Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) offers significant benefits but faces usability challenges, particularly in developing intuitive modeling interfaces. Most existing tools rely on textual or tree-based editors, which are often difficult for non-technical users to navigate. Creating custom graphical editors based on existing metamodels, a common way to describe modeling environments and languages, typically requires substantial manual effort and specialized knowledge of complex frameworks such as Sirius. These hurdles limit the broader adoption of MDE among developers and domain experts. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for automated, flexible, and user-friendly approaches to generating interfaces that can make MDE more accessible and practical across various domains. In this work, we present a method for automatically generating a visual modeling environment from existing metamodels. Based on this method, we devised Model2Block , a command-line application that automatically generates block-based visual languages from metamodels defined using the Ecore language. The tool analyzes an input metamodel and produces a corresponding set of blocks, which are then integrated into a web-based environment. This enables users to visually build models using blocks that represent valid model elements. We present an applicability study demonstrating that our method and tool were successfully applied to a publicly available dataset containing more than 50 metamodels. Moreover, we present a case study of a concrete modeling environment we generated from a metamodel, achieving, in this particular case, higher usability and lower workload than an existing tool.

In the realm of industrial software development, DevOps has emerged as the preferred approach for handling the highly iterative software production process. DevOps refers to the tight integration of development and operations activities, with Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) being pivotal methodologies for ensuring the iterative delivery of high-quality software. To achieve CI/CD, pipelines of activities are deployed using commercial tools. Due to the dynamic nature of these tools, CI/CD pipelines are often migrated to new versions or even new tools. Since this is mostly a manual process, it is a cumbersome and error-prone activity. To assist software engineers during this process, we propose a novel approach that leverages model-driven engineering (MDE) to support the migration of CI/CD pipelines. Our approach is inspired by the traditional reengineering horseshoe model, which abstracts existing pipeline artifacts into a comprehensive model as an intermediate representation. From these models, we can then generate semantic-equivalent pipelines for any novel CI/CD tool. Thus, our main contribution comprises a metamodel designed to represent the structure of existing CI/CD pipelines and build the foundation for MDE-based migration of CI/CD pipelines. We validated our metamodel by successfully modeling 400 existing pipelines. This evaluation demonstrated a 100% applicability rate when applied to configuration files from technologies that collectively account for over 92% of CI/CD scripts in use. Furthermore, we conducted a detailed case study demonstrating the practical applicability of our approach in real-world migration scenarios. Finally, we demonstrate that our metamodel promotes equivalence between an original pipeline and a new one generated from it in a different technology by showing through test cases that the execution traces of both pipelines are identical.

Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines are essential for modern software delivery, yet configuring them remains a challenge due to the complexity of textbased formats like YAML. These configurations are error-prone and require substantial expertise, posing a barrier especially to novices. In this paper, we introduce PipeBlocks, a block-based CI/CD tool featuring a graphical interface for visually constructing pipelines through modular, drag-and-drop blocks. PipeBlocks seamlessly integrates with GitHub Actions, allowing users to design, validate, and execute pipelines entirely within the tool while maintaining full compatibility with existing YAML workflows. A key innovation is the ability to trigger and monitor pipeline runs directly in PipeBlocks, eliminating context-switching.

Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines are essential for modern software delivery, yet configuring them remains a challenge due to the complexity of text-based formats like YAML. These configurations are error-prone and require substantial expertise, posing a barrier to novices. In this paper, we introduce PipeBlocks, a block-based CI/CD tool featuring a graphical interface for visually constructing pipelines through modular, drag-and-drop blocks. PipeBlocks seamlessly integrates with GitHub Actions, allowing users to design, validate, and execute pipelines entirely within the tool while maintaining full compatibility with existing YAML workflows. A key innovation is the ability to trigger and monitor pipeline runs directly in PipeBlocks, eliminating context-switching. We evaluated PipeBlocks through a controlled study with 10 participants configuring identical pipelines (build, test, deploy) using both PipeBlocks and YAML editing in GitHub Actions. Using the System Usability Scale (SUS) and NASA-TLX benchmarks, we found that PipeBlocks achieved a statistically significantly higher usability score and a lower cognitive load. The results suggest that block-based approaches can effectively lower CI/CD’s learning curve while maintaining functional completeness, making them particularly valuable for academic settings and early-career developers building CI/CD competencies.

Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines play a vital role in the DevOps process, enabling developers to automate and enhance software delivery. However, the existence of multiple technologies, such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, or Jenkins, poses challenges due to their lack of interoperability and the use of different programming languages for pipeline construction. To address these challenges and improve the CI/CD process, our objective is to develop a block-based language specifically designed for representing CI/CD pipelines. With our language, we intend to empower users to more easily create correct pipelines. Through an interactive and user-friendly process, our approach guides users in constructing pipelines, ensuring accuracy and reducing errors. Additionally, our language will facilitate seamless transitions between different pipeline technologies, providing users with flexibility and ease of adoption.

DevOps is a combination of tools and methodologies that aims at improving the software development, build and deploy processes by shortening this lifecycle and improving software quality. Despite its many benefits it still presents many challenges when it comes to its ease of use and accessibility. One of the reasons is the tremendous proliferation of different tools, languages and syntax which makes the field quite difficult to learn and keep up to date.Our goal with this PhD project is to study a model-driven approach that can abstract the particularities of the different kinds of tools for the different parts of the DevOps process (from source code management to deployment). Moreover, we will also use model-driven techniques to allow users to express their pipelines without the need to know all the implementation details (e.g. configuration files) of all the tools they need to use.

Linear programming is a mathematical optimization technique used in numerous fields including mathematics, economics, and computer science, with numerous industrial contexts, including solving optimization problems such as planning routes, allocating resources, and creating schedules. As a result of its wide breadth of applications, a considerable amount of its user base is lacking in terms of programming knowledge and experience and thus often resorts to using graphical software such as Microsoft Excel. However, despite its popularity amongst less technical users, the methodologies used by these tools are often ad-hoc and prone to errors. To counteract this problem we propose creating a block-based language that allows users to create linear programming models using data contained inside spreadsheets. This language will guide the users to write syntactically and semantically correct programs and thus aid them in a way that current languages do not.