when: manual in downstream pipeline causes upstream to report failure - gitlab

Question

I am using a multi-project pipeline to separate my end to end tests from my main application code. My end of end tests, if I run the full suite, can take a significant amount of time. I’ve nicely broken them into various groupings using pytest and it’s mark feature.
I’d like to be able to run specific scenarios from within the pipeline now by setting each of these different scenarios to when: manual . Unfortunately, as soon as I add this, the child pipeline reports it has failed to the parent and progress stops. I can manually run each section, as expected, but even then success is not reported back to the parent pipeline.
This is an example of the pipeline. The Integration Tests step has reported a failure, and I’ve manually run the Fast Tests from the downstream pipeline. It has passed, and as the only job in the pipeline the entire downstream pipeline passes. Yet the parent still reports failure so Deploy doesn’t get run.
If I remove when: manual from the downstream pipeline, Integration Tests will run the full test suite, pass, and Deploy will move on as expected.
This is the parent project pipeline.
image: "python:3.7"
before_script:
- python --version
- pip install -r requirements.txt
- export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:./src
- python -c "import sys;print(sys.path)"
stages:
- Static Analysis
- Local Tests
- Integration Tests
- Deploy
mypy:
stage: Static Analysis
script:
- mypy .
flake8:
stage: Static Analysis
script:
- flake8 --max-line-length=88
pytest-smoke:
stage: Local Tests
script:
- pytest -m smoke
pytest-unit:
stage: Local Tests
script:
- pytest -m unittest
pytest-slow:
stage: Local Tests
script:
- pytest -m slow
pytest-fast:
stage: Local Tests
script:
- pytest -m fast
int-tests:
stage: Integration Tests
trigger:
project: andy/gitlab-integration-testing-integration-tests
strategy: depend
deploy:
stage: Deploy
when: manual
script:
- echo "Deployed!"
The end to end tests pipeline looks like this:
image: "python:3.7"
before_script:
- python --version
- pip install -r requirements.txt
- export PYTHONPATH=${PYTHONPATH}:./src
- python -c "import sys;print(sys.path)"
stages:
- Fast Tests
pytest-smoke:
stage: Fast Tests
when: manual
script:
- pytest -m smoke
How can I selectively (manually) run downstream jobs and report success back to the parent pipeline? Without when: manual in that last step on the end to end (downstream) pipeline it performs exactly as I want. But, in the real world pipeline I have, I don’t want to run the end to end tests on everything. Usually it is selected scenarios.
I am currently running: GitLab Enterprise Edition 13.2.2-ee