Using docker-compose in a pipeline: how to define artifacts, and how to use docker cache?

[Taylor McLean]

Hi there,

I'm looking to run a Cypress E2E test suite in a pipeline by spinning up several services using docker-compose. I'm coming across several roadblocks:

The docker cache does not seem to be working. I'm running a pipeline with a custom image, here is the Dockerfile:

FROM node:14-alpine
RUN apk add --update docker docker-compose openrc gettext zip 
RUN rc-update add docker boot

 I suspect that I should perhaps not be booting up docker in this container, though I'm not sure how to "hook into" the built-in docker service provided? Since docker-compose requires the docker daemon to be running, how can it be made aware of the built-in daemon? A common strategy to use a hosts docker daemon with docker-in-docker use-cases is to create a volume for /var/run/docker.sock, though I'm aware that the use of volumes are restricted in pipelines.

This brings me to my other roadblock. When a Cypress test fails, it generates screenshot and video files to help with debugging. I'd like to archive these files, though they're being generated in the Cypress container, and again I'm not able to create volumes for them, so I'm not sure how to have them archived.

Are there work-arounds to these roadblocks, or are there simply hard limitations to using this docker-in-docker approach? Any help would be greatly appreciated