Romain Lespinasse

    Optimizing Shared GitLab Pipelines: Flexibility and Maintainability

    Posted on 2 mins

    Gitlab Ci/Cd

    Table of Contents

    The Challenge

    A colleague seeks to modify the script section of a job in a shared GitLab pipeline, facing hardcoded configuration:

    # https://gitlab.com/rlespