Helix Swarm Guide

This guide tells you how to use Helix Swarm for collaboration and code review for teams using Helix Core server. It is intended for anyone using Swarm to perform code review tasks with Helix server.

See these topics to get started:

New for Swarm 2021.2

Following is a summary of new information with links to the most prominent topics. For a complete list, see What's new.

Improvements to automatic tests

  • Iterate tests for affected projects and branches

    • Swarm now supports separate test runs for each project and branch when the review spans a number projects and branches. This is selected on a per test basis, see Iterate tests for affected projects and branches checkbox.

  • Add On Demand tests to workflows

    • You can now add tests to a workflow and set them to be run manually from reviews that use that workflow.

    • For information on adding an on demand test to a workflow, see Add a workflow.

    • For information on manually running a test, see Test status.

  • Rerun tests from the review

    • You can now rerun tests from the Test status dropdown in a review, see Test status.

  • Block approval if a test fails

    • You can now block approval of a review if a test fails, see Add a workflow.

Work-in-Progress tag for shelved changelists

You can now add a work-in-progress tag (#wip by default) to a pending changelist description so that you can update the files in your shelf without triggering an update to the associated review or the creation of a new review. This is useful when a lot of changes are requested for a review, and you want to do them in stages and get them all reviewed when you are happy with your changes. When you are ready for your changes to go back into review, delete #wip from the changelist description and update your shelf to update the review.

Swarm OVA now uses Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

From Swarm version 2021.1, the Swarm OVA operating system has been updated to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (previously Ubuntu 16.04 LTS). If you are using the 16.04 LTS OVA, we recommend you deploy the 20.04 LTS OVA and move your existing Swarm installation to your new OVA. For instructions on deploying the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS OVA and moving your Swarm instance to it, see Deploy and configure a Swarm VM from an OVA and Moving your Swarm instance.

API version support changing

  • Support for APIs older than v9 will be removed in the Swarm 2022.2 release.

  • In the next release of Swarm, we will introduce a new set of v11 APIs. These will refine and extend the v10 APIs, and further standardize the endpoint and response pattern.

  • The v10 APIs will continue to be available for some time to come.

    • Any improvements made in the migration to v11 will not be backported to v9 or v10.

    • New API endpoints will be created as v11 and will not be backported to v9 or v10.

PHP support changing for the next release of Swarm

We are planning to remove support for PHP 7.0 and 7.1 in the next release of Swarm. This is part of our commitment to move away from using versions of platforms that have reached End-of-Life (EOL).

Additional help for Helix Core

Command line client usage

See the Helix Core Server User Guide for information on how to use the Helix server Command Line Client.

Command reference

See p4 client (graph) in the Helix Core P4 Command Reference for help configuring Helix server for building from mixed clients.

Helix server administration

See Helix Core Server Administrator Guide for information on installation, configuration, and management of Helix server.