Configuration of your jobs with .gitlab-ci.yml
This document describes the usage of .gitlab-ci.yml
, the file that is used by
GitLab Runner to manage your project's jobs.
If you want a quick introduction to GitLab CI, follow our quick start guide.
.gitlab-ci.yml
From version 7.12, GitLab CI uses a YAML
file (.gitlab-ci.yml
) for the project configuration. It is placed in the root
of your repository and contains definitions of how your project should be built.
The YAML file defines a set of jobs with constraints stating when they should
be run. The jobs are defined as top-level elements with a name and always have
to contain at least the script
clause:
job1:
script: "execute-script-for-job1"
job2:
script: "execute-script-for-job2"
The above example is the simplest possible CI configuration with two separate jobs, where each of the jobs executes a different command.
Of course a command can execute code directly (./configure;make;make install
)
or run a script (test.sh
) in the repository.
Jobs are picked up by Runners and executed within the environment of the Runner. What is important, is that each job is run independently from each other.
The YAML syntax allows for using more complex job specifications than in the above example:
image: ruby:2.1
services:
- postgres
before_script:
- bundle install
after_script:
- rm secrets
stages:
- build
- test
- deploy
job1:
stage: build
script:
- execute-script-for-job1
only:
- master
tags:
- docker
There are a few reserved keywords
that cannot be used as job names:
Keyword | Required | Description |
---|---|---|
image | no | Use docker image, covered in Use Docker |
services | no | Use docker services, covered in Use Docker |
stages | no | Define build stages |
types | no | Alias for stages (deprecated) |
before_script | no | Define commands that run before each job's script |
after_script | no | Define commands that run after each job's script |
variables | no | Define build variables |
cache | no | Define list of files that should be cached between subsequent runs |
image and services
This allows to specify a custom Docker image and a list of services that can be used for time of the job. The configuration of this feature is covered in a separate document.
before_script
before_script
is used to define the command that should be run before all
jobs, including deploy jobs, but after the restoration of artifacts. This can
be an array or a multi-line string.
after_script
Introduced in GitLab 8.7 and requires Gitlab Runner v1.2
after_script
is used to define the command that will be run after for all
jobs. This has to be an array or a multi-line string.
Note: The
before_script
and the mainscript
are concatenated and run in a single context/container. Theafter_script
is run separately, so depending on the executor, changes done outside of the working tree might not be visible, e.g. software installed in thebefore_script
.
stages
stages
is used to define stages that can be used by jobs.
The specification of stages
allows for having flexible multi stage pipelines.
The ordering of elements in stages
defines the ordering of jobs' execution:
- Jobs of the same stage are run in parallel.
- Jobs of the next stage are run after the jobs from the previous stage complete successfully.
Let's consider the following example, which defines 3 stages:
stages:
- build
- test
- deploy
- First, all jobs of
build
are executed in parallel. - If all jobs of
build
succeed, thetest
jobs are executed in parallel. - If all jobs of
test
succeed, thedeploy
jobs are executed in parallel. - If all jobs of
deploy
succeed, the commit is marked aspassed
. - If any of the previous jobs fails, the commit is marked as
failed
and no jobs of further stage are executed.
There are also two edge cases worth mentioning:
- If no
stages
are defined in.gitlab-ci.yml
, then thebuild
,test
anddeploy
are allowed to be used as job's stage by default. - If a job doesn't specify a
stage
, the job is assigned thetest
stage.
types
Deprecated, and could be removed in one of the future releases. Use stages instead.
Alias for stages.
variables
Introduced in GitLab Runner v0.5.0.
GitLab CI allows you to add variables to .gitlab-ci.yml
that are set in the
job environment. The variables are stored in the Git repository and are meant
to store non-sensitive project configuration, for example:
variables:
DATABASE_URL: "postgres://postgres@postgres/my_database"
Note: Integers (as well as strings) are legal both for variable's name and value. Floats are not legal and cannot be used.
These variables can be later used in all executed commands and scripts. The YAML-defined variables are also set to all created service containers, thus allowing to fine tune them. Variables can be also defined on a job level.
Except for the user defined variables, there are also the ones set up by the
Runner itself. One example would be CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
which has the value of
the branch or tag name for which project is built. Apart from the variables
you can set in .gitlab-ci.yml
, there are also the so called secret variables
which can be set in GitLab's UI.
cache
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab Runner v0.7.0.
