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Cicada
p/cicada-2Secure workflows, simplified
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Logan Hunt

Cicada - Self-hostable CI/CD platform - secure workflows, simplified

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Cicada is a Free and Open Source CI/CD platform that runs on-prem or in the cloud. Say goodbye to YAML and shell scripts: Write workflows using a programming language designed for automation. Integrates with GitHub and Gitlab.

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Logan Hunt
Maker
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Hey everyone! My name is Logan Hunt, and I'm working on building Cicada, a Free and Open Source platform for running software automation workflows. Why use Cicada? ❌ No YAML: Use a programming language specifically designed for writing automation workflows. 🔒 Security first: Cicada mitigates many of the common security risks present in existing CI/CD tools (command injection, secret leaks, etc). 💵 Free to self host: Self host for free, forever, AGPLv3 Licensed. We love open source! 🔎 Open Source: Audit the most important part of your software supply chain: Your CI provider. 🔋 Batteries included: Use the features you know and love: secrets, caching, self-hosted runners, and more. 🔀 Platform agnostic: Cicada integrates with GitHub and Gitlab, with more Git providers on the way! Why I created Cicada: I wanted an automation platform that was as flexible as GitHub Actions, could work across multiple Git providers, used a real programming language instead of YAML, and was self-hostable. Nothing like this existed, so I set out to make it happen!
Roger Oba
The idea of self-hosting our CI sounds great! One quick feedback is that when I read "use a programming language designed for automation workflows" and you don't mention the language, I understand that it's a custom language/DSL (Domain-specific language) that I would have to learn, so it's far far worse to me than simply using e.g. Bash, Ruby, Yaml config files or any other programming language I'm already used to 😅I don't think people are particularly interested in learning yet another DSL to be able to use a new tool, so that's an increase in the learning curve as opposed to doing people a favor (I don't think using yaml/json/bash/etc to config CI is a problem for engineers in general — just my assumption though).
Logan Hunt
Maker
@rogeroba Thank you for the feedback! While I agree YAML/bash can get the job done in a lot of cases, more complex automation workflows are much harder (or impossible) to express with just YAML. Bash is also not intuitive for a lot of people, and even those who write a lot of shell scripts, they might spend hours debugging/tinkering with a script till it works. Making a new language helps consolidate scattered YAML files and shell scripts into one file/language, making your workflows easier to debug and manage in the long run! As an aside, I do have an experimental "GitHub Actions to Cicada" converter tool which helps reduce the up front cost of learning the DSL. Does this make using the DSL sound more appealing, or would having the option to write your workflows in YAML be better? Thanks!
Roger Oba
@dosisod thanks for your prompt response! Yes, a converter from e.g. GHA to your custom DSL would help a lot, but I still think that learning a new DSL would impose some friction to onboarding new users. I hope to be wrong, though! 😅 good luck with your project! 🙌
Congratulations, Team Cicada! Launching on Producthunt is a fantastic achievement. Cicada sounds like a mind-blowing platform which revolutionizes the way we perceive CI/CD. As a suggestion, it could be fantastic if you also consider integrating with Bitbucket, as many developers utilize this platform as well. In any case, keep up the magnificent work!
Logan Hunt
Maker
@manmohit Thank you for the feedback! Adding more Git providers (such as BitBucket) is definitely on my list!
Hikaru Nagashima
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Ghost Kitty
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