woodpecker/docs/versioned_docs/version-2.0/30-administration/15-agent-config.md

Agent configuration

Agents are configured by the command line or environment variables. At the minimum you need the following information:

# docker-compose.yml
version: '3'

services:
  woodpecker-agent:
    [...]
    volumes:
      - woodpecker-agent-config:/etc/woodpecker
    environment:
+     - WOODPECKER_SERVER=localhost:9000
+     - WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET="your-shared-secret-goes-here"

The following are automatically set and can be overridden:

• WOODPECKER_HOSTNAME if not set, becomes the OS' hostname
• WOODPECKER_MAX_WORKFLOWS if not set, defaults to 1

Workflows per agent

By default, the maximum workflows that are executed in parallel on an agent is 1. If required, you can add WOODPECKER_MAX_WORKFLOWS to increase your parallel processing for an agent.

# docker-compose.yml
version: '3'

services:
  woodpecker-agent:
  [...]
  environment:
    - WOODPECKER_SERVER=localhost:9000
    - WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET="your-shared-secret-goes-here"
+   - WOODPECKER_MAX_WORKFLOWS=4

Agent registration

When the agent starts it connects to the server using the token from WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET. The server identifies the agent and registers the agent in its database if it wasn't connected before.

There are two types of tokens to connect an agent to the server:

Using system token

A system token is a token that is used system-wide, e.g. when you set the same token in WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET on both the server and the agents.

In that case registration process would be as following:

1. The first time the agent communicates with the server, it is using the system token
2. The server registers the agent in its database if not done before and generates a unique ID which is then sent back to the agent
3. The agent stores the received ID in a file (configured by WOODPECKER_AGENT_CONFIG_FILE)
4. At the following startups, the agent uses the system token and its received ID to identify itself to the server

Using agent token

An agent token is a token that is used by only one particular agent. This unique token is applied to the agent by WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET.

To get an agent token you have to register the agent manually in the server using the UI:

1. The administrator registers a new agent manually at Settings -> Agents -> Add agent
2. The generated token from the previous step has to be provided to the agent using WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET
3. The agent will connect to the server using the provided token and will update its status in the UI:

All agent configuration options

Here is the full list of configuration options and their default variables.

WOODPECKER_SERVER

Default: localhost:9000

Configures gRPC address of the server.

WOODPECKER_USERNAME

Default: x-oauth-basic

The gRPC username.

WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET

Default: empty

A shared secret used by server and agents to authenticate communication. A secret can be generated by openssl rand -hex 32.

WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET_FILE

Default: empty

Read the value for WOODPECKER_AGENT_SECRET from the specified filepath, e.g. /etc/woodpecker/agent-secret.conf

WOODPECKER_LOG_LEVEL

Default: empty

Configures the logging level. Possible values are trace, debug, info, warn, error, fatal, panic, disabled and empty.

WOODPECKER_DEBUG_PRETTY

Default: false

Enable pretty-printed debug output.

WOODPECKER_DEBUG_NOCOLOR

Default: true

Disable colored debug output.

WOODPECKER_HOSTNAME

Default: empty

Configures the agent hostname.

WOODPECKER_AGENT_CONFIG_FILE

Default: /etc/woodpecker/agent.conf

Configures the path of the agent config file.

WOODPECKER_MAX_WORKFLOWS

Default: 1

Configures the number of parallel workflows.

WOODPECKER_FILTER_LABELS

Default: empty

Configures labels to filter pipeline pick up. Use a list of key-value pairs like key=value,second-key=*. * can be used as a wildcard. By default, agents provide three additional labels platform=os/arch, hostname=my-agent and repo=* which can be overwritten if needed. To learn how labels work, check out the pipeline syntax page.

WOODPECKER_HEALTHCHECK

Default: true

Enable healthcheck endpoint.

WOODPECKER_HEALTHCHECK_ADDR

Default: :3000

Configures healthcheck endpoint address.

WOODPECKER_KEEPALIVE_TIME

Default: empty

After a duration of this time of no activity, the agent pings the server to check if the transport is still alive.

WOODPECKER_KEEPALIVE_TIMEOUT

Default: 20s

After pinging for a keepalive check, the agent waits for a duration of this time before closing the connection if no activity.

WOODPECKER_GRPC_SECURE

Default: false

Configures if the connection to WOODPECKER_SERVER should be made using a secure transport.

WOODPECKER_GRPC_VERIFY

Default: true

Configures if the gRPC server certificate should be verified, only valid when WOODPECKER_GRPC_SECURE is true.

WOODPECKER_BACKEND

Default: auto-detect

Configures the backend engine to run pipelines on. Possible values are auto-detect, docker, local or kubernetes.

WOODPECKER_BACKEND_DOCKER_*

See Docker backend configuration

WOODPECKER_BACKEND_K8S_*

See Kubernetes backend configuration

WOODPECKER_BACKEND_LOCAL_*

See Local backend configuration

Advanced Settings

:::warning Only change these If you know what you do. :::

WOODPECKER_CONNECT_RETRY_COUNT

Default: 5

Configures number of times agent retries to connect to the server.

WOODPECKER_CONNECT_RETRY_DELAY

Default: 2s

Configures delay between agent connection retries to the server.