Managing pipeline gates

Gates ensure that orchestrations cannot be started in an environment until the gate rule is satisfied.

About this task

A gate is a condition that determines whether an application can run in the environment. A pipeline can have some environments with gates and some without gates. A gate condition is called a rule. You can define a rule type based on the following criteria:
  • Approver gate requires one or more responders to approve an application version before it can run in an environment. Approving a gate rule is considered passing the gate.
    Note: Anyone with access to the pipeline can create gates and be assigned as a responder. Scenarios detailing approval and rejection of application versions by responders are detailed below.
    • If a gate has multiple responders, one approval is sufficient for the application version to pass the gate.
    • If one responder rejects the application version, the application is rejected.
    • If responders both approve and reject the application version, the application is rejected.
    • When you add gates to an environment, all application versions in the affected environment must be approved before a deployment can be started. You can override a failed gate, that is, a rejected application version and you may want to do this when you run applications in a test environment.
  • Metric gate leverages a metric-based system allowing you to automatically stop or advance application versions from being deployed into environments based on set conditions for the rule.
    Note: Using the metric rule type will provide you with visibility on the movement status of application versions and automated governance across your pipeline.
  • Compliance gate enables you to control the deployment of application versions into different environments based on the conditions of the compliance rule.
    Note:
    • Currently under the Compliance gate, you can only create a rule for pull request approval.
    • Compliance rules are enabled only for the following type of applications:
      • Applications added by Jenkins (Legacy) plug-in.
      • Applications added by Jenkins plug-in.
      • Application added by external HCL Launch and external UrbanCode Deploy plug-ins and built using Jenkins. Ensure that the build details are pushed to HCL™ Accelerate using the UCD Jenkins publisher or pipeline plug-ins.

Procedure

  1. For the environment where you want to add a gate, click stage context menu and select Add gate, and then perform the following steps.
    Note: For the environment where you want to modify a gate, click stage context menu and select Edit gate, and then complete the following steps.
    1. In the Add gate window, click New Rule.
      To use an existing rule, click Existing Rules.
    2. In the Rule Type field, select Approver, Metric, or Compliance. Based on the Rule Type selected, use the following tables to add approver, metric, or compliance gates to environments.
      Table 1. Approver
      "Approver" Add gate option Value / action
      Name your new rule Enter a name for the rule.
      Add Approver(s) In the list, select responders.
      Add Rule Click to add gate to the environment, which is indicated by the Gate icon on the environment label. To view gate rules, click the Gate icon. A Gate status icon is added to the applications in the environment.
      Note: Initially, the Gate status is indicated by a vertical gray bar located to the left of the application version. If all application versions are approved, the gate is passed and the Gate status is a green bar. If application versions are rejected, the Gate status is a red bar.
      Metric rules and Approver rules statuses Under the Edit environment Gate Rules on the right side of the Add gate window, you can view the statuses of the Metric rules and Approver rules. Under the Approver rules, select the Send email alert to any user that requires manual approval checkbox to receive email notification for approving the approver gates. The email notification is sent to all approver gate approvers. The approver gates approval email notification contains the Stage Name, Approver Gate Name, Application Name, and Version Name of the application for which the approval is requested.
      Save Click to populate the rule on the gate.
      Send email notification to any user that requires manual approval select the checkbox to send the e-mail notification for the designated approvers.
      Table 2. Metric
      "Metric" Add gate option Value / action
      Name your new rule Enter a name for the rule.
      Description Enter a description for the rule.
      Metric Type Select the required metric in the list from the following: Coverage by Branch, Coverage by Function, Coverage by Line, Functional Tests, Static Code Analysis, Unit Tests, Container Vulnerabilities, or Application Vulnerabilities. Descriptions for each Metric Type can be found here.
      Data Set Select the required metric data set.
      Field Select the required field from the list.
      Note: The field is based on the Metric Type used for the metric rule and will be dynamically populated with selections associated with the metric.
      For example, if Application Vulnerabilities is selected, then Blocker will be the criteria measure for the gate.
      Operator Select the required operator from the list.
      Note: The operator is based on the Field that was selected and will be dynamically populated with selections suitable to the field. For example, if Blocker is the field, then the following list will be the available operators: =, !=, >, or <.
      Value Select the required value from the list.
      Note: The required value is entered based on the field and operator. For example, a value of zero indicating Blocker = 0 as the rule to pass the gate.
      Occurrence period Select the required occurrence period for the rule from the following list: None, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, or Months.
      Duration Enter the duration for occurrence period of the rule.
      Add Rule Click to add gate to the environment, which is indicated by the Gate icon on the environment label. To view gate rules, click the Gate icon. A Gate status icon is added to the applications in the environment.
      Note: Initially, the Gate status is indicated by a vertical gray bar located to the left of the application version. If all application versions are approved, the gate is passed and the Gate status is a green bar. If application versions are rejected, the Gate status is a red bar.
      Metric Rules, Approver Rules, Compliance Rules statuses Under the Edit environment Gate Rules on the right side of the Add gate window, you can view the statuses of the Metric Rules, Approver Rules, and Compliance Rules.
      Save Click to populate the rule on the gate.
      Note: For the above example of Blocker = 0, you may notice all the versions have a red bar indicating each had a blocker because of a failure with security scan.
      Table 3. Compliance
      "Compliance" Add gate option Value / action
      Name your new rule Enter a name for the rule.
      Description Enter a description for the rule.
      Resource Type Select the resource type from the list.
      Field Select the required field from the list.
      Operator Select the required operator from the list.
      Note: The operator is based on the Field that was selected and will be dynamically populated with selections suitable to the field.
      Value Select the required value from the list.
      Note: The required value is entered based on the field and operator.
      Add Rule Click to add gate to the environment, which is indicated by the Gate icon on the environment label. To view gate rules, click the Gate icon. A Gate status icon is added to the applications in the environment.
      Note: Initially, the Gate status is indicated by a vertical gray bar located to the left of the application version. If all application versions are approved, the gate is passed and the Gate status is a green bar. If application versions are rejected, the Gate status is a red bar.
      Metric Rules, Approver Rules, Compliance Rules statuses Under the Edit environment Gate Rules on the right side of the Add gate window, you can view the statuses of the Metric Rules, Approver Rules, Compliance Rules.
      Save Click to populate the rule on the gate.
    3. In the Add gate window, on the right side, you can hover over a rule and click Remove rule to delete the individual rules.
  2. In the Pipeline window, click the Gate status icon for the application version with the gate to open Version Rules window.
    You can see the status of the gates and designated approvers can approve or reject the approver gate rule.
  3. On the Version Rules window, click Approve or Reject and then click Save to approve or reject the approver gate rule.
    Note: If you are an approver for multiple rules, you can approve all or some of them and reject others. If you are not a designated responder, you can neither approve nor reject the gate rule.
  4. For the environment where you want to delete a gate, click stage context menu and select Delete gate.

What to do next

Run a deployment for a pipeline stage.