- Prior to GitLab 9.2, caches were restored after artifacts.
- From GitLab 9.2, caches are restored before artifacts.
cache
is used to specify a list of files and directories which should be
cached between jobs. You can only use paths that are within the project
workspace.
By default caching is enabled and shared between pipelines and jobs, starting from GitLab 9.0
If cache
is defined outside the scope of jobs, it means it is set
globally and all jobs will use that definition.
Cache all files in binaries
and .config
:
rspec:
script: test
cache:
paths:
- binaries/
- .config
Cache all Git untracked files:
rspec:
script: test
cache:
untracked: true
Cache all Git untracked files and files in binaries
:
rspec:
script: test
cache:
untracked: true
paths:
- binaries/
Locally defined cache overrides globally defined options. The following rspec
job will cache only binaries/
:
cache:
paths:
- my/files
rspec:
script: test
cache:
key: rspec
paths:
- binaries/
Note that since cache is shared between jobs, if you're using different paths for different jobs, you should also set a different cache:key otherwise cache content can be overwritten.
The cache is provided on a best-effort basis, so don't expect that the cache will be always present. For implementation details, please check GitLab Runner.
cache:key
Introduced in GitLab Runner v1.0.0.
The key
directive allows you to define the affinity of caching
between jobs, allowing to have a single cache for all jobs,
cache per-job, cache per-branch or any other way you deem proper.
This allows you to fine tune caching, allowing you to cache data between different jobs or even different branches.
The cache:key
variable can use any of the predefined variables.
The default key is default across the project, therefore everything is shared between each pipelines and jobs by default, starting from GitLab 9.0.
Note: The
cache:key
variable cannot contain the/
character.
Example configurations
To enable per-job caching:
cache:
key: "$CI_JOB_NAME"
untracked: true
To enable per-branch caching:
cache:
key: "$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"
untracked: true
To enable per-job and per-branch caching:
cache:
key: "$CI_JOB_NAME-$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"
untracked: true
To enable per-branch and per-stage caching:
cache:
key: "$CI_JOB_STAGE-$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"
untracked: true
If you use Windows Batch to run your shell scripts you need to replace
$
with %
:
cache:
key: "%CI_JOB_STAGE%-%CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME%"
untracked: true
If you use Windows PowerShell to run your shell scripts you need to replace
$
with $env:
:
cache:
key: "$env:CI_JOB_STAGE-$env:CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"
untracked: true
cache:policy
Introduced in GitLab 9.4.
The default behaviour of a caching job is to download the files at the start of
execution, and to re-upload them at the end. This allows any changes made by the
job to be persisted for future runs, and is known as the pull-push
cache
policy.
If you know the job doesn't alter the cached files, you can skip the upload step
by setting policy: pull
in the job specification. Typically, this would be
twinned with an ordinary cache job at an earlier stage to ensure the cache
is updated from time to time:
stages:
- setup
- test
prepare:
stage: setup
cache:
key: gems
paths:
- vendor/bundle
script:
- bundle install --deployment
rspec:
stage: test
cache:
key: gems
paths:
- vendor/bundle
policy: pull
script:
- bundle exec rspec ...
This helps to speed up job execution and reduce load on the cache server, especially when you have a large number of cache-using jobs executing in parallel.
Additionally, if you have a job that unconditionally recreates the cache without
reference to its previous contents, you can use policy: push
in that job to
skip the download step.
Jobs
.gitlab-ci.yml
allows you to specify an unlimited number of jobs. Each job
must have a unique name, which is not one of the keywords mentioned above.
A job is defined by a list of parameters that define the job behavior.
job_name:
script:
- rake spec
- coverage
stage: test
only:
- master
except:
- develop
tags:
- ruby
- postgres
allow_failure: true
Keyword | Required | Description |
---|---|---|
script | yes | Defines a shell script which is executed by Runner |
image | no | Use docker image, covered in Using Docker Images |
services | no | Use docker services, covered in Using Docker Images |
stage | no | Defines a job stage (default: test ) |
type | no | Alias for stage
|
variables | no | Define job variables on a job level |
only | no | Defines a list of git refs for which job is created |
except | no | Defines a list of git refs for which job is not created |
tags | no | Defines a list of tags which are used to select Runner |
allow_failure | no | Allow job to fail. Failed job doesn't contribute to commit status |
when | no | Define when to run job. Can be on_success , on_failure , always or manual
|
dependencies | no | Define other jobs that a job depends on so that you can pass artifacts between them |
artifacts | no | Define list of job artifacts |
cache | no | Define list of files that should be cached between subsequent runs |
before_script | no | Override a set of commands that are executed before job |
after_script | no | Override a set of commands that are executed after job |
environment | no | Defines a name of environment to which deployment is done by this job |
coverage | no | Define code coverage settings for a given job |
retry | no | Define how many times a job can be auto-retried in case of a failure |
script
script
is a shell script which is executed by the Runner. For example:
job:
script: "bundle exec rspec"
This parameter can also contain several commands using an array:
job:
script:
- uname -a
- bundle exec rspec
Sometimes, script
commands will need to be wrapped in single or double quotes.
