Migrate CircleCI account mode to “GitHub OAuth app”

[jotaen4tinypilot]

CircleCI seems to support having multiple YAML config files, which might be a way to break up our monolithic configuration into more manageable pieces:

Within CircleCI, a project can have one or more configurations, which are pipeline definitions. Configurations include, but are not limited to, a .circleci/config.yml file in your repository.

This is only supported in Github App mode, not in GitHub OAuth app mode, which we are currently using – see the top-level info box on the aforementioned support document:

GitHub authorization with CircleCI is changing. Starting August 2023 when you authorize your CircleCI account with GitHub, you may find this will be done through our GitHub App, rather than the GitHub OAuth app. You can see which account type you have by heading to the CircleCI web app, select Dashboard from the sidebar, and inspect the URL in your browser:

• This style of URL indicates you authenticated with the GitHub App: https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/circleci/UTxCZDiJ9MLGLC8hR1ZDmg

• This style of URL indicates you authenticated with the GitHub OAuth app: https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/<your GitHub username/organization name>

For more information about the differences, see the GitHub docs comparison page.

[jdeanwallace]

Feature support still seems low for the new Github App mode. These features aren't supported, amongst others:

• Manual trigger pipeline option
• Stop building
• SSH rerun

Might be a deal breaker for us.

[jotaen4tinypilot]

Yeah, although new CircleCI accounts seem to default to Github App mode, I think it’s still kind-of work in progress unfortunately. I’m also not sure how complex the migration would be for us, or whether they’ll simplify this in the future.

Regarding the context-related improvements that we are having an eye on, I hope they’ll be available in GitHub OAuth app as well…