tasks that compute visual performance metrics from videos and images captured by another task that produces a jobs.json artifact

iris

Iris testing suite

maybe-release

A shipitscript task that does the following:

  1. Checks if automated releases are disabled

  2. Checks if the changes between the current revision and the previous releases revision are considered “worthwhile” for a new release.

  3. Triggers the release via ship-it, which will then create an action task.

l10n-bump

Cron-driven tasks that bump l10n-changesets files in-tree, using data from the l10n dashboard.

merge-automation

Hook-driven tasks that automate “Merge Day” tasks during the release cycle.

sentry

Interact with Sentry, such as by publishing new project releases.

system-symbols

Generate missing macOS and windows system symbols from crash reports.

system-symbols-upload

Upload macOS and windows system symbols to tecken.

scriptworker-canary

Push tasks to try to test new scriptworker deployments.

updatebot

Check for updates to (supported) third party libraries, and manage their lifecycle.

fuzzing

Performs fuzzing smoke tests

startup-test

Runs Firefox for a short period of time to see if it crashes

l10n-cross-channel

Compiles a set of en-US strings from all shipping release trains and pushes to the quarantine strings repo.

fxrecord

Visual metrics computation of desktop Firefox startup. The performance team monitors this task to watch for regressions in Firefox startup performance.