Skip to content

Pipelines for the GitLab project

Pipelines for gitlab-org/gitlab and gitlab-org/gitlab-foss (as well as the dev instance's mirrors) are configured in the usual .gitlab-ci.yml which itself includes files under .gitlab/ci/ for easier maintenance.

We're striving to dogfood GitLab CI/CD features and best-practices as much as possible.

Stages

The current stages are:

  • prepare: This stage includes jobs that prepare artifacts that are needed by jobs in subsequent stages.
  • quick-test: This stage includes test jobs that should run first and fail the pipeline early (currently used to run Geo tests when the branch name starts with geo-, geo/, or ends with -geo).
  • test: This stage includes most of the tests, DB/migration jobs, and static analysis jobs.
  • review-prepare: This stage includes a job that build the CNG images that are later used by the (Helm) Review App deployment (see Review Apps for details).
  • review: This stage includes jobs that deploy the GitLab and Docs Review Apps.
  • qa: This stage includes jobs that perform QA tasks against the Review App that is deployed in the previous stage.
  • post-test: This stage includes jobs that build reports or gather data from the previous stages' jobs (e.g. coverage, Knapsack metadata etc.).
  • pages: This stage includes a job that deploys the various reports as GitLab pages (e.g. https://gitlab-org.gitlab.io/gitlab/coverage-ruby/, https://gitlab-org.gitlab.io/gitlab/coverage-javascript/, https://gitlab-org.gitlab.io/gitlab/webpack-report/).

Default image

The default image is currently dev.gitlab.org:5005/gitlab/gitlab-build-images:ruby-2.6.3-golang-1.11-git-2.22-chrome-73.0-node-12.x-yarn-1.16-postgresql-9.6-graphicsmagick-1.3.33. It includes Ruby 2.6.3, Go 1.11, Git 2.22, Chrome 73, Node 12, Yarn 1.16, PostgreSQL 9.6, and Graphics Magick 1.3.33.

The images used in our pipelines are configured in the gitlab-org/gitlab-build-images project, which is push-mirrored to https://dev.gitlab.org/gitlab/gitlab-build-images for redundancy.

The current version of the build images can be found in the "Used by GitLab CE/EE section".

Default variables

In addition to the predefined variables, each pipeline includes the following variables:

  • RAILS_ENV: "test"
  • NODE_ENV: "test"
  • SIMPLECOV: "true"
  • GIT_DEPTH: "20"
  • GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY: "none"
  • GET_SOURCES_ATTEMPTS: "3"
  • KNAPSACK_RSPEC_SUITE_REPORT_PATH: knapsack/${CI_PROJECT_NAME}/rspec_report-master.json
  • EE_KNAPSACK_RSPEC_SUITE_REPORT_PATH: knapsack/${CI_PROJECT_NAME}/rspec_report-master-ee.json
  • FLAKY_RSPEC_SUITE_REPORT_PATH: rspec_flaky/report-suite.json
  • BUILD_ASSETS_IMAGE: "false"
  • ES_JAVA_OPTS: "-Xms256m -Xmx256m"
  • ELASTIC_URL: "http://elastic:changeme@docker.elastic.co-elasticsearch-elasticsearch:9200"

Common job definitions

Most of the jobs extend from a few CI definitions that are scoped to a single configuration parameter.

These common definitions are:

