Is there a way to configure priorities for parallel builds?

Features
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#1

I was wondering if there is a way to configure priorities among concurrent builds, or whether that is something that could one day be supported.

What’s the point?

We have a multi-lingual website (freesewing.org) and the same multi-lingual site for deveoper docs (freesewing.dev). We host each language on its own subdomain (en.freesewing.org, fr.freesewing.org, de.freesewing.org, and so on). We currently support 5 languages, and they all build from the same repo with different environment variables.

So, wheven we make a change, it triggers 5 builds in parallel. If it’s a change across both sites, that triggers 10 parallel builds.

Currently, we (seem to) have no control over what build gets picked up first. Some languages are way more popular than others, so we’d like to be able to say “when builds are competing for build slots, give priority to these sites”.

That doesn’t seem to be possible now. Or is there perhaps a creative way to get the same result?
If not, consider this a suggestion for what could perhaps be an improvement.

#3

Hey, and welcome!

We don’t currently have an option to configure in the way that you describe. But thanks for this really clear report- I was able to use it basically word for word to file a feature request. We can’t make any promises about if/when it will be implemented, but we’ll definitely update this post with any news.

One hacky thing you may be able to try is using build hooks: disable the automated deploys, and then use build hooks to build your most popular subdomain first; when complete, trigger deploy of next-most popular. When next-most popular is complete, trigger deploy of next, etc. There’s more on build hooks here:


Let us know if that works for you or if we can help further with this.

And to others who may come across this post: feel free to “heart” this post if you’re also interested in this “configure priorities for parallel builds” feature, and I can add that feedback to the internal request.

#5

Hi Jen, thank you for passing on this request. I am aware this entails no guarantees, but I appreciate it nevertheless.

The build hooks workaround is a good idea. So far I’ve been cancelling builds of less-popular languages manually, this would certainly allow me to do less tedious clicking :slight_smile:

#6

Hope it helps! That does sound very tedious :snail: