How can I hijack into container where instanced vars are used?

[lordgreg]

I have created a pipeline using set_pipeline job:

      ...
      - load_var: branches
        file: "pos-frontend-pull-request-changes/branches.json"
      - across:
          - var: branch
            values: ((.:branches))
        instance_vars:
          id: ((.:branch.number))
          branch: ((.:branch.head_ref))
        set_pipeline: "tests-batman"
        vars:
          head_ref: ((.:branch.head_ref))
          head_sha: ((.:branch.head_sha))
          base_ref: ((.:branch.base_ref))
          base_sha: ((.:branch.base_sha))
        file: ci/pipeline-tests.yml
       ...

As you see, the instance vars are id and branch.

If I now try to hijack the job test, I run:

fly hijack --target ci --job=tests-batman/test

However, this shows me all possible tasks from pipeline for all jobs with instanced vars from branches array. How can I filter only the specific branch and id? If you execute hijack command wrong enough (:)), you get an error:

fly hijack --target ci --job=tests-batman/foo/tests
error: invalid argument for flag `-j, --job' (expected flaghelpers.JobFlag): instance vars should be formatted as <key1:value1>(,<key2:value2>)

If you have only one instanced variable, then this works:

fly hijack --target ci --job=tests-batman/branch:foo/tests

However, having two instanced vars, this doesn't seem to work and I always get an error:
I've tried next syntax:

fly hijack --target ci --job=tests-batman/branch:foo,id:1/tests

no containers matched your search parameters!

they may have expired if your build hasn't recently finished.

Nothing seems to show only the instanced container options.

What is the correct syntax then?

Thank you!

[taylorsilva]

Hmm I wonder if the branch name foo/tests is messing up the parsing because of the / in there 🤔

Did a quick look and seems like the answer is it is the / in the second var:

concourse/fly/commands/internal/flaghelpers/job_flag.go

Lines 36 to 44 in cd71788

	vs := strings.SplitN(value[:jobNameIdx], "/", 2)
	flag.PipelineRef.Name = vs[0]
	if len(vs) == 2 {
	var err error
	flag.PipelineRef.InstanceVars, err = unmarshalInstanceVars(vs[1])
	if err != nil {
	return err
	}
	}

The UX around instance pipelines needs to be improved. Stuff like this sucks!

My only suggestion is to use the --url flag and pass in a URL instead. I usually visit the build or job page that I'm interested in and copy-paste the URL from the browser to my terminal.

I realize this may not work for you if you're doing automation stuff.