Setting up cloudbuild trigger

Hello, and welcome back! You’ve successfully connected Cloud Build to your GitHub repository. In this guide, we’ll verify the connection and configure a trigger that automatically runs builds on pushes to your main (or master) branch.

1. Verify Your Repository Connection

Open the Google Cloud Console.
Navigate to Build > Triggers > Manage repositories.

The image shows the Google Cloud Build interface with a "Triggers" section open, indicating no triggers are found. There are options to create a trigger or connect a repository.

If your repository appears in the list, the integration succeeded. Otherwise, connect it via the Cloud Build GitHub App.

2. Understand Trigger Events

Cloud Build can start builds automatically based on various events. The most common trigger is a push or merge to a specific branch:

The image shows a Google Cloud Build interface with a repository connected via the Cloud Build GitHub App. It includes options to manage repositories and connect new ones.

Whenever code is pushed to the target branch, Cloud Build will run your pipeline.

3. Create a Build Trigger

On the Manage repositories page, click the ••• menu next to your repo and select Add trigger.
Configure the trigger settings:

Field	Description
Trigger name	Friendly name, e.g., `GCP DevOps Project`
Event	Select Push to a branch
Repository	Choose your GitHub repository
Branch (regex)	Define which branches activate the trigger (see regex note)

The image shows a Google Cloud Build interface where a trigger is being created, with options for naming, region selection, and event type configuration. The event is set to trigger on a "Push to a branch" for a specific repository and branch.

Branch name regex

To restrict the trigger to exactly main or master, use:

^(main|master)$

This prevents branches like feature/main-update from starting a build.

4. Configure Build Settings

Choose how Cloud Build finds your build instructions:

Autodetect: Automatically detects a cloudbuild.yaml or Dockerfile at the repo root.
Cloud Build configuration file: Manually specify the path to your cloudbuild.yaml.

The image shows a Google Cloud Build interface where a user is creating a trigger. It includes options for selecting a repository, branch, and configuration type for automated builds.

Configuration file required

If your repository doesn’t include a cloudbuild.yaml, the trigger will fail at runtime.

5. Test the Trigger

Click Run trigger to verify your setup. Without a cloudbuild.yaml, you’ll see an error:

The image shows a Google Cloud Build interface with a trigger setup for a project, and an error message indicating that the "cloudbuild.yaml" file was not found.

6. Next Steps: Add `cloudbuild.yaml`

To resolve the error, add a cloudbuild.yaml at your repository’s root. Here’s an example CI/CD pipeline:

steps:
- name: 'gcr.io/cloud-builders/docker'
  args: ['build', '-t', 'gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app:$COMMIT_SHA', '.']
images:
- 'gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/my-app:$COMMIT_SHA'

Commit and push this file to main. Your Cloud Build trigger will then run automatically on each push.

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