Install on Amazon Web Services

Prerequisites

The instructions assume you have terraform installed on your machine, or use automation options like Atlantis to run the apply command for you.

The minimum supported versions for the Workflows terraform code are:

• Terraform >= 1.9
• AWS Provider >= 4.67.1

Increase "Managed policies per role" quota to 20

Workflows requires an increase of the "Managed policies per role" quota to 20. AWS should approve this quota increase request immediately in most cases.

tip

This is an account level IAM quota only found in us-east-1: https://us-east-1.console.aws.amazon.com/servicequotas/home/services/iam/quotas

caution

20 is the maximum for this quota. Requesting an increase to more than 20 creates a support ticket and delays the approval.

(Optional) Grant permissions to deploy

If you expect an Aspect Developer Productivity Engineer (DPE) to deploy resources, then follow this section.

Create a Role to hold the Aspect policies. You can do this with Terraform, or in the AWS console from the IAM > Roles > Create role section. Use the following values:

1. Select "trusted entity" and set the following:

   1. Trusted entity type: AWS account
   2. Another AWS account: 302232432727 (Aspect's AWS account number)
   3. Require MFA: enable, as Aspect's engineers are required to use multi-factor auth

2. Name, review, and create the role

   tip

   One choice for the name is aspect-workflows-comaintainers. Aspect engineers need to know this name to be able to assume the role.

Permissions required for terraform apply

autoscaling:CreateAutoScalingGroup
autoscaling:DeleteAutoScalingGroup
autoscaling:DescribeAutoScalingGroups
autoscaling:DescribeScalingActivities
autoscaling:SetInstanceProtection
autoscaling:UpdateAutoScalingGroup
cloudformation:CreateStack
cloudformation:DeleteStack
cloudformation:DescribeStacks
cloudformation:GetTemplate
cloudwatch:DeleteAlarms
cloudwatch:DescribeAlarms
cloudwatch:ListTagsForResource
cloudwatch:PutMetricAlarm
ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupEgress
ec2:AuthorizeSecurityGroupIngress
ec2:CreateLaunchTemplate
ec2:CreateSecurityGroup
ec2:DeleteLaunchTemplate
ec2:DeleteSecurityGroup
ec2:DescribeImages
ec2:DescribeLaunchTemplates
ec2:DescribeLaunchTemplateVersions
ec2:DescribeNetworkAcls
ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces
ec2:DescribeRouteTables
ec2:DescribeSecurityGroups
ec2:DescribeSubnets
ec2:DescribeVpcAttribute
ec2:DescribeVpcClassicLink
ec2:DescribeVpcClassicLinkDnsSupport
ec2:DescribeVpcs
ec2:RevokeSecurityGroupEgress
elasticloadbalancing:CreateListener
elasticloadbalancing:CreateLoadBalancer
elasticloadbalancing:CreateTargetGroup
elasticloadbalancing:DeleteListener
elasticloadbalancing:DeleteLoadBalancer
elasticloadbalancing:DeleteTargetGroup
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeListeners
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancerAt
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeLoadBalancers
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTags
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetGroupAt
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetGroups
elasticloadbalancing:DescribeTargetHealth
elasticloadbalancing:ModifyLoadBalancerAt
elasticloadbalancing:ModifyTargetGroupAt
events:DeleteRule
events:DescribeRule
events:ListTagsForResource
events:ListTargetsByRule
events:PutRule
events:PutTargets
events:RemoveTargets
iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile
iam:AttachRolePolicy
iam:CreateInstanceProfile
iam:CreatePolicy
iam:CreateRole
iam:DeleteInstanceProfile
iam:DeletePolicy
iam:DeleteRole
iam:DetachRolePolicy
iam:GetInstanceProfile
iam:GetPolicy
iam:GetPolicyVersion
iam:GetRole
iam:ListAttachedRolePolicies
iam:ListInstanceProfilesForRole
iam:ListPolicyVersions
iam:ListRolePolicies
iam:RemoveRoleFromInstanceProfile
lambda:AddPermission
lambda:CreateFunction
lambda:DeleteFunction
lambda:GetFunction
lambda:GetFunctionCodeSigningConfig
lambda:GetPolicy
lambda:ListVersionsByFunction
lambda:RemovePermission
logs:CreateLogGroup
logs:DeleteLogGroup
logs:DescribeLogGroups
logs:ListTagsLogGroup
logs:PutRetentionPolicy
memorydb:CreateCluster
memorydb:CreateSubnetGroup
memorydb:DeleteCluster
memorydb:DeleteSubnetGroup
memorydb:DescribeClusters
memorydb:DescribeSubnetGroups
memorydb:ListTags
s3:CreateBucket
s3:DeleteBucket
s3:DeleteBucketPolicy
s3:DeleteObject
s3:GetAccelerateConfiguration
s3:GetBucketAcl
s3:GetBucketCors
s3:GetBucketLogging
s3:GetBucketPolicy
s3:GetBucketPublicAccessBlock
s3:GetBucketRequestPayment
s3:GetBucketTagging
s3:GetBucketVersioning
s3:GetBucketWebsite
s3:GetEncryptionConfiguration
s3:GetLifecycleConfiguration
s3:GetObject
s3:GetObjectAttributes
s3:GetObjectTagging
s3:GetObjectVersion
s3:GetObjectVersionAttributes
s3:GetReplicationConfiguration
s3:ListAllMyBuckets
s3:ListBucket
s3:ListObjects
s3:PutBucketLogging
s3:PutBucketPolicy
s3:PutBucketPublicAccessBlock
s3:PutEncryptionConfiguration
s3:PutLifecycleConfiguration
s3:PutObject
ssm:DeleteParameter
ssm:DescribeParameters
ssm:GetParameter
ssm:ListTagsForResource
ssm:PutParameter
sts:AssumeRole
sts:GetCallerIdentity

Choose an Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Aspect Workflows CI runners are EC2 instances, not Kubernetes pods. Therefore, the base image uses an AMI. To help you get started with Workflows, Aspect provides a number of starter AMIs.

