[ckastner]

The Debian project's Continuous Integration project [1] re-tests all dependent objects whenever a dependency within the Debian archive changes. This way, changes that might negatively affect dependents can be caught early.

This is immensely useful, especially to the maintainers of libraries.

In order for them to be tested, dependent objects have to declare their testability using the autopkgtest [2] interface.

[1] https://ci.debian.net/

[2] https://people.debian.org/~mpitt/autopkgtest/README.package-...

[was_boring]

I was hoping that this would be a similar service, but it doesn't appear to be.

[ckastner]

It appears to me that Dependency CI is focused on dependency metadata, focusing on the state/version/license/etc the dependency declares.

Debian's CI focuses on actual run-time testing, specifically what it calls "as-installed" testing (as opposed to build-time testing). You don't test a specific build result, but whatever is installed in $PATH, $LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and so on.

Because the tested objects also use the as-installed dependencies -- libraries, modules, etc. -- whenever one of the dependencies changes, the dependents can automatically be re-tested for compatibility.

[koloron]

Yeah, someone please write reverse-dependency-ci! :)