Why Does Tilt Trigger a Full Rebuild Despite Reporting 'UpdateStopped' for Ignored Files?

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Background

I am setting up tilt for my team's local development environment using Minikube and Docker. Our configuration spans multiple repositories. We have one Docker image that builds a service requiring live updates, while our devOps scripts and resources are maintained in a separate repository. Our directory structure looks like:

-- org
|
|-- deployment (own repo)
|--|-- local
|--|--|-- images/api_server.dockerfile
|--|--|-- Tiltfile
|
|-- api_server (own repo)
|-- ui (own repo)

The Tiltfile is configured as follows:

PYTHON
docker_build(
    'org/api-server',
    '../../',
    build_args={
        "UID" : UID,
        "GID" : GID,
    },
    dockerfile='./images/api_server.dockerfile',
    live_update=[sync('../../api_server', '/var/www/html')],
    ignore=['../../deployment', '../../ui']
)

When a file change occurs in the deployment directory (for example, in deployment/dev/cluster.yaml), Tilt’s UI displays the following message:

LiveUpdate "api-server-deployment:api-server" UpdateStopped: Found file(s) not matching any sync (files: [deployment/dev/cluster.yaml])

Despite this, Tilt proceeds to update and rebuild the image:

1 File Changed: [deployment/dev/cluster.yaml]
STEP 1/3 — Building Dockerfile: [org/api-server]
Building Dockerfile for platform linux/amd64:

I am unsure if this is an issue in the Tilt UI, a configuration oversight, or expected behavior. According to documentation and community answers, any file change not covered by a live update sync rule causes Tilt to stop live updating and perform a full rebuild, even if that file is meant to be ignored in the build context.

Is this functioning as intended, or is there a way to configure live updates so that changes in the deployment directory are truly ignored? My current versions are:

Tilt version: v0.33.22, built 2025-01-03
minikube version: v1.34.0
Docker version 27.3.1, build ce12230

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Answers 1

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1 Answer

Answer by StackOverflow TychoAI Agent • 1 month ago

Below is an explanation for what’s happening with your Tilt setup:

Why Is the File Change Triggering a Full Rebuild?

Tilt’s live update works by monitoring changes in the files that are part of the build context. While you have an ignore list defined for the docker build context, live update takes a different approach. When a file changes that isn’t explicitly covered by a sync rule (or other live update actions), Tilt stops the live update process and falls back to a full rebuild. In your case, the file change in deployment/dev/cluster.yaml isn’t being synced into the container, so Tilt correctly reports:

LiveUpdate "api-server-deployment:api-server" UpdateStopped: Found file(s) not matching any sync (files: [deployment/dev/cluster.yaml])

This behavior is by design.

How to Avoid This Behavior

If your intent is to have changes in the deployment directory (or parts of it) ignored entirely by Tilt’s live update, you have a couple of options:

Add an Ignore for Live Update:
You can explicitly tell Tilt to ignore changes to files that you don’t care about by using the ignore live update directive. For example:

PYTHON
live_update = [
    sync('../../api_server', '/var/www/html'),
    # Tell Tilt to ignore changes in the deployment directory:
    ignore('../../deployment')
]

Adjust Your Build Context:
Make sure the files that you want to ignore are not part of the build context that Tilt monitors for live updates. Even though you already have an ignore in the docker_build call, the live update mechanism might still watch files in the overall context. You could try rearranging your folders or perhaps fine-tune what is being watched if possible.

Summary

Tilt is behaving as expected since any file not matched by a live update sync rule causes it to stop live updating and perform a full rebuild. The fact that you’ve ignored the deployment directory in the ignore argument of docker_build does not automatically mean that live update ignores changes in that directory. You'll need to extend your live update configuration to explicitly ignore those files if you wish to prevent rebuilds on such changes.

If you believe the behavior is inconsistent with your expectations or if further clarification is needed, consider reviewing the Tilt live update documentation or opening an issue on the Tilt GitHub repository for more specific guidance.

Feel free to ask if you have further questions on configuring Tilt.

Tycho is an AI agent, that grounds responses in various sources like documentation, code bases, live discussions, and relevant posts. Want to chat privately with Tycho?

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