Aspect Workflows starter AMIs are currently built on the following Linux distributions,

• Amazon Linux 2 (al2)
• Amazon Linux 2023 (al2023)
• Debian 11 "bullseye" (debian-11)
• Debian 12 "bookworm" (debian-12)
• Ubuntu 20.04 "Focal Fossa" (ubuntu-2004)

for both amd64 (x86_64) and arm64 (aarch64) and come in the following variants,

• minimal (just the bare minimum Workflows dependencies for fully hermetic builds)
• gcc (minimal + gcc)
• docker (minimal + docker)
• kitchen-sink (minimal + gcc, clang, cmake, docker, jq, libzstd, make, and yq (where supported))
  • The most up to date list of packages can be found in the packer scripts in https://github.com/aspect-build/workflows-images.

caution

Amazon Linux 2 (al2) images have an older version of glibc, which can cause issues bootstrapping runners for GitHub Actions.

These are currently available in "us-east-1", "us-east-2", "us-west-1" and "us-west-2". Contact us if you would like us to publish starter AMIs to additional regions.

tip

To query the list of all Aspect Workflows starter images, run the following command:

aws ec2 describe-images --owners 213396452403 --filters "Name=name,Values=aspect-workflows-*" --query 'sort_by(Images, &Name)[].Name'

Use this Terraform snippet to locate an AMI at plan/apply-time:

data "aws_ami" "aspect_runner_ami" {
  most_recent = true
  owners = ["213396452403"] # Public Aspect Workflows images AWS account (workflows-images)
  filter {
    name   = "name"
    values = ["aspect-workflows-<al2|al2023|debian-11|debian-12|ubuntu-2004>-<minimal|gcc|docker|kitchen-sink>-<amd64|arm64>-*"]
  }
}

The packer scripts used to build Aspect Workflows starter images are open source and you can find them at https://github.com/aspect-build/workflows-images.

note

You can also install and use Aspect Workflows with Spot Instances by setting the use_spot attribute to true in the resource_types configuration.

Add the Terraform module

The Terraform module is currently delivered in an S3 bucket that you can add to your existing Terraform setup.

Here's an example:

main.tf

module "aspect_workflows" {
  # Replace x.x.x with an actual version:
  source = "https://static.aspect.build/aspect/x.x.x/terraform-aws-aspect-workflows.zip"

  # Replace my-region with the AWS region you're deploying to
  # (S3 buckets are global, but terraform uses an API that can't do cross-region reads)
  aspect_artifacts_bucket = "aspect-artifacts-[my-region]"

  # Ask us to generate a customer ID for your organization and input it here
  customer_id       = "MyCorp"

  vpc_id            = data.terraform_state.outputs.circleci_vpc.vpc_id
  vpc_subnets       = [data.terraform_state.outputs.circleci_vpc.private_subnets[0]]

  # Replace XXX with one of gha, cci, bk
  hosts = ["XXX"]

  # Define Bazel states we know how to warm up
  warming_sets = {
    default = {}
  }

  # Define any customizations for the remote cache and remote execution here.
  remote = {}

  resource_types = {
    "default" = {
      # One or more instance types can be specified via 'instance_types'.
      # Specifying multiple instance types allows Workflows to scale out when demand
      # for a particular instance is high, or can not be fulfilled.
      instance_types = ["i4i.xlarge", "i4i.2xlarge"]
      image_id       = data.aws_ami.aspect_worker_ami.id

      # Optionally, defines if spot instances should be used for this resource
      use_spot = false
    }
  }

  # Replace XXX with one of gha, cci, bk
  XXX_runner_groups = {
    default = {
      max_runners   = 10
      resource_type = "default" # Corresponds to a resource_types entry above
      warming       = true
      warming_set   = "default" # Corresponds to a warming_sets entry above
      ...
    }
    warming = {
      max_runners   = 1
      resource_type = "default" # Corresponds to a resource_types entry above
      policies = {
        # "default" key in warming_management_policies corresponds to a warming_sets entry above
        warming_manage : module.aspect_workflows.warming_management_policies["default"].arn
      }
      warming_set = "default" # Corresponds to a warming_sets entry above
      ...
    }
  }
}

(Optional) Apply custom security groups to runners

Some organizations have a policy that requires adding custom security groups to the runners that are managed by Aspect workflows. You can acheive this by setting the security_groups attribute on the runners or queue configuration object. This is a map from string -> AWS Security Group ID (the name is not currently used by Workflows).

runners = {
  default = {
    ...
    security_groups = {
      vpn_access : aws_security_group.vpc_access.id
    }
    ...
  }
}

Apply

Run terraform apply, or use whatever automation you already use for your Infrastructure-as-code such as Atlantis.

This results in infrastructure like the following.

Next steps

Continue by choosing which CI platform you plan to interact with, and follow the corresponding installation steps.