  • .default-tags: Ensures a job has the gitlab-org tag to ensure it's using our dedicated runners.
  • .default-retry: Allows a job to retry upon unknown_failure, api_failure, runner_system_failure.
  • .default-before_script: Allows a job to use a default before_script definition suitable for Ruby/Rails tasks that may need a database running (e.g. tests).
  • .default-cache: Allows a job to use a default cache definition suitable for Ruby/Rails and frontend tasks.
  • .default-only: Restricts the cases where a job is created. This currently includes master, /^[\d-]+-stable(-ee)?$/ (stable branches), /^\d+-\d+-auto-deploy-\d+$/ (security branches), merge_requests, tags. Note that jobs won't be created for branches with this default configuration.
  • .only-review: Only creates a job for the gitlab-org namespace and if Kubernetes integration is available. Also, prevents a job from being created for master and auto-deploy branches.
  • .only-review-schedules: Same as .only-review but also restrict a job to only run for schedules.
  • .use-pg: Allows a job to use the postgres:9.6.14 and redis:alpine services.
  • .use-pg-10: Allows a job to use the postgres:10.9 and redis:alpine services.
  • .only-ee: Only creates a job for the gitlab project.

Changes detection

If a job extends from .default-only (and most of the jobs should), it can restrict the cases where it should be created based on the changes from a commit or MR by extending from the following CI definitions:

  • .only-code-changes: Allows a job to only be created upon code-related changes.
  • .only-qa-changes: Allows a job to only be created upon QA-related changes.
  • .only-docs-changes: Allows a job to only be created upon docs-related changes.
  • .only-code-qa-changes: Allows a job to only be created upon code-related or QA-related changes.

See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/blob/master/.gitlab/ci/global.gitlab-ci.yml for the list of exact patterns.

Directed acyclic graph

We're using the needs: keyword to execute jobs out of order for the following jobs:

graph RL;
  A[setup-test-env];
  B["gitlab:assets:compile<br/>(master only)"];
  C[gitlab:assets:compile pull-cache];
  D["cache gems<br/>(master and tags only)"];
  E[review-build-cng];
  F[build-qa-image];
  G[review-deploy];
  G2["schedule:review-deploy<br/>(master only)"];
  H[karma];
  I[jest];
  J["compile-assets<br/>(master only)"];
  K[compile-assets pull-cache];
  L[webpack-dev-server];
  M[coverage];
  N[pages];
  O[static-analysis];
  P["package-and-qa-manual:master<br/>(master schedule only)"];
  Q[package-and-qa];
  R[package-and-qa-manual];

subgraph "`prepare` stage"
    A
    F
    J
    K
    end

subgraph "`test` stage"
    B --> |needs| A;
    C --> |needs| A;
    D --> |needs| A;
    H -.-> |depends on| A;
    H -.-> |depends on| J;
    H -.-> |depends on| K;
    I -.-> |depends on| A;
    I -.-> |depends on| J;
    I -.-> |depends on| K;
    L -.-> |depends on| A;
    L -.-> |depends on| J;
    L -.-> |depends on| K;
    downtime_check --> |needs and depends on| A;
    db:* --> |needs| A;
    gitlab:setup --> |needs| A;
    O -.-> |depends on| A;
    O -.-> |depends on| B;
    O -.-> |depends on| C;
    downtime_check --> |needs and depends on| A;
    end

subgraph "`review-prepare` stage"
    E --> |needs| C;
    X["schedule:review-build-cng<br/>(master schedule only)"] --> |needs| B;
    end

subgraph "`review` stage"
    G --> |needs| E;
    G2 --> |needs| E;
    end

subgraph "`qa` stage"
    Q --> |needs| C;
    Q --> |needs| F;
    R --> |needs| C;
    R --> |needs| F;
    P --> |needs| B;
    P --> |needs| F;
    review-qa-smoke -.-> |depends on| G;
    review-qa-all -.-> |depends on| G;
    review-qa-performance -.-> |depends on| G;
    X2["schedule:review-performance<br/>(master only)"] -.-> |depends on| G2;
    dast -.-> |depends on| G;
    end

subgraph "`post-test` stage"
    M
    end

subgraph "`pages` stage"
    N -.-> |depends on| B;
    N -.-> |depends on| H;
    N -.-> |depends on| M;
    end

Test jobs

Consult GitLab tests in the Continuous Integration (CI) context for more information.

Review app jobs

Consult the Review Apps dedicated page for more information.

Return to Development documentation