GitLab pipeline with dotnet and node image

Question

I'm creating a GitLab pipeline which should build, test and deploy a dotnet core application with Angular application. So far so good!

This project was created using dotnet cli with dotnet new angular.

For this pipeline I have a default image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0.103

The problem is that all pipeline jobs need a node installation, because by default when I execute the command dotnet build it executes both node and dotnet. The same applies for dotnet publish. This is all configured by default in the csproj file.

To solve this issue I added to before_script section the following command:

before_script:
  - curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | bash -
  - apt-get install -y nodejs

The pipeline is working, but I wonder if this approach is ok, beucase every job will execute the apt-get which causes some performance issues in the pipeline.

Is there a way to make this more reliable? cache for example?

This is how my pipeline looks like:

image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0.103

stages:
  - build
  - tests
  - deploy

variables:
  CSPROJ_PATH: 'TechDay/TechDay.csproj'

before_script:
  - curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | bash -
  - apt-get install -y nodejs

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - 'dotnet build $CSPROJ_PATH'

tests:
  stage: tests
  script:
    - 'dotnet test $CSPROJ_PATH'

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - 'dotnet publish $CSPROJ_PATH'

Answer 1

I started doing my pipelines the way you did, but have since switched to pulling in a Node image for the NPM build step, and removing that step from my .csproj file. This allows for caching of the Node image and greatly increased my pipeline performance. You then must define the .Net SDK image in each subsequent job instead of globally. I have added in an analogous version of my setup in your pipeline file. I assumed you used the standard ClientApp and wwwroot structure for client source and distribution locations, respectively.

stages:
  - build
  - tests
  - deploy

variables:
  CSPROJ_PATH: 'TechDay/TechDay.csproj'
  NPM_ROOT: TechDay/ClientApp
  NPM_DIST: TechDay/wwwroot

build-npm:
  image: node:16
  stage: build
  script:
    - cd $NPM_ROOT
    - npm install
    - npm run build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - $NPM_DIST/
    expire_in: 20 minutes  

build:
  image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0.103
  stage: build
  script:
    - 'dotnet build $CSPROJ_PATH'

tests:
  image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0.103
  stage: tests
  script:
    - 'dotnet test $CSPROJ_PATH'

deploy:
  image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0.103
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - 'dotnet publish $CSPROJ_PATH'