Semaphore Artifacts: a Fast and Secure Way to Store Data on Your Projects

Semaphore uses artifacts to facilitate data transfer and communication between jobs, workflows, and projects within its CI/CD environment, despite each job running in isolated virtual machines. Artifacts, which include files such as logs and test reports, can be stored at three levels: job, workflow, and project, with each serving different purposes like debugging, sharing build results, or storing final deliverables. Users can manage artifact retention to reduce storage costs, as artifacts are not automatically deleted, and pricing for storing and downloading artifacts is based on data storage and traffic, respectively. To optimize spending, Semaphore suggests strategies such as avoiding unnecessary artifact pulls and using alternatives like caching for dependencies or external services for large Docker images.