Bitbuckets Pipelines create a step with parallel steps

Question

I want to have one step, that will setup everything and then in parallel run other steps. Currently I have something like this:

image: python:3.9.16-alpine

pipelines:
  default:
    - step:
        runs-on:
          - self.hosted
          - regressiontests
        name: First Step
        clone:
          enabled: false
        caches:
          - pip
        script:
          - apk add git
          - apk add openssh-client
          - git clone myrepository.git
          - pip install -r myrepository/requirements.txt
          - echo $ENV_FILE | base64 -d -i > myrepository/.env
        artifacts:
          - myrepository/**
    - step:
        runs-on:
          - self.hosted
          - regressiontests
        name: Second Step
        clone:
          enabled: false
        caches:
          - pip
        script:
            - cd myrepository
            - pip install -r requirements.txt
        parallel:
          - step:
              name: Step 2.1
              script:
                - python fancy command 1
          - step:
              name: Step 2.2
              script:
                - python fancy command 2
          - step:
              name: Step 2.3
              script:
                - python fancy command 3
          - step:
              name: Step 2.4
              script:
                - python fancy command 4

But the only steps that I see is First Step and Second Step none of parallel steps is executed in pipelines

Answer 1

1. That's not the correct syntax for parallel steps. Checkout https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/set-up-or-run-parallel-steps/

image: python:3.9.16-alpine

pipelines:
  default:
    - step:
        name: First Step
        script: []
    - step:
        name: Second Step
        script: []
    - parallel:
      - step:
          name: Step 3.1
          script: []
      - step:
          name: Step 3.2
          script: []
      # ...

This what I think you are trying to achieve

BUT

2. Each step script happens in a new pristine docker container, so any setup must happen in the same script where the software will be used.

Therefore I am afraid your whole effort to speed up your steps setup is futile.

Instead, you'd like to tune your caches. For python you may want to cache both ~/.cache/pip and a virtualenv so that pip install -r ... instructions are sped up.

Plus, I have a feeling that bitbucket artifacts are quite slow so I'd expect disabling the repository clone in every step to be actually slower. I'd use a shallow clone instead with

clone:
  depth: 1