Unity CI/CD Demystified: Part 3: Build with Linux

Published on Oct 23, 2023

Last Updated on Oct 23, 2023

Estimated Reading Time: 2 min

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Welcome back to our Unity CI/CD journey.

In Part 1, we nailed down the One-Time Setup for Unity CD.

In Part 2, we set the Trigger Events and Automation Testing for Unity CD

It's time for Part 3, where we will create a reusable workflow to build the Unity project for various platforms. The jobs in this workflow will run on a Linux VM.

Why Linux? Its the cheapest box. As we will see in later posts, different platforms need different VM for deployment. I am looking at you iOS.

Let's kick things off with creating a new workflow definition .github/workflows/buildWithLinux.yml:

Defining the Workflow

name: Build with Linux  
on:  
  workflow_call:   
    inputs:   
      platform:  
        required: true  
        type: string  
      secrets:  
        UNITY_EMAIL:  
          required: true  
        UNITY_PASSWORD:  
          required: true  
        UNITY_LICENSE:  
          required: true  
    outputs:  
      buildVersion:  
        value: ${{ jobs.buildWithLinux.outputs.buildVersion }}

on: In this section, we specify the events that trigger our CI/CD workflow.
- workflow_call: This lets the runner know that this workflow is reusable and can be called from other workflows.
- inputs: These are the values passed in from the caller workflow and referenced in the job.
  - platform: Specifies the platform for which the Unity project should be built. This is crucial because Unity optimizes the build for the target platform and creates the appropriate files.
- secrets: These are the secrets passed in from the caller workflow and used in the job.
- outputs: Data that we want to pass back to the caller workflow.
  - buildVersion: The version generated by the job.

Inside the Linux Build Job

jobs:  
  
  buildWithLinux:  
    name: Build in Linux for ${{ inputs.platform }}  
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest  
    outputs:  
      buildVersion: ${{ steps.build.outputs.buildVersion }}  
      steps:  
      - name: Checkout Repository  
        uses: actions/checkout@v3  
        with:  
          fetch-depth: 0  
          lfs: true  
  
      - name: Cache Library  
        uses: actions/cache@v3  
        with:  
          path: Library  
          key: Library-build-${{ inputs.platform }}  
          restore-keys: |  
            Library-build- ${{ inputs.platform }}
            Library-    
      - name: Build Unity Project  
        id: build  
        uses: game-ci/unity-builder@v3  
        env:  
          UNITY_EMAIL: ${{ secrets.UNITY_EMAIL }}  
          UNITY_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.UNITY_PASSWORD }}  
          UNITY_LICENSE: ${{ secrets.UNITY_LICENSE }}  
        with:  
          targetPlatform: ${{ inputs.platform }}  
  
      - name: Upload Build  
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3  
        with:  
          name: build-${{ inputs.platform }}  
          path: build/${{ inputs.platform }}

Here's a breakdown of what's happening in this job:

outputs: Data we want to use in the caller workflow.
- buildVersion: The version generated by the Builder in the build step below.
steps: This section contains a series of steps to be executed for this job.
- Checkout Repository: This step checks out our code repository. We're diving deep into the Git history with a fetch depth of 0 and grabbing those Git Large File Storage (LFS) files with the lfs: true flag.
- Cache Library: This step caches the "Library" directory, making subsequent runs faster. We specify the directory path, a key for the cache, and the keys to look for when restoring the cache. We ensure that the key is unique to each platform, allowing the job to retrieve the correct cache.
- Build Unity Project: In this step, we build the Unity project and set the variables that have been passed in from the caller workflow
- Upload Build: Upload the built Unity project as an artifact so it can be downloaded in later jobs.

Conclusion

With this workflow in place, we're one step closer to mastering CI/CD for Unity. Stay tuned for Part 4, where we'll cover using this workflow to build and deploy the WebGL build on GitHub pages.

Happy building!