Comment by germandiago

I am running buildbot with a customized matrix style buildbot for years for my side projects.

This is because yes, it is very complex. I have tried Jenkins before and Gitlab CI.

Something that most build tools and CIs should learn from Meson build system is that sometimes it is better to just keep it simple than adding features on top. If you need them, script them in some way but keep configuration as data-driven (and I mean purely data-driven, not half a language).

My build system is literally: a build matrix, where you can specify filters of what to keep or skip. This gets all combined.

A series of steps with a name that can be executed or not depending on a filter. Nothing else. Every step calls the build system or whatever.

After that it sends mail reports and integrates with Gerrit to send builds and Gerrit csn also csll it.

No fsncy plugins or the like. Just this small toml file I have and run normal scripts or command lines without 300 layers on top. There are already enough things that can break so that one keeps adding opaque layers on top. Just use the tools we all know: ssh, bash, Python etc.

Everyone knows how to call that. If a step is too complex, just make a script.