ci: broaden Singularity job rules, refactor user_spack_environment script, tighten .sif artifact retention

[Copilot]

Singularity jobs previously only ran on master (non-trigger). This widens coverage to stable branches, release tags, and MR pipelines, while keeping external-repository triggers (e.g. EICrecon) excluded. Also extracts the user_spack_environment script into a reusable base template, and reduces .sif artifact retention to limit disk pressure from the increased run frequency.

.singularity rules — broadened

Replaces the single master && not trigger guard with an explicit exclusion-first rule set that now also fires on stable branches, version tags, and MR events:

rules:
  - if: '$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "trigger" && $GITHUB_REPOSITORY != "eic/containers"'
    when: never
  - if: '$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "master"'
    when: on_success
  - if: '$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH =~ /^v[0-9]+\.[0-9]+-(alpha|beta|stable)/'
    when: on_success
  # ... stable branch variant, version tags, MR events
  - when: never

This also aligns the implementation with the existing plan comments (stable branches/tags were listed but never matched).

user_spack_environment — script extracted to base template

Script steps moved into .user_spack_environment; the concrete job now extends it. No behavioral change.

.sif artifact retention — tightened for disk space

.sif files are several GB each. Running on every MR would accumulate significant storage without this change:

Job	expire_in	Reason
.singularity template	2 hours	Sufficient for CI verification on MR/default runs
eic_xl:singularity:nightly	1 days	Consumed externally by eic-shell/install.py

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR updates the GitLab CI configuration to run Singularity image jobs more broadly (stable branches, version tags, and merge request pipelines) while still excluding external-repository trigger pipelines, refactors the user_spack_environment job script into a reusable hidden template, and reduces .sif artifact retention to mitigate disk pressure from the increased run frequency.

Changes:

• Broaden .singularity job rules: to include stable branches, version tags, and MR pipelines, with an exclusion-first guard for external trigger pipelines.
• Extract the user_spack_environment script into a reusable .user_spack_environment template and have the concrete job extends it.
• Tighten default .sif artifact retention to 2 hours, with a nightly override to 1 days for downstream consumption.

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[github-actions]

Capybara summary for PR 361

• rec_dis_10x100_minQ2=1000_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_dis_10x100_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_dis_18x275_minQ2=1000_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_dis_18x275_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_dis_5x41_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_dis_5x41_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64_vs_arm64
• rec_dis_5x41_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_arm64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_e_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_e_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64_vs_arm64
• rec_e_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_arm64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_pi_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• rec_pi_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64_vs_arm64
• rec_pi_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_arm64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_dis_10x100_minQ2=1000_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_dis_10x100_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_dis_18x275_minQ2=1000_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_dis_18x275_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_dis_5x41_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_dis_5x41_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_amd64_vs_arm64
• sim_dis_5x41_minQ2=1_epic_craterlake_arm64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_e_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_e_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64_vs_arm64
• sim_e_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_arm64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_pi_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
• sim_pi_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_amd64_vs_arm64
• sim_pi_1GeV_20GeV_epic_craterlake_arm64 (new artifact) (ref artifact)
  ^{_{Last updated 2026-07-18T13:46-04:00 c17e0bc}}