Initial commit with article about skunk and github actions

_posts/2020-02-12-calculate-tech-debt-using-skunk-on-github-actions.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "How to Calculate Tech Debt Using Skunk on GitHub Actions"
+date: 2020-02-12 9:16:00
+categories: ["code-quality"]
+author: etagwerker
+---
+
+In preparation for my talk at [RubyConf Australia](https://www.rubyconf.org.au/) this
+month, I've been working on a way to make it easy for anyone to run [`skunk`](https://www.fastruby.io/blog/code-quality/intruducing-skunk-stink-score-calculator.html) on 
+their Ruby projects. In order to do that I decided to use GitHub Actions. It's a powerful
+service by GitHub and it's quite easy to set up.
+
+This is an article about the process that I followed and how you can use it in your own
+application.
+
+<!--more-->
+
+[GitHub Actions have been around for more than a year](https://github.blog/2018-10-17-action-demos/)
+and I had been meaning to play around with them to incorporate some automation to
+our workflows at [FastRuby.io](https://fastruby.io). The good news is that [GoRails](https://gorails.com)
+already published an article about setting up CI in your Rails app:
+[Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions](https://gorails.com/episodes/github-actions-continuous-integration-ruby-on-rails)
+
+After following those steps, I ended up with a copy/pasted YAML file that looked like this:
+
+```yaml
+# .github/workflows/ci.yml
+
+name: CI
+on: [push]
+jobs:
+  test:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    services:
+      db:
+        image: postgres:11
+        ports: ['5432:5432']
+        options: >-
+          --health-cmd pg_isready
+          --health-interval 10s
+          --health-timeout 5s
+          --health-retries 5
+      redis:
+        image: redis
+        ports: ['6379:6379']
+        options: --entrypoint redis-server
+
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
+      - name: Setup Ruby
+        uses: actions/setup-ruby@v1
+        with:
+          ruby-version: 2.6.x
+      - uses: borales/[email protected]
+        with:
+          cmd: install
+      - name: Build and run tests
+        env:
+          DATABASE_URL: postgres://postgres:@localhost:5432/test
+          REDIS_URL: redis://localhost:6379/0
+          RAILS_ENV: test
+          RAILS_MASTER_KEY: ${{ secrets.RAILS_MASTER_KEY }}
+        run: |
+          sudo apt-get -yqq install libpq-dev
+          gem install bundler
+          bundle install --jobs 4 --retry 3
+          bundle exec rails db:prepare
+          bundle exec rails test
+```
+
+Considering that [`skunk`](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk) is a Ruby gem (it
+doesn't need Rails, Redis, nor Postgres) and I didn't need all the steps I copied
+from the GoRails tutorial, I thought it was best to simplify it to look like this:
+
+```yaml
+# .github/workflows/skunk.yml
+
+name: Skunk
+on: [push]
+
+jobs:
+  skunk:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
+      - name: Setup Ruby
+        uses: actions/setup-ruby@v1
+        with:
+          ruby-version: 2.6.x
+      - name: Run Skunk on Project
+        run: |
+          gem install skunk
+          skunk lib/
+```
+
+This tells [GitHub](https://github.com) to run the [`skunk`](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk)
+action every time there is any push to GitHub. To see an entire list
+of events that you can configure: [Webhook Events](https://help.github.com/en/actions/automating-your-workflow-with-github-actions/events-that-trigger-workflows#webhook-events)
+
+There are only two steps:
+
+1. Setup my Ruby environment. I'm going to need this because `skunk` is a Ruby gem.
+1. Install the `skunk` gem and run it on the `lib/` directory.
+
+I really like that the configuration file is easy to read and understand. The
+order of the steps defined in the `steps` section is **important**. It will run
+steps synchronously, from top to bottom. If you want to run `skunk` for a Rails
+application, you can change the last step to `skunk app/`
+
+The next thing I wanted to do is run `skunk` on a pull request in order to
+compare the [_Stink Score_](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk#what-is-the-stinkscore) 
+between the pull request and `master`. This will help us answer this question:
+
+> Are we increasing or decreasing the tech debt average in our project?
+
+In order to do this, I had to tweak the call to `skunk` to use the `--branch`
+option:
+
+```yaml
+# .github/workflows/skunk.yml
+
+name: Skunk
+on: [push]
+
+jobs:
+  skunk:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+
+    steps:
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v1
+      - name: Setup Ruby
+        uses: actions/setup-ruby@v1
+        with:
+          ruby-version: 2.6.x
+      - name: Run Skunk on Project
+        run: |
+          gem install skunk
+          CURRENT_BRANCH="$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"
+          if [[ "$CURRENT_BRANCH" != "master" ]]; then
+            echo "Executing within branch: $CURRENT_BRANCH"
+            skunk lib/ -b master
+          else
+            echo "Executing within master branch"
+            skunk lib/
+          fi
+```
+
+There is some `bash` logic in there: The GitHub Action will [compare your branch vs. master](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk#comparing-one-branch-vs-another) if
+it is running within the context of a pull request, or [generate a tech debt report](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk#getting-a-sorted-list-of-stinkiest-files) if 
+it is running a commit pushed to the `master` branch.
+
+One last thing I had to add was a step to generate [SimpleCov](https://github.com/colszowka/simplecov)'s
+resultset JSON file. Skunk is most useful when it considers code coverage data.
+[The StinkScore is a combination of code smells; complexity; and code coverage data](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk#what-is-the-stinkscore).
+
+I tweaked the steps configuration to look like this:
+
+```yaml
+steps:
+  - uses: actions/checkout@v1
+  - name: Setup Ruby
+    uses: actions/setup-ruby@v1
+    with:
+      ruby-version: 2.6.x
+  - name: Run test suite with COVERAGE=true
+    run: |
+      gem install bundler
+      bundle install --jobs 4 --retry 3
+      COVERAGE=true bundle exec rake test
+  - name: Run Skunk on Project
+    run: |
+      gem install skunk
+      CURRENT_BRANCH="$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)"
+      if [[ "$CURRENT_BRANCH" != "master" ]]; then
+        echo "Executing within branch: $CURRENT_BRANCH"
+        skunk lib/ -b master
+      else
+        echo "Executing within master branch"
+        skunk lib/
+      fi
+```
+
+Now you can see the difference in tech debt between `master` and your pull
+request:
+
+```
+Base branch (master) average stink score: 13.42
+Feature branch ((HEAD detached at 0315f34)) average stink score: 13.42
+Score: 13.42
+```
+
+This particular example shows that there is no difference in my application's
+technical debt: [https://github.com/fastruby/skunk/pull/26](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk/pull/26).
+That's because I didn't change any Ruby code (just a YAML file).
+
+You can see the GitHub Action run over here:
+[https://github.com/fastruby/skunk/runs/437118684](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk/runs/437118684)
+
+## Final Thoughts
+
+GitHub Actions can be very useful when you want to run something really quickly
+without setting up your own development environment. It can take a lot of trial
+and error to get the final configuration right.
+
+If you wanted to give `skunk` a try, now there are _no more excuses_. You don't
+need to install anything in your environment. You can add this GitHub workflow
+and that's it:
+
+<script src="https://gist.github.com/etagwerker/52e0add0af4281ed38fdc54a502b653f.js"></script>
+
+I hope you can use this free and open source tool to find out your tech debt
+hot spots!
+
+## References
+
+- You can see all the trial and error that went into writing this article:
+[https://github.com/fastruby/skunk/actions?query=workflow%3ASkunk](https://github.com/fastruby/skunk/actions?query=workflow%3ASkunk)
+- A new update to GitHub Actions adds even more features to it:
+[https://github.blog/2020-02-06-manage-secrets-and-more-with-the-github-actions-api/](https://github.blog/2020-02-06-manage-secrets-and-more-with-the-github-actions-api/)