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GitLab

Pipeline settings

To reach the pipelines settings navigate to your project's Settings > CI/CD.

The following settings can be configured per project.

For an overview, watch the video GitLab CI Pipeline, Artifacts, and Environments. Watch also GitLab CI pipeline tutorial for beginners.

Git strategy

With Git strategy, you can choose the default way your repository is fetched from GitLab in a job.

There are two options. Using:

  • git clone, which is slower since it clones the repository from scratch for every job, ensuring that the local working copy is always pristine.
  • git fetch, which is faster as it re-uses the local working copy (falling back to clone if it doesn't exist).

The default Git strategy can be overridden by the GIT_STRATEGY variable in .gitlab-ci.yml.

Git shallow clone

Introduced in GitLab 12.0.

NOTE: Note: As of GitLab 12.0, newly created projects will automatically have a default git depth value of 50.

It is possible to limit the number of changes that GitLab CI/CD will fetch when cloning a repository. Setting a limit to git depth can speed up Pipelines execution. Maximum allowed value is 1000.

To disable shallow clone and make GitLab CI/CD fetch all branches and tags each time, keep the value empty or set to 0.

This value can also be overridden by GIT_DEPTH variable in .gitlab-ci.yml file.

Timeout

Timeout defines the maximum amount of time in minutes that a job is able run. This is configurable under your project's Settings > CI/CD > General pipelines settings. The default value is 60 minutes. Decrease the time limit if you want to impose a hard limit on your jobs' running time or increase it otherwise. In any case, if the job surpasses the threshold, it is marked as failed.

Timeout overriding on Runner level

Introduced in GitLab 10.7.

Project defined timeout (either specific timeout set by user or the default 60 minutes timeout) may be overridden on Runner level.

Maximum artifacts size (CORE ONLY)

For information about setting a maximum artifact size for a project, see Maximum artifacts size.

Custom CI configuration path

By default we look for the .gitlab-ci.yml file in the project's root directory. If needed, you can specify an alternate path and file name, including locations outside the project.

To customize the path:

  1. Go to the project's Settings > CI / CD.
  2. Expand the General pipelines section.
  3. Provide a value in the Custom CI configuration path field.
  4. Click Save changes.

If the CI configuration is stored within the repository in a non-default location, the path must be relative to the root directory. Examples of valid paths and file names include:

  • .gitlab-ci.yml (default)
  • .my-custom-file.yml
  • my/path/.gitlab-ci.yml
  • my/path/.my-custom-file.yml

If the CI configuration will be hosted on an external site, the URL link must end with .yml:

  • http://example.com/generate/ci/config.yml

If the CI configuration will be hosted in a different project within GitLab, the path must be relative to the root directory in the other project, with the group and project name added to the end:

  • .gitlab-ci.yml@mygroup/another-project
  • my/path/.my-custom-file.yml@mygroup/another-project

Hosting the configuration file in a separate project allows stricter control of the configuration file. For example:

  • Create a public project to host the configuration file.
  • Give write permissions on the project only to users who are allowed to edit the file.

Other users and projects will be able to access the configuration file without being able to edit it.

Test coverage parsing

If you use test coverage in your code, GitLab can capture its output in the job log using a regular expression. In the pipelines settings, search for the "Test coverage parsing" section.

Pipelines settings test coverage

Leave blank if you want to disable it or enter a Ruby regular expression. You can use https://rubular.com to test your regex. The regex returns the last match found in the output.

If the pipeline succeeds, the coverage is shown in the merge request widget and in the jobs table.

MR widget coverage

Build status coverage

A few examples of known coverage tools for a variety of languages can be found in the pipelines settings page.

Code Coverage history

If you want to see the evolution of your project code coverage over time, you can view a graph or download a CSV file with this data. From your project:

  1. Go to {chart} Project Analytics > Repository to see the historic data for each job listed in the dropdown above the graph.
  2. If you want a CSV file of that data, click Download raw data (.csv)

Code coverage graph of a project over time

Removing color codes

Some test coverage tools output with ANSI color codes that won't be parsed correctly by the regular expression and will cause coverage parsing to fail.

If your coverage tool doesn't provide an option to disable color codes in the output, you can pipe the output of the coverage tool through a small one line script that will strip the color codes off.

For example:

lein cloverage | perl -pe 's/\e\[?.*?[\@-~]//g'

Visibility of pipelines

Pipeline visibility is determined by:

  • Your current user access level.
  • The Public pipelines project setting under your project's Settings > CI/CD > General pipelines.

NOTE: Note: If the project visibility is set to Private, the Public pipelines setting will have no effect.

This also determines the visibility of these related features:

NOTE: Note: Currently, job logs and artifacts are not yet visible for guest users and non-project members.

If Public pipelines is enabled (default):

  • For public projects, anyone can view the pipelines and related features.
  • For internal projects, any logged in user can view the pipelines and related features.
  • For private projects, any project member (guest or higher) can view the pipelines and related features.

If Public pipelines is disabled:

  • For public projects, anyone can view the pipelines, but only members (reporter or higher) can access the related features.
  • For internal projects, any logged in user can view the pipelines. However, only members (reporter or higher) can access the job related features.
  • For private projects, only project members (reporter or higher) can view the pipelines or access the related features.

Auto-cancel pending pipelines

Introduced in GitLab 9.1.

If you want all pending non-HEAD pipelines on branches to auto-cancel each time a new pipeline is created, such as after a Git push or manually from the UI, you can enable this in the project settings:

  1. Go to {settings} Settings > CI / CD.
  2. Expand General Pipelines.
  3. Check the Auto-cancel redundant, pending pipelines checkbox.
  4. Click Save changes.

Note that only jobs with interruptible set to true will be cancelled.

Skip outdated deployment jobs

Introduced in GitLab 12.9.

Your project may have multiple concurrent deployment jobs that are scheduled to run within the same time frame.

This can lead to a situation where an older deployment job runs after a newer one, which may not be what you want.

To avoid this scenario:

  1. Go to {settings} Settings > CI / CD.
  2. Expand General pipelines.
  3. Check the Skip outdated deployment jobs checkbox.
  4. Click Save changes.

The pending deployment jobs will be skipped.

For more information, see Deployment safety.

Pipeline Badges

In the pipelines settings page you can find pipeline status and test coverage badges for your project. The latest successful pipeline will be used to read the pipeline status and test coverage values.

Visit the pipelines settings page in your project to see the exact link to your badges, as well as ways to embed the badge image in your HTML or Markdown pages.

Pipelines badges

Pipeline status badge

Depending on the status of your job, a badge can have the following values:

  • pending
  • running
  • passed
  • failed
  • skipped
  • canceled
  • unknown

You can access a pipeline status badge image using the following link:

https://example.gitlab.com/<namespace>/<project>/badges/<branch>/pipeline.svg

Test coverage report badge

GitLab makes it possible to define the regular expression for coverage report, that each job log will be matched against. This means that each job in the pipeline can have the test coverage percentage value defined.

The test coverage badge can be accessed using following link:

https://example.gitlab.com/<namespace>/<project>/badges/<branch>/coverage.svg

If you would like to get the coverage report from a specific job, you can add the job=coverage_job_name parameter to the URL. For example, the following Markdown code will embed the test coverage report badge of the coverage job into your README.md:

![coverage](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/badges/master/coverage.svg?job=coverage)

Badge styles

Pipeline badges can be rendered in different styles by adding the style=style_name parameter to the URL. Currently two styles are available:

Flat (default)

https://example.gitlab.com/<namespace>/<project>/badges/<branch>/coverage.svg?style=flat

Badge flat style

Flat square

Introduced in GitLab 11.8.

https://example.gitlab.com/<namespace>/<project>/badges/<branch>/coverage.svg?style=flat-square

Badge flat square style

Custom badge text

The text for a badge can be customized. This can be useful to differentiate between multiple coverage jobs that run in the same pipeline. Customize the badge text and width by adding the key_text=custom_text and key_width=custom_key_width parameters to the URL:

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/badges/master/coverage.svg?job=karma&key_text=Frontend+Coverage&key_width=100

Badge with custom text and width

Environment Variables

Environment variables can be set in an environment to be available to a runner.