Improve script caching behavior

[GeertvanHorrik]

Prerequisites

• I have written a descriptive issue title
• I have searched issues to ensure it has not already been reported

Cake runner

Cake .NET Tool

Cake version

latest

Operating system

Windows

Operating system architecture

x64

CI Server

N/A

What are you seeing?

We see script caching not working as we hoped. For example:

Run (according to build system): 39 seconds, but Cake logs show:

Task                          Duration            
--------------------------------------------------
Setup                         00:00:00.2121813    
Prepare                       00:00:00.2494064    
UpdateNuGet                   00:00:00.0003786    
RestorePackages               00:00:05.8670747    
Deploy                        00:00:01.2517940    
--------------------------------------------------
Total:                        00:00:07.5808350    

So theoretically 32 seconds can be shaved off.

I am currently adding logging to the script compilation (although this is on a much faster machine):

Without cache file:

Compilation took '00:00:01.5861141'

With cache file:

Loading script assembly from cache took '00:00:00.0036443'

I think this would be a nice addition to always log to the output window (I think people want to see this).

Will add more tracings and update this ticket.

What is expected?

N/A

Steps to Reproduce

N/A

Output log

No response

[GeertvanHorrik]

Added some more timings:

Bootstrapping took '00:00:00'
Reading configuration took '00:00:00.0003681'
Loading modules took '00:00:00.0004979'
Analyzing the script took '00:00:01.2996956'
Installing tools took '00:00:00.4002853'
Installing addins took '00:00:00.0942559'
Create session took '00:00:00.0005095'
Loading references took '00:00:00.4481680'
Loading aliases took '00:00:00.2436325'
Importing namespaces took '00:00:00.0009081'

[GeertvanHorrik]

I think I found a useful pointer why caching is not working. The contents contain full path names:

#line 1 "C:/Source/Project/build.cake"

But... on (most) build agents, it will be a random, unique directory:

#line 1 "C:/CI_WS/12345/Project/build.cake"

I think using simplified paths for script cache comparison could work here, doing some additional testing.

[gep13]

@GeertvanHorrik just to make sure that I have understood this correctly...

Are you saying that you are using the build script cache, across different build agents? Which is why you are seeing the path to the scripts be different in each case? How are you keeping the build script cache "alive" between build executions? Are you using some sort of caching at the build agent level?

Just want to make sure that I am understanding the need for the change here.

[GeertvanHorrik]

No, not different build agents. Different builds, where the build agent assigns a different folder (unique to the build) every time. This is to introduce caching on the build agent level (or, for that matter, even on local builds since we use exactly the same scripts to do local nuget packags on dev machines).

[gep13]

Gotcha! Thank you for the clarification, this helps!

[github-actions]

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version v5.1.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• GitHub Release
• .NET Tool

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