I don't think anchors' primary function is to allow global definitions (of variables or whatever), rather it's more like arbitrary templates/snippets to be reused through the YAML file.

In GitLab, where YAML anchors have been supported for years, I personally find them very useful —it's the only way of "code" reuse, really. In GitLab there's a special edtor just for .gitlab-ci.yml, which shows the original view and the combined read-only view (with all anchors expanded).

I agree that it's hard to point to the specific line of the source code, but it's enough — in case of an error — to output an action name, action property name, and actual property value that caused an error. Based on these three things, a developer can easily find the correct line.

▲ zft 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>it's the only way of "code" reuse, really.

not really. You can also use include/extends pattern. If that is not enough, there is dynamic pipeline generation feature.

	▲	plqbfbv 42 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		In my experience include/extends works well for importing or extending whole jobs, but not so much for defining a small snippet of text that I want to reuse across many jobs, perhaps when overriding stuff. An example of how I normally use them and why I still find them useful: `# Imports whole pipeline architecture jobs include: - project: company/ci-templates ref: "master" file: "languages/stack.yaml" # Define a command I need to use exactly the same # across different jobs I'm going to override .vpn_connect: &vpn_connect - cmd1 - cmd2 - cmd3 & job1: extends: imported1 script: - .... - vpn_connect # 2nd command - ... job2: extends: imported2 script: - ... - ... - vpn_connect # 3rd command - ...`
	▲	jerjerjer 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> include Interesting, although to me it looks more like a way to split one file into several (which is rather useful). > extends What's the difference with anchors? Looks the same, except works with include (and doesn't work with any other yaml tool). > dynamic pipeline generation Which is even harder to reason about compared to anchors, although certainly powerful.