Where is the error "task has no instance attached" explained?

[guyharris]

Expected Behavior

I could find an explanation of what "task has no instance attached" and, ideally, how to get an "instance" attached to a task.

Real Behavior

I couldn't find anything if I did a Google search for the quoted string "task has no instance attached" - searching not just the Cirrus CI sites, but anything else Google indexes.

Related Info

This is a (tick one of the following):

• [x ] Website issue
  • Link to page: if there were a page discussing this, I'd link to it, but....

This all started when I added the tiny test task

windows_task:
    name: windows-amd64
    only_if: $CIRRUS_BRANCH != 'coverity_scan'
    windows_contaainer:
        image: cirrusci/windowsservercore:2019
    script:
        - set

to libpcap's .cirrus.yml, where the intent was to see what the environment was set to, so that I'd know what had to be tweaked in order to set up a build environment - and to see whether this all worked.

I got the error in question, and could not find a clue anywhere as to how to arrange that an instance be attached to the task. Does something else need to be added to .cirrus.yml? Does something need to be changed in some other configuration?

(I note that I couldn't find anything corresponding to a reference manual for Cirrus CI YML, describing everything that can be done; there's only a user's guide that doesn't have the form of a reference manual.)

[fkorotkov]

You have a typo in your 'windows_container'. The error comes from the parser. It should've report it in parsing results with a line annotation to the task.

[guyharris]

From a quick check, it appears that if, for example, I add a line

fnord: hello

to the entry for the now-working Windows build, there's no complaint about unknown YAML keys, so the invalid key "windows_contaainer" was just not recognized, with no complaint, and the error stems from no instance or container having been specified.

(Note also that "task has no instance attached" should perhaps be "task has no instance or container attached"; VMs are specified with "XXX_instance" keys, and containers are specified with "XXX_container" keys, so it sounds as if "instance" is a non-container builder.)

[edigaryev]

You have a typo in your 'windows_container'. The error comes from the parser. It should've report it in parsing results with a line annotation to the task.

The error is reported just fine:

Improved the error message per suggestion in #1043 (comment), though.

[guyharris]

So presumably there's a reason not to check YAML keys for validity? If that had been done, it would have caught the underlying problem, namely the typo in "windows_contaainer".