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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.

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:

  1. Jobs of the same stage are run in parallel.
  2. 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
  1. First, all jobs of build are executed in parallel.
  2. If all jobs of build succeed, the test jobs are executed in parallel.
  3. If all jobs of test succeed, the deploy jobs are executed in parallel.
  4. If all jobs of deploy succeed, the commit is marked as success.
  5. 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:

  1. If no stages are defined in .gitlab-ci.yml, then the build, test and deploy are allowed to be used as job's stage by default.
  2. If a job doesn't specify a stage, the job is assigned the test stage.

types

Deprecated, and will be removed in 10.0. 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.

Learn more about variables.

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.

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

only and except are two parameters that set a refs policy to limit when jobs are built:

  1. only defines the names of branches and tags for which the job will run.
  2. 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 refs policy:

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.

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:

  1. on_success - execute job only when all jobs from prior stages succeed. This is the default.
  2. on_failure - execute job only when at least one job from prior stages fails.
  3. always - execute job regardless of the status of jobs from prior stages.
  4. 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:

  1. Execute cleanup_build_job only when build_job fails.
  2. Always execute cleanup_job as the last step in pipeline regardless of success or failure.
  3. 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:

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 the name keyword.

The environment name can contain:

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.

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:

dynamic environments

Notes:

  • Introduced in GitLab 8.12 and GitLab Runner 1.6.
  • The $CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG was introduced in GitLab 8.15.

environment can also represent a configuration hash with name and url. These parameters can use any of the defined CI variables (including predefined, secure variables and .gitlab-ci.yml variables).

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:

  1. on_success - upload artifacts only when the job succeeds. This is the default.
  2. on_failure - upload artifacts only when the job fails.
  3. 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:

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.

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

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:

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:

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:

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:

Note that for this feature to work correctly, the submodules must be configured (in .gitmodules) with either:

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

Introduced in GitLab 8.6 and GitLab Runner v1.1.1.

Keys that start with a dot (.) will be not processed by GitLab CI. You can use this feature to ignore jobs, or use the special YAML features and transform the hidden keys into templates.

In the following example, .key_name will be ignored:

.key_name:
  script:
    - rake spec

Hidden keys can be hashes like normal CI jobs, but you are also allowed to use different types of structures to leverage special YAML features.

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:

  1. Any static content must be placed under a public/ directory
  2. artifacts with a path to the public/ 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.

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.

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