I need to exclude a job from pipeline in case my project version is pre-release.
How I know it's a pre-release?
I set the following in the version info file, that all project files and tools use:
version = "1.2.3-pre"
From CI script, I parse the file, extract the version value, and know whether it's a pre-release or not, and can set the result in an environment variable.
The only way I know to exclude a job from pipeline is to use rules, while, I know also from gitlab docs that:
rules are evaluated before any jobs run
before_script also is claimed to be called with the script, i.e. after applying the rules.
I can stop the job, only after it starts from the script itself, based on the version value, but what I need is to extract the job from the pipeline in the first place, so it's not displayed in the pipeline history. Any idea?
Thanks
How do you run (start) your pipeline, and is the information whether "it's a pre-release" already known at this point?
If yes, then you could add a flag like IS_PRERELEASE as a variable to the pipeline, and use that in the rules: section of your job. The drawback is that this will not work with automatic pipelines (triggered by a commit or MR); but you can use this approach with manually triggered pipelines (https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/#override-a-variable-when-running-a-pipeline-manually) or via the API (https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/triggers/#pass-cicd-variables-in-the-api-call).
Related
I have a few use cases in my Gitlab setup I would like to be able to support:
If a certain label (let's call it “skip_build”) is set, the deployment steps should not be run when I merge an MR to a main branch. This would be useful when we have multiple MRs being merged right after another and only need the last one built.
If another label (we'll call it “skip_tests”) is set, I should be able to read it as an env var from within the script and alter the flow within the script accordingly (using normal bash syntax), e.g. to alter the package command parameters used a bit. This is useful for small changes where it might not make sense to run a lengthy test suite.
Is this possible with Gitlab, and if so, how?
I’ve tried experimenting with CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS, but it doesn’t seem to be able to read that as an env var from within the script.
You have to use merge request pipelines for the CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS variable (and other MR-related variables) to be present as documented in predefined variables.
You could use a rules: clause to skip jobs. Something like
build:
rules: # only run this job if the regex pattern does not match
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS !~ /skip_build/
You can also do this on any other kind of predefined (or user-defined) variable, like branch name, commit messages, MR titles, etc. Whatever works for you.
For example, a built in feature of GitLab is that if your commit message contains [ci skip] it will prevent the pipeline from running. You could implement similar functionality for your jobs and/or pipelines through rules: or workflow:rules:.
I have a GitLab CI pipeline with a 'migration' job which I want to be added only if certain files changed between current commit and master branch, but in my current project I'm forced to use GitLab CI pipelines for push event which complicates things.
Docs on rules:changes clearly states that it will glitch and will not work properly without MR (my case of push event), so that's out of question.
Docs on rules:if states that it only works with env variables. But docs on passing CI/CD variables to another job clearly states that
These variables cannot be used as CI/CD variables to configure a
pipeline, but they can be used in job scripts.
So, now I'm stuck. I can just skip running the job in question overriding the script and checking for file changes, but what I want is not adding the job in question to pipeline in first place.
While you can't add a job alone to a pipeline based on the output of a script, you can add a child pipeline dynamically based on the script output. The method of using rules: with dynamic variables won't work because rules: are evaluated at the time the pipeline is created, as you found in the docs.
However, you can achieve the same effect using dynamic child-pipelines feature. The idea is you dynamically create the YAML for the desired pipeline in a job. That YAML created by your job will be used to create a child pipeline, which your pipeline can depend on.
Sadly, to add/remove a Gitlab job based on variables created from a previous job is not possible for a given pipeline
A way to achieve this is if your break your current pipeline to an upstream and downstream
The upstream will have 2 jobs
The first one will use your script to define a variable
This job will trigger the downstream, passing this variable
Upstream
check_val:
...
script:
... Script imposes the logic with the needed checks
... If true
- echo "MY_CONDITIONAL_VAR=true" >> var.env
... If false
- echo "MY_CONDITIONAL_VAR=false" >> var.env
artifacts:
reports:
dotenv: var.env
trigger_your_original_pipeline:
...
variables:
MY_CONDITIONAL_VAR: "$MY_CONDITIONAL_VAR"
trigger:
project: "project_namespance/project"
The downstream would be your original pipeline
Downstream
...
migration:
...
rules:
- if: '$MY_CONDITIONAL_VAR == "true"'
Now the MY_CONDITIONAL_VAR will be available at the start of the pipeline, so you can impose rules to add or not the migration job
I want to set the value of a variable based on whether loading from a cache has succeeded.
I plan to set the variable using an if statement, the same way they do in this example: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#workflowrulesvariables
(The link goes to the wrong part of the page: search for Example of workflow:rules:variables )
If my yaml looks like this:
cache:
key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
paths:
- pathtocache
How can I check if pathtocache exists?
This isn't possible due to the lifecycle of when rules are evaluated, which is before the cache/artifacts are restored. Keep in mind the rules can be used to define whether or not the job runs, so they are evaluated at pipeline start before any jobs have been run and thus before you would have generated any cache files.
If you want to test whether the cache has been populated then branch your job's logic based on that, you will have to do so within the script block for your job.
i am currently facing an issue using Gitlab-ci. i am using gitlab 13.12 community edition.
I want to be able to override the value of a CICD variable from within a gitlab-ci.yml job.
you might say that i could just pass out the value from one job to another but the goal is to change that value so that , on the next pipeline , all my jobs will use the updated one.
To be precise , i want to be able to change MY_CICD_VARIABLE_TO_CHANGE that i've defined in project > cicd > variables. and update this value from a gitlab-ci job
something like this but not only change it for the current pipeline but update it :
change_variable_value:
stage: "change_variable"
image: myimage
script:
- $MY_CICD_VARIABLE_TO_CHANGE="value_changed"
, i tried to do every single solutions specify here :
https://docs.gitlab.com/13.12/ee/ci/variables/index.html#override-a-defined-cicd-variable
nothing seems to work.
I also tried to use artefact but it seems that i am not able to pass artefact between 2 distinct pipelines, they have to be part of the same pipeline , even by curling the api (at least in the community edition)
Any idea is more than welcome :)
Is there any way to extend and run only a specific job from another pipeline in my current pipeline without copy-pasting it?
For example I have two pipelines:
1. build -> code_check -> auto_test -> deploy
2. auto_test* -> report
I want to execute pipeline 2 where auto_test* executes on another runner while keeping the job's keys exactly as they are in pipeline 1 (except for "tags" which I add in the job to be able to use another runner).
I have a process restriction that I can't change anything in pipeline 1 config so I need a way to execute only a specific job.
I have tried to do that through include .gitlab-ci.yaml+extends:. It somewhat works but pipeline 2 will have all jobs from both pipelines and it is not what I would like to see.
The most straightforward way would be just to copy on each update auto_test job specification from pipeline 1 into my gitlab-ci YAML of pipeline 2 and adding tags: ["MyRunner"] but I hoped there is a built-in way to do that.