Excluding gitlab-ci.yml from merge-request - gitlab

Question

I have 2 branches: stage and master - and each of them has its own .gitlab-ci.yml with different scripts. How is it possible to exclude these files from merge-request, so that they remain unique for each of the branches?
i tried with gitattributes and merge strategy - but this method only works locally. Then I decided to create one common gitlab-ci.yml for all branches, but in this case it is necessary to set the conditions for the execution of different jobs for different branches. I tried in the following way:
runTests_job:
stage: runTests
tags:
- ps
rules:
- if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "stage"
script:
- chcp 65001
- Invoke-Sqlcmd -ConnectionString $CONNSTR -Query "EXEC dbo.test"
but the job was still running in the master branch. Also tried:
runTests_job:
stage: runTests
tags:
- ps
only:
refs:
- stage
script:
- chcp 65001
- Invoke-Sqlcmd -ConnectionString $CONNSTR -Query "EXEC dbo.test"
but it didn't work. Maybe I made a mistake in the syntax somewhere?

Answer 1

You can use make custom variables and conditions when the pipeline should run.
You can check from which branch the commit is been made and the accordingly you can check and run the script.
variables:
DEPLOY_VARIABLE: "default-deploy"
workflow:
rules:
- if: $CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH # master
variables:
DEPLOY_VARIABLE: "deploy-master" # Override DEPLOY_VARIABLE
- when: always # Run pipeline in other cases
job1:
rules:
- if: $DEPLOY_VARIABLE == "deploy-master"
# run the script
script:
- chcp 65001
- Invoke-Sqlcmd -ConnectionString $CONNSTR -Query "EXEC dbo.test"
job2:
rules:
- if: $DEPLOY_VARIABLE == "deploy-staging"
# run the script
script:
- chcp 65001
- Invoke-Sqlcmd -ConnectionString $CONNSTR -Query "EXEC dbo.test"
Just a heads-up the syntax could be a bit wrong. But you can use the concept to proceed further.
You might also want to refer to the docs: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/