COMP: Restore release-4.14 CI on current hosted agent images

[hjmjohnson]

Restore release-4.14 CI: the six Azure pipelines requested hosted agent images retired years ago (ubuntu-16.04, macOS 10.13, vs2017-win2016) and every job died at agent allocation. Re-based on the current main-branch CI using non-expiring ubuntu-latest / macos-latest / windows-latest pools, plus a minimal Read the Docs stub so the docs/readthedocs.org:itk check can pass. Unblocks #6437 and follow-on toolchain-compatibility PRs (requested by @dzenanz in #6437).

What changed and why

• vmImages: ubuntu-latest / macos-latest / windows-latest. This historical branch must stay buildable with minimal intervention for as long as possible, so every expiring pin is avoided: no dated image tags (that is exactly how the previous CI died), vcvars64.bat located via vswhere instead of a hardcoded Visual Studio version path, and UsePythonVersion: 3.x rather than a minor version that will leave the tool cache.
• Warnings suppressed (-w / /w): the shared dashboard script gates on zero build warnings; ITK 4.14 under GCC 13 emits ~10k warnings that will never be fixed on a maintenance branch that receives build-compatibility fixes only.
• Python pipelines repurposed: ITK 4.x ITK_WRAP_PYTHON does not build with modern Python; the *.Python pipelines now build a BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON C++ variant (suffix -SharedLibs on CDash) so they still add configuration coverage.
• ccache via Cache@2 on Linux/macOS, mirroring main.
• Testing data: unchanged 4.13.2 release tarball + MD5 object store (the era-correct ExternalData layout).
• Read the Docs: minimal Sphinx stub (.readthedocs.yml + one-page Documentation/docs/) identifying the maintenance branch and pointing at https://docs.itk.org/.

Local validation

Ran the exact CI entry point locally on Linux (GCC 13.3, CMake 4.2.1, Ninja) with Azure environment variables mimicked and dashboard_no_submit=1:

ctest -S ITK-dashboard/dashboard.cmake -V -j 24

• Configure: clean
• Build: 0 compiler errors, 0 compiler warnings
• Test: 100% tests passed, 0 tests failed out of 2483
• ctest -S exit code 0 (the full ci_completed_successfully gate)

Sphinx stub verified with sphinx-build -b html Documentation/docs (clean).

macOS (arm64) and Windows (MSVC 2022) configurations cannot be exercised on this Linux workstation; CI is the first executor for those, by necessity.

Lateral porting to other release branches

Branch	Status
release-4.13	Same retired images (ubuntu-16.04 era) — needs the same two commits
release / release-5.4	Already on ubuntu-22.04 (currently valid) — no action
release-3.20	No Azure CI — no action

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

Restores the release-4.14 CI by replacing six retired Azure Pipelines hosted images (ubuntu-16.04, macOS 10.13, vs2017-win2016) with ubuntu-latest / macos-latest / windows-latest, and adds a minimal Sphinx stub so the Read the Docs check can pass.

• Pipeline modernisation: all six pipelines updated with non-expiring pool images, ccache via Cache@2 on Linux/macOS, warnings suppressed (-w / /w) to avoid the zero-warnings gate on modern toolchains, and vswhere used instead of a hard-coded VS 2017 path on Windows.
• Python pipelines repurposed: because ITK 4.x ITK_WRAP_PYTHON does not build with modern Python, the *.Python pipelines are converted to shared-library C++ builds (BUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON, suffix -SharedLibs on CDash) so they still add configuration coverage.
• Read the Docs stub added: .readthedocs.yml + a one-page Documentation/docs/ Sphinx site unblocks the docs/readthedocs.org:itk status check.

Confidence Score: 4/5

Safe to merge — the retired-image blocker is correctly addressed across all six pipelines and the Read the Docs stub is self-contained.

The core goal of un-retiring CI is achieved cleanly. The two findings are minor: the Documentation/* path exclusion misses files one level deeper (e.g. the new Documentation/docs/conf.py), causing unnecessary CI triggers on doc-only commits; and the Windows vswhere loop silently continues if no VS installation is found. Neither blocks restoring a buildable maintenance branch.

