CI/CD Integration
Constellation indexes capture the structural intelligence of your codebase at a point in time. As code changes, the index needs to stay current so AI assistants have an accurate understanding of your project. CI/CD pipelines automate this, ensuring your index is always up to date without manual intervention.
Why Automate Indexing?
Manual indexing with constellation index --full works for initial setup and ad-hoc updates, but it relies on developers remembering to re-index after changes. Automated CI/CD indexing solves this:
- Always current — Every merge to your main branch triggers a re-index automatically
- Zero friction — Developers don't need to think about indexing; it just happens
- Consistent — The same process runs every time, eliminating human error
- Privacy preserved — Only structural metadata is extracted, never source code — same as local indexing
Best Practices
Index on every push to main
The most important pattern: trigger indexing whenever code lands on your default branch. This keeps the index aligned with the latest state of your project.
on:
push:
branches: [main]
Store access key as a secrets
Never hardcode your Constellation access key. Use your CI platform's secrets management:
- GitHub Actions: Repository secrets (
Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions) - GitLab CI: CI/CD variables (
Settings > CI/CD > Variables, masked and protected) - Other platforms: Use the equivalent encrypted secrets mechanism
Use minimal permissions
Constellation only needs to read your source files for metadata extraction. Grant the minimum permissions required — typically read-only access to repository contents.
Keep the CLI version current
Constellation's CI integrations automatically use the latest CLI version, ensuring you always have the newest language support and performance improvements.
Available Integrations
| Platform | Integration | Status |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | ShiftinBits/constellation-github@v1 | Available |
| GitLab CI | Manual CLI installation | Guide coming soon |
| Other CI platforms | Manual CLI installation | Guide coming soon |
For platforms without a dedicated integration, you can install the Constellation CLI directly in your pipeline and run constellation index --full.