For example, commands that contain a colon (:
) need to be wrapped in quotes so
that the YAML parser knows to interpret the whole thing as a string rather than
a "key: value" pair. Be careful when using special characters:
:
, {
, }
, [
, ]
, ,
, &
, *
, #
, ?
, |
, -
, <
, >
, =
, !
, %
, @
, `
.
stage
stage
allows to group jobs into different stages. Jobs of the same stage
are executed in parallel
. For more info about the use of stage
please check
stages.
only and except (simplified)
only
and except
are two parameters that set a job policy to limit when
jobs are created:
-
only
defines the names of branches and tags for which the job will run. -
except
defines the names of branches and tags for which the job will not run.
There are a few rules that apply to the usage of job policy:
-
only
andexcept
are inclusive. If bothonly
andexcept
are defined in a job specification, the ref is filtered byonly
andexcept
. -
only
andexcept
allow the use of regular expressions. -
only
andexcept
allow to specify a repository path to filter jobs for forks.
In addition, only
and except
allow the use of special keywords:
Value | Description |
---|---|
branches |
When a branch is pushed. |
tags |
When a tag is pushed. |
api |
When pipeline has been triggered by a second pipelines API (not triggers API). |
external |
When using CI services other than GitLab. |
pipelines |
For multi-project triggers, created using the API with CI_JOB_TOKEN . |
pushes |
Pipeline is triggered by a git push by the user. |
schedules |
For scheduled pipelines. |
triggers |
For pipelines created using a trigger token. |
web |
For pipelines created using Run pipeline button in GitLab UI (under your project's Pipelines). |
In the example below, job
will run only for refs that start with issue-
,
whereas all branches will be skipped:
job:
# use regexp
only:
- /^issue-.*$/
# use special keyword
except:
- branches
In this example, job
will run only for refs that are tagged, or if a build is
explicitly requested via an API trigger or a Pipeline Schedule:
job:
# use special keywords
only:
- tags
- triggers
- schedules
The repository path can be used to have jobs executed only for the parent repository and not forks:
job:
only:
- branches@gitlab-org/gitlab-ce
except:
- master@gitlab-org/gitlab-ce
The above example will run job
for all branches on gitlab-org/gitlab-ce
,
except master.
only and except (complex)
Introduced in GitLab 10.0
This an alpha feature, and it it subject to change at any time without prior notice!
Since GitLab 10.0 it is possible to define a more elaborate only/except job policy configuration.
GitLab now supports both, simple and complex strategies, so it is possible to use an array and a hash configuration scheme.
Two keys are now available: refs
and kubernetes
. Refs strategy equals to
simplified only/except configuration, whereas kubernetes strategy accepts only
active
keyword.
See the example below. Job is going to be created only when pipeline has been
scheduled or runs for a master
branch, and only if kubernetes service is
active in the project.
job:
only:
refs:
- master
- schedules
kubernetes: active
Job variables
It is possible to define job variables using a variables
keyword on a job
level. It works basically the same way as its global-level equivalent,
but allows you to define job-specific variables.
When the variables
keyword is used on a job level, it overrides the global YAML
job variables and predefined ones. To turn off global defined variables
in your job, define an empty hash:
job_name:
variables: {}
Job variables priority is defined in the variables documentation.
tags
tags
is used to select specific Runners from the list of all Runners that are
allowed to run this project.
During the registration of a Runner, you can specify the Runner's tags, for
example ruby
, postgres
, development
.
tags
allow you to run jobs with Runners that have the specified tags
assigned to them:
job:
tags:
- ruby
- postgres
The specification above, will make sure that job
is built by a Runner that
has both ruby
AND postgres
tags defined.
allow_failure
allow_failure
is used when you want to allow a job to fail without impacting
the rest of the CI suite. Failed jobs don't contribute to the commit status.
When enabled and the job fails, the pipeline will be successful/green for all intents and purposes, but a "CI build passed with warnings" message will be displayed on the merge request or commit or job page. This is to be used by jobs that are allowed to fail, but where failure indicates some other (manual) steps should be taken elsewhere.
In the example below, job1
and job2
will run in parallel, but if job1
fails, it will not stop the next stage from running, since it's marked with
allow_failure: true
:
job1:
stage: test
script:
- execute_script_that_will_fail
allow_failure: true
job2:
stage: test
script:
- execute_script_that_will_succeed
job3:
stage: deploy
script:
- deploy_to_staging
when
when
is used to implement jobs that are run in case of failure or despite the
failure.
when
can be set to one of the following values:
-
on_success
- execute job only when all jobs from prior stages succeed. This is the default. -
on_failure
- execute job only when at least one job from prior stages fails. -
always
- execute job regardless of the status of jobs from prior stages. -
manual
- execute job manually (added in GitLab 8.10). Read about manual actions below.
For example:
stages:
- build
- cleanup_build
- test
- deploy
- cleanup
build_job:
stage: build
script:
- make build
cleanup_build_job:
stage: cleanup_build
script:
- cleanup build when failed
when: on_failure
test_job:
stage: test
script:
- make test
deploy_job:
stage: deploy
script:
- make deploy
when: manual
cleanup_job:
stage: cleanup
script:
- cleanup after jobs
when: always
The above script will:
- Execute
cleanup_build_job
only whenbuild_job
fails. - Always execute
cleanup_job
as the last step in pipeline regardless of success or failure. - Allow you to manually execute
deploy_job
from GitLab's UI.
Manual actions
Introduced in GitLab 8.10. Blocking manual actions were introduced in GitLab 9.0 Protected actions were introduced in GitLab 9.2
Manual actions are a special type of job that are not executed automatically; they need to be explicitly started by a user. Manual actions can be started from pipeline, build, environment, and deployment views.
An example usage of manual actions is deployment to production.
Read more at the environments documentation.
Manual actions can be either optional or blocking. Blocking manual action will block execution of the pipeline at stage this action is defined in. It is possible to resume execution of the pipeline when someone executes a blocking manual actions by clicking a play button.
When pipeline is blocked it will not be merged if Merge When Pipeline Succeeds is set. Blocked pipelines also do have a special status, called manual.
Manual actions are non-blocking by default. If you want to make manual action
blocking, it is necessary to add allow_failure: false
to the job's definition
in .gitlab-ci.yml
.
Optional manual actions have allow_failure: true
set by default.
Statuses of optional actions do not contribute to overall pipeline status.
Manual actions are considered to be write actions, so permissions for protected branches are used when user wants to trigger an action. In other words, in order to trigger a manual action assigned to a branch that the pipeline is running for, user needs to have ability to merge to this branch.
environment
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.9.
- You can read more about environments and find more examples in the documentation about environments.
environment
is used to define that a job deploys to a specific environment.
If environment
is specified and no environment under that name exists, a new
one will be created automatically.
In its simplest form, the environment
keyword can be defined like:
deploy to production:
stage: deploy
script: git push production HEAD:master
environment:
name: production
In the above example, the deploy to production
job will be marked as doing a
deployment to the production
environment.
environment:name
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.11.
- Before GitLab 8.11, the name of an environment could be defined as a string like
environment: production
. The recommended way now is to define it under thename
keyword.- The
name
parameter can use any of the defined CI variables, including predefined, secure variables and.gitlab-ci.yml
variables
. You however cannot use variables defined underscript
.
The environment
name can contain:
- letters
- digits
- spaces
-
_
/
$
{
}
Common names are qa
, staging
, and production
, but you can use whatever
name works with your workflow.
Instead of defining the name of the environment right after the environment
keyword, it is also possible to define it as a separate value. For that, use
the name
keyword under environment
:
deploy to production:
stage: deploy
script: git push production HEAD:master
environment:
name: production
environment:url
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.11.
- Before GitLab 8.11, the URL could be added only in GitLab's UI. The recommended way now is to define it in
.gitlab-ci.yml
.- The
url
parameter can use any of the defined CI variables, including predefined, secure variables and.gitlab-ci.yml
variables
. You however cannot use variables defined underscript
.
