1.17.2.1 Resource Checker
Resources represent external state such as a git repository, files in an S3 bucket, or anything else that changes over time. By modelling these as resources, it allows you to use this external state as inputs (or triggers) to your workloads.
When are resources checked?
The component that schedules resource checks is called the resource checker. The rate at which these checks happen is called the check interval (configurable via CONCOURSE_LIDAR_SCANNER_INTERVAL). There's an obvious tradeoff, whereby the more frequently you poll, the bigger the strain on Concourse (as well as the external source). However, if you want to pick up those new commits as quickly as possible, then you need to poll as often as possible.
The resource checker uses the check_every interval dictates how often it should be checked for new versions, with a default of 1 minute. If that seems like a lot of checking, it is, but it's how Concourse keeps everything snappy. You can configure this interval independently for each resource using check_every.
If your external service supports it, you can set webhook_token is configured, the external service can notify Concourse when to check for new versions. Note that configuring a webhook_token will not stop Concourse from periodically checking your resource. If you wish to rely solely on webhooks for detecting new versions, you can set check_every to never.
On every interval tick, the resource checker will see if there are any resources that need to be checked. It does this by first finding resources which are used as inputs to jobs, and then comparing the current time against the last time each resource was checked. If it has been longer than a resource's configured check_every interval, a new check will be scheduled. In practice this means that if a resource has a check_every of 1m, it is not guaranteed to be checked precisely every 60 seconds. check_every simply sets a lower bound on the time between checks.
When the resource checker finds a resource to check (either because its check_every interval elapsed, or because its configured webhook_token was triggered), it schedules a new build that invokes the check script of the resource's underlying resource type.
What do resource checks produce?
The whole point of running checks is to produce versions. Concourse's Build Scheduler is centered around the idea of resource versions. It's how Concourse determines that something is new and a new build needs to be triggered.
The versions produced by each resource are unique to the underlying resource type. For instance, the git resource type uses commit SHAs as versions. The registry-image resource uses the image digest and tag in the version.
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