The Documentation/* path-exclusion pattern in all six Azure Pipelines YAML files and the vswhere error-handling in both Windows pipelines are the spots worth a second look.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
Testing/ContinuousIntegration/AzurePipelinesLinux.yml	Updates pool image from retired ubuntu-16.04 to ubuntu-latest, adds ccache via Cache@2, and suppresses warnings with -w; path exclusion uses Documentation/* instead of Documentation/**
Testing/ContinuousIntegration/AzurePipelinesLinuxPython.yml	Repurposes Python pipeline to BUILD_SHARED_LIBS C++ variant, updates to ubuntu-latest with ccache, and aligns structure with non-Python Linux pipeline
Testing/ContinuousIntegration/AzurePipelinesMacOS.yml	Updates from retired macOS 10.13 to macos-latest, adds Homebrew ccache, switches from Release/shared to MinSizeRel/static build; same Documentation/* exclusion concern
Testing/ContinuousIntegration/AzurePipelinesMacOSPython.yml	Repurposes Python pipeline to shared-library C++ variant on macos-latest; fully restructured to match the new standard layout
Testing/ContinuousIntegration/AzurePipelinesWindows.yml	Updates from retired vs2017-win2016 to windows-latest; uses vswhere for vcvars64.bat discovery; vswhere silent-failure mode could produce confusing errors
Testing/ContinuousIntegration/AzurePipelinesWindowsPython.yml	Repurposes Python pipeline to shared-library C++ build on windows-latest; uses bash step to write dashboard.cmake via Git Bash, then cmd.exe for the build step
.readthedocs.yml	New minimal Read the Docs config pinned to ubuntu-22.04 / Python 3.11 with a simple Sphinx build; correctly references the stub conf.py
Documentation/docs/conf.py	Minimal Sphinx config (no extensions, alabaster theme) sufficient to satisfy the Read the Docs check
.circleci/config.yml	Deleted legacy CircleCI config that used an EOL circleci/python:2.7.16-stretch image; removal is appropriate

Flowchart

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
flowchart TD
    PR[Push to release branch] --> T{CI Trigger}
    T --> L[Linux static C++ - ubuntu-latest]
    T --> LP[Linux SharedLibs - ubuntu-latest]
    T --> M[macOS static C++ - macos-latest]
    T --> MP[macOS SharedLibs - macos-latest]
    T --> W[Windows static C++ - windows-latest]
    T --> WP[Windows SharedLibs - windows-latest]
    L --> CC1[Cache restore - ccache]
    LP --> CC2[Cache restore - ccache]
    M --> CC3[Cache restore - ccache]
    MP --> CC4[Cache restore - ccache]
    CC1 --> CT1[ctest dashboard.cmake]
    CC2 --> CT2[ctest dashboard.cmake]
    CC3 --> CT3[ctest dashboard.cmake]
    CC4 --> CT4[ctest dashboard.cmake]
    W --> VS[vswhere - vcvars64.bat]
    WP --> VS2[vswhere - vcvars64.bat]
    VS --> CT5[ctest dashboard.cmake]
    VS2 --> CT6[ctest dashboard.cmake]
    CT1 --> CDash[(CDash)]
    CT2 --> CDash
    CT3 --> CDash
    CT4 --> CDash
    CT5 --> CDash
    CT6 --> CDash
    PR --> RTD[Read the Docs - Sphinx stub]

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[thewtex]

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[hjmjohnson]

Force-pushed one amended commit to fix the failing ITK.Windows dashboard gate. The Linux/macOS jobs and all 2483 tests pass; only the Windows zero-warnings gate was red.

Root cause + fix

VS2022's STL emits STL4037 (C4996) on every std::complex<integer> instantiation. The previous commit silenced _SILENCE_NONFLOATING_COMPLEX_DEPRECATION_WARNING in three .cxx TUs, but itkNumericTraits.h declares the integer-complex specializations and is #included by hundreds of TUs — build 16130 still emitted 199 warnings, tripping ci_completed_successfully.

Fix: define the macro project-wide via CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS in AzurePipelinesWindows.yml and AzurePipelinesWindowsPython.yml, alongside the existing /w. The per-TU defines are retained to mirror the upstream fix for non-CI builds.

[hjmjohnson]

Pushed fixes for the 8 residual MSVC warnings that were failing the ITK.Windows dashboard gate (the original 199 C4996 warnings are now clean):

• C4005 (×3): dropped the redundant per-TU _SILENCE_NONFLOATING_COMPLEX_DEPRECATION_WARNING #defines now that the macro is supplied project-wide via CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS (folded into the STL4037 commit).
• C4858 (×5): fixed two latent discarded-return bugs VS2022 newly diagnoses — itkGE5ImageIO used std::remove without erase() (dashes were never stripped from the patient id) and itkVideoFileWriter called m_Dimensions.empty() where clear() was intended (new BUG: commit).

[thewtex]

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