This is an optional value that when set, it exposes buttons in various places in GitLab which when clicked take you to the defined URL.
In the example below, if the job finishes successfully, it will create buttons
in the merge requests and in the environments/deployments pages which will point
to https://prod.example.com
.
deploy to production:
stage: deploy
script: git push production HEAD:master
environment:
name: production
url: https://prod.example.com
environment:on_stop
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.13.
- Starting with GitLab 8.14, when you have an environment that has a stop action defined, GitLab will automatically trigger a stop action when the associated branch is deleted.
Closing (stoping) environments can be achieved with the on_stop
keyword defined under
environment
. It declares a different job that runs in order to close
the environment.
Read the environment:action
section for an example.
environment:action
Introduced in GitLab 8.13.
The action
keyword is to be used in conjunction with on_stop
and is defined
in the job that is called to close the environment.
Take for instance:
review_app:
stage: deploy
script: make deploy-app
environment:
name: review
on_stop: stop_review_app
stop_review_app:
stage: deploy
script: make delete-app
when: manual
environment:
name: review
action: stop
In the above example we set up the review_app
job to deploy to the review
environment, and we also defined a new stop_review_app
job under on_stop
.
Once the review_app
job is successfully finished, it will trigger the
stop_review_app
job based on what is defined under when
. In this case we
set it up to manual
so it will need a manual action via
GitLab's web interface in order to run.
The stop_review_app
job is required to have the following keywords defined:
-
when
- reference environment:name
environment:action
-
stage
should be the same as thereview_app
in order for the environment to stop automatically when the branch is deleted
dynamic environments
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.12 and GitLab Runner 1.6.
- The
$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG
was introduced in GitLab 8.15.- The
name
andurl
parameters can use any of the defined CI variables, including predefined, secure variables and.gitlab-ci.yml
variables
. You however cannot use variables defined underscript
.
For example:
deploy as review app:
stage: deploy
script: make deploy
environment:
name: review/$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
url: https://$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG.example.com/
The deploy as review app
job will be marked as deployment to dynamically
create the review/$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
environment, where $CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
is an environment variable set by the Runner. The
$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG
variable is based on the environment name, but suitable
for inclusion in URLs. In this case, if the deploy as review app
job was run
in a branch named pow
, this environment would be accessible with an URL like
https://review-pow.example.com/
.
This of course implies that the underlying server which hosts the application is properly configured.
The common use case is to create dynamic environments for branches and use them as Review Apps. You can see a simple example using Review Apps at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-examples/review-apps-nginx/.
artifacts
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab Runner v0.7.0 for non-Windows platforms.
- Windows support was added in GitLab Runner v.1.0.0.
- Prior to GitLab 9.2, caches were restored after artifacts.
- From GitLab 9.2, caches are restored before artifacts.
- Currently not all executors are supported.
- Job artifacts are only collected for successful jobs by default.
artifacts
is used to specify a list of files and directories which should be
attached to the job after success. You can only use paths that are within the
project workspace. To pass artifacts between different jobs, see dependencies.
Below are some examples.
Send all files in binaries
and .config
:
artifacts:
paths:
- binaries/
- .config
Send all Git untracked files:
artifacts:
untracked: true
Send all Git untracked files and files in binaries
:
artifacts:
untracked: true
paths:
- binaries/
To disable artifact passing, define the job with empty dependencies:
job:
stage: build
script: make build
dependencies: []
You may want to create artifacts only for tagged releases to avoid filling the build server storage with temporary build artifacts.
Create artifacts only for tags (default-job
will not create artifacts):
default-job:
script:
- mvn test -U
except:
- tags
release-job:
script:
- mvn package -U
artifacts:
paths:
- target/*.war
only:
- tags
The artifacts will be sent to GitLab after the job finishes successfully and will be available for download in the GitLab UI.
artifacts:name
Introduced in GitLab 8.6 and GitLab Runner v1.1.0.
The name
directive allows you to define the name of the created artifacts
archive. That way, you can have a unique name for every archive which could be
useful when you'd like to download the archive from GitLab. The artifacts:name
variable can make use of any of the predefined variables.
The default name is artifacts
, which becomes artifacts.zip
when downloaded.
