Pipelines and logs

Open a review from the inbox and press 5 to reach the Pipeline tab. You can also press Ctrl+P and run the Pipeline command. GitLab pipelines and GitHub Actions workflow runs render the same way, so a failing job looks the same on either forge.

tongs · pipelinefull size ↗

demo data, cropped on small screens

Drill down from pipeline to log

The tab has three levels. Move with j and k, go one level deeper with Enter, and come back out with Esc.

Pipeline list

Each pipeline shows a status icon, its ID, when it ran, the short commit SHA, the branch and how long it took. A failed pipeline has a red border and a running one a yellow border.

Job list

Jobs are grouped by stage. Each row shows the job name and how long it ran. A failed job also carries the word FAILED, so the status never depends on color alone. Jobs allowed to fail are marked allow failure.

Job log

The log keeps the CI system’s own ANSI colors, with line numbers in the gutter. For very long logs the view keeps the last 50,000 lines. F2 opens the full log.

Note

Pipelines load the first time you open the tab and stay in memory while the review is open. After a job retry or cancel, the job list you are on reloads by itself. Ctrl+R reloads the review and refreshes the level of the Pipeline tab you are on: the pipeline list, a pipeline’s jobs or a job log.

Search a log

Press / in a log to search the whole output as you type. The search ignores case. A status line shows the match count, the line number and a preview of the current match, or says when a term has no matches.

n and Shift+N walk forward and back, wrapping at either end. Enter keeps the search and returns to the log. Esc closes it and puts you back where you were reading. The next Esc drills out a level.

Retry and cancel

Actions that change the forge ask for a second press of the same key. The first press shows a prompt such as Retry job pytest:integration? Press R again.

Key	Action	Confirm
Shift+R	Retry a failed or canceled pipeline or job	Twice
Shift+C	Cancel a running or pending pipeline or job	Twice
o	Open the pipeline or job page in your browser	None
F2	Open the job log in your editor	None

Retrying a pipeline reruns the jobs that did not pass, not the whole pipeline. GitHub cannot cancel a single job, so on GitHub cancel the whole workflow run from the pipeline list.

Caution

The second press acts on the forge right away. A retried job starts a new run with your credentials, and tongs cannot undo a cancel.

Open a log in your editor

F2 hands the log to your editor, which helps with long logs or with comparing two runs side by side. tongs starts the command set in the [editor] table, then $VISUAL, then $EDITOR, and otherwise the first of nvim, vim, vi, nano or less it finds on your PATH:

~/.bashrc

# Open job logs and long comments in VS Code
export VISUAL="code --wait"

tongs writes the log to a private temporary file, waits for the editor to exit, then deletes the file. external_editor_enabled = false in the same table turns F2 off.

Every key on this page is also listed in the keybindings reference.