Add an alternative command to nightlies

This is like nightlies with resume. You can avoid rebuilding all packages.

bob/devtools/scripts/alternative_nightlies.py

+import click
+
+from ..log import verbosity_option
+from . import bdt
+
+
+@click.command(
+    epilog="""
+Examples:
+
+  1. Runs an alternate to nightly builds following a list of packages in a file:
+
+     $ bdt gitlab alt-nightlies -vv order.txt
+
+  2. Provide a list of key value pairs of arguments to be used as variables in the CI
+
+     $ bdt gitlab alt-nightlies -vv order.txt NOSE_EVAL_ATTR "not slow"
+"""
+)
+@click.argument(
+    "order",
+    required=True,
+    type=click.Path(file_okay=True, dir_okay=False, exists=True),
+    nargs=1,
+)
+@click.argument(
+    "variables", nargs=-1,
+)
+@verbosity_option()
+@bdt.raise_on_error
+def alt_nightlies(order, variables):
+    """Alternative nightlies.
+    This command should be run locally and not in Gitlab CI.
+    It will trigger a pipeline for each package in the order file
+    """
+    if not variables:
+        variables = []
+    final_variables = []
+    for i, v in enumerate(variables):
+        if i % 2 == 1:
+            continue
+        final_variables.append({"key": v, "value": variables[i + 1]})
+
+    import time
+
+    from ..ci import read_packages
+    from ..log import get_logger
+    from ..release import get_gitlab_instance
+
+    logger = get_logger(__name__)
+
+    gl = get_gitlab_instance()
+    packages = read_packages(order)
+
+    for n, (package, branch) in enumerate(packages):
+
+        # trigger a pipeline for package and branch
+        project = gl.projects.get(package)
+        logger.info(
+            f"Creating a pipeline for {package} branch {branch} with variables {final_variables}"
+        )
+        pipeline = project.pipelines.create(
+            {"ref": branch, "variables": final_variables}
+        )
+
+        # wait for it to finish
+        while pipeline.status in ("pending", "running"):
+            time.sleep(3)
+            pipeline.refresh()
+            continue
+
+        if pipeline.status == "success":
+            continue
+
+        raise RuntimeError(f"Pipeline {pipeline.web_url} {pipeline.status}")