Example configurations
To create an archive with a name of the current job:
job:
artifacts:
name: "$CI_JOB_NAME"
To create an archive with a name of the current branch or tag including only the files that are untracked by Git:
job:
artifacts:
name: "$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"
untracked: true
To create an archive with a name of the current job and the current branch or tag including only the files that are untracked by Git:
job:
artifacts:
name: "${CI_JOB_NAME}_${CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME}"
untracked: true
To create an archive with a name of the current stage and branch name:
job:
artifacts:
name: "${CI_JOB_STAGE}_${CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME}"
untracked: true
If you use Windows Batch to run your shell scripts you need to replace
$
with %
:
job:
artifacts:
name: "%CI_JOB_STAGE%_%CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME%"
untracked: true
If you use Windows PowerShell to run your shell scripts you need to replace
$
with $env:
:
job:
artifacts:
name: "$env:CI_JOB_STAGE_$env:CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"
untracked: true
artifacts:when
Introduced in GitLab 8.9 and GitLab Runner v1.3.0.
artifacts:when
is used to upload artifacts on job failure or despite the
failure.
artifacts:when
can be set to one of the following values:
-
on_success
- upload artifacts only when the job succeeds. This is the default. -
on_failure
- upload artifacts only when the job fails. -
always
- upload artifacts regardless of the job status.
Example configurations
To upload artifacts only when job fails.
job:
artifacts:
when: on_failure
artifacts:expire_in
Introduced in GitLab 8.9 and GitLab Runner v1.3.0.
artifacts:expire_in
is used to delete uploaded artifacts after the specified
time. By default, artifacts are stored on GitLab forever. expire_in
allows you
to specify how long artifacts should live before they expire, counting from the
time they are uploaded and stored on GitLab.
You can use the Keep button on the job page to override expiration and keep artifacts forever.
After expiry, artifacts are actually deleted hourly by default (via a cron job), but they are not accessible after expiry.
The value of expire_in
is an elapsed time. Examples of parseable values:
- '3 mins 4 sec'
- '2 hrs 20 min'
- '2h20min'
- '6 mos 1 day'
- '47 yrs 6 mos and 4d'
- '3 weeks and 2 days'
Example configurations
To expire artifacts 1 week after being uploaded:
job:
artifacts:
expire_in: 1 week
dependencies
Introduced in GitLab 8.6 and GitLab Runner v1.1.1.
This feature should be used in conjunction with artifacts
and
allows you to define the artifacts to pass between different jobs.
Note that artifacts
from all previous stages are passed by default.
To use this feature, define dependencies
in context of the job and pass
a list of all previous jobs from which the artifacts should be downloaded.
You can only define jobs from stages that are executed before the current one.
An error will be shown if you define jobs from the current stage or next ones.
Defining an empty array will skip downloading any artifacts for that job.
The status of the previous job is not considered when using dependencies
, so
if it failed or it is a manual job that was not run, no error occurs.
In the following example, we define two jobs with artifacts, build:osx
and
build:linux
. When the test:osx
is executed, the artifacts from build:osx
will be downloaded and extracted in the context of the build. The same happens
for test:linux
and artifacts from build:linux
.
The job deploy
will download artifacts from all previous jobs because of
the stage precedence:
build:osx:
stage: build
script: make build:osx
artifacts:
paths:
- binaries/
build:linux:
stage: build
script: make build:linux
artifacts:
paths:
- binaries/
test:osx:
stage: test
script: make test:osx
dependencies:
- build:osx
test:linux:
stage: test
script: make test:linux
dependencies:
- build:linux
deploy:
stage: deploy
script: make deploy
When a dependent job will fail
Introduced in GitLab 10.3.
If the artifacts of the job that is set as a dependency have been expired or erased, then the dependent job will fail.
NOTE: Note: You can ask your administrator to flip this switch and bring back the old behavior.
before_script and after_script
It's possible to overwrite the globally defined before_script
and after_script
:
before_script:
- global before script
job:
before_script:
- execute this instead of global before script
script:
- my command
after_script:
- execute this after my script
coverage
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.17.
coverage
allows you to configure how code coverage will be extracted from the
job output.
Regular expressions are the only valid kind of value expected here. So, using
surrounding /
is mandatory in order to consistently and explicitly represent
a regular expression string. You must escape special characters if you want to
match them literally.
A simple example:
job1:
script: rspec
coverage: '/Code coverage: \d+\.\d+/'
retry
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 9.5.
retry
allows you to configure how many times a job is going to be retried in
case of a failure.
When a job fails, and has retry
configured it is going to be processed again
up to the amount of times specified by the retry
keyword.
If retry
is set to 2, and a job succeeds in a second run (first retry), it won't be retried
again. retry
value has to be a positive integer, equal or larger than 0, but
lower or equal to 2 (two retries maximum, three runs in total).
A simple example:
test:
script: rspec
retry: 2
Git Strategy
Introduced in GitLab 8.9 as an experimental feature. May change or be removed completely in future releases.
GIT_STRATEGY=none
requires GitLab Runner v1.7+.
You can set the GIT_STRATEGY
used for getting recent application code, either
in the global variables
section or the variables
section for individual jobs. If left unspecified, the default from project
settings will be used.
There are three possible values: clone
, fetch
, and none
.
clone
is the slowest option. It clones the repository from scratch for every
job, ensuring that the project workspace is always pristine.
variables:
GIT_STRATEGY: clone
fetch
is faster as it re-uses the project workspace (falling back to clone
if it doesn't exist). git clean
is used to undo any changes made by the last
job, and git fetch
is used to retrieve commits made since the last job ran.
variables:
GIT_STRATEGY: fetch
none
also re-uses the project workspace, but skips all Git operations
(including GitLab Runner's pre-clone script, if present). It is mostly useful
for jobs that operate exclusively on artifacts (e.g., deploy
). Git repository
data may be present, but it is certain to be out of date, so you should only
rely on files brought into the project workspace from cache or artifacts.
variables:
GIT_STRATEGY: none
Git Checkout
Introduced in GitLab Runner 9.3
The GIT_CHECKOUT
variable can be used when the GIT_STRATEGY
is set to either
clone
or fetch
to specify whether a git checkout
should be run. If not
specified, it defaults to true. Like GIT_STRATEGY
, it can be set in either the
global variables
section or the variables
section for individual jobs.
If set to false
, the Runner will:
- when doing
fetch
- update the repository and leave working copy on the current revision, - when doing
clone
- clone the repository and leave working copy on the default branch.
Having this setting set to true
will mean that for both clone
and fetch
strategies the Runner will checkout the working copy to a revision related
to the CI pipeline:
variables:
GIT_STRATEGY: clone
GIT_CHECKOUT: false
script:
- git checkout master
- git merge $CI_BUILD_REF_NAME
Git Submodule Strategy
Requires GitLab Runner v1.10+.
The GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY
variable is used to control if / how Git
submodules are included when fetching the code before a build. Like
GIT_STRATEGY
, it can be set in either the global variables
section or the variables
section for individual jobs.
There are three possible values: none
, normal
, and recursive
:
none
means that submodules will not be included when fetching the project code. This is the default, which matches the pre-v1.10 behavior.-
normal
means that only the top-level submodules will be included. It is equivalent to:git submodule sync git submodule update --init
-
recursive
means that all submodules (including submodules of submodules) will be included. It is equivalent to:git submodule sync --recursive git submodule update --init --recursive
Note that for this feature to work correctly, the submodules must be configured
(in .gitmodules
) with either:
- the HTTP(S) URL of a publicly-accessible repository, or
- a relative path to another repository on the same GitLab server. See the Git submodules documentation.
Job stages attempts
Introduced in GitLab, it requires GitLab Runner v1.9+.
You can set the number for attempts the running job will try to execute each of the following stages:
Variable | Description |
---|---|
GET_SOURCES_ATTEMPTS | Number of attempts to fetch sources running a job |
ARTIFACT_DOWNLOAD_ATTEMPTS | Number of attempts to download artifacts running a job |
RESTORE_CACHE_ATTEMPTS | Number of attempts to restore the cache running a job |
The default is one single attempt.
Example:
variables:
GET_SOURCES_ATTEMPTS: 3
You can set them in the global variables
section or the
variables
section for individual jobs.
Shallow cloning
Introduced in GitLab 8.9 as an experimental feature. May change in future releases or be removed completely.
You can specify the depth of fetching and cloning using GIT_DEPTH
. This allows
shallow cloning of the repository which can significantly speed up cloning for
repositories with a large number of commits or old, large binaries. The value is
passed to git fetch
and git clone
.
Note: If you use a depth of 1 and have a queue of jobs or retry jobs, jobs may fail.
Since Git fetching and cloning is based on a ref, such as a branch name, Runners
can't clone a specific commit SHA. If there are multiple jobs in the queue, or
you are retrying an old job, the commit to be tested needs to be within the
Git history that is cloned. Setting too small a value for GIT_DEPTH
can make
it impossible to run these old commits. You will see unresolved reference
in
job logs. You should then reconsider changing GIT_DEPTH
to a higher value.
Jobs that rely on git describe
may not work correctly when GIT_DEPTH
is
set since only part of the Git history is present.
To fetch or clone only the last 3 commits:
variables:
GIT_DEPTH: "3"
Hidden keys (jobs)
Introduced in GitLab 8.6 and GitLab Runner v1.1.1.
If you want to temporarily 'disable' a job, rather than commenting out all the lines where the job is defined:
#hidden_job:
# script:
# - run test
you can instead start its name with a dot (.
) and it will not be processed by
GitLab CI. In the following example, .hidden_job
will be ignored:
.hidden_job:
script:
- run test
Use this feature to ignore jobs, or use the special YAML features and transform the hidden keys into templates.
Special YAML features
It's possible to use special YAML features like anchors (&
), aliases (*
)
and map merging (<<
), which will allow you to greatly reduce the complexity
of .gitlab-ci.yml
.
Read more about the various YAML features.
Anchors
Introduced in GitLab 8.6 and GitLab Runner v1.1.1.
YAML has a handy feature called 'anchors', which lets you easily duplicate content across your document. Anchors can be used to duplicate/inherit properties, and is a perfect example to be used with hidden keys to provide templates for your jobs.
The following example uses anchors and map merging. It will create two jobs,
test1
and test2
, that will inherit the parameters of .job_template
, each
having their own custom script
defined:
.job_template: &job_definition # Hidden key that defines an anchor named 'job_definition'
image: ruby:2.1
services:
- postgres
- redis
test1:
<<: *job_definition # Merge the contents of the 'job_definition' alias
script:
- test1 project
test2:
<<: *job_definition # Merge the contents of the 'job_definition' alias
script:
- test2 project
&
sets up the name of the anchor (job_definition
), <<
means "merge the
given hash into the current one", and *
includes the named anchor
(job_definition
again). The expanded version looks like this:
.job_template:
image: ruby:2.1
services:
- postgres
- redis
test1:
image: ruby:2.1
services:
- postgres
- redis
script:
- test1 project
test2:
image: ruby:2.1
services:
- postgres
- redis
script:
- test2 project
Let's see another one example. This time we will use anchors to define two sets
of services. This will create two jobs, test:postgres
and test:mysql
, that
will share the script
directive defined in .job_template
, and the services
directive defined in .postgres_services
and .mysql_services
respectively:
.job_template: &job_definition
script:
- test project
.postgres_services:
services: &postgres_definition
- postgres
- ruby
.mysql_services:
services: &mysql_definition
- mysql
- ruby
test:postgres:
<<: *job_definition
services: *postgres_definition
test:mysql:
<<: *job_definition
services: *mysql_definition
The expanded version looks like this:
.job_template:
script:
- test project
.postgres_services:
services:
- postgres
- ruby
.mysql_services:
services:
- mysql
- ruby
test:postgres:
script:
- test project
services:
- postgres
- ruby
test:mysql:
script:
- test project
services:
- mysql
- ruby
You can see that the hidden keys are conveniently used as templates.
Triggers
Triggers can be used to force a rebuild of a specific branch, tag or commit, with an API call.
Read more in the triggers documentation.
pages
pages
is a special job that is used to upload static content to GitLab that
can be used to serve your website. It has a special syntax, so the two
requirements below must be met:
- Any static content must be placed under a
public/
directory -
artifacts
with a path to thepublic/
directory must be defined
The example below simply moves all files from the root of the project to the
public/
directory. The .public
workaround is so cp
doesn't also copy
public/
to itself in an infinite loop:
pages:
stage: deploy
script:
- mkdir .public
- cp -r * .public
- mv .public public
artifacts:
paths:
- public
only:
- master
Read more on GitLab Pages user documentation.
Validate the .gitlab-ci.yml
Each instance of GitLab CI has an embedded debug tool called Lint.
You can find the link under /ci/lint
of your gitlab instance.
Using reserved keywords
If you get validation error when using specific values (e.g., true
or false
),
try to quote them, or change them to a different form (e.g., /bin/true
).
Skipping jobs
If your commit message contains [ci skip]
or [skip ci]
, using any
capitalization, the commit will be created but the jobs will be skipped.
Examples
Visit the examples README to see a list of examples using GitLab CI with various languages.