Thoughtworks Go, asynchronously trigger a manual stage from a long running test

We are using Go from Thoughtworks Studios to manage our build pipeline, we have the builds generating artifacts that are then deployed and installed on to UAT servers, automation rocks. We then we have a long running test that runs out of process using lots of NServiceBus queues.

We have a stage that starts a process manager that fires fake messages in to the start of the system, then 3 different services pass messages along doing various things, all connected together via message buses. 

So at the start of the UAT test we kick off some powershell passing in the current pipeline counter (this is a vital detail, it tells the future API call which pipeline to kick)

. .\start_fullpipelinetest.ps1 %GO_PIPELINE_COUNTER%;

in this example the %GO_PIPELINE_COUNTER% variable is 11

Given the nature of the system once the message is sent to kick off the process the Go pipeline goes green and the next stage goes into an awaiting approval manual stage.

The last thing the test do is to send a message out to inform other downstream systems that things are ready to go, we hook into this and fire the following POST into to Go to run the next stage. If you were to do this manually you click the icon circled above, to do it programatically you send the following POST command:

curl --data "" http://user:password@server:8153/go/run/uat_start_FullPipelineTest/11/TestingComplete

Which kicks off the final stage of the pipeline. For us this does some verification as to the expected state of the system and passes or fails accordingly.

I really like it, we get an asynchronous test that does not hog the go agent resources and will instantly tell you about failures once a test run has finished.

Go is very flexible and the API lets you do all sorts of cool things, like uploading artefacts and triggering pipelines.
curl -u user:password -F file=@abc.txt http://goserver.com:8153/go/files/foo/1243/UATest/1/UAT/def.txt
curl -u user:password -d "" http://goserver.com:8153/go/api/pipelines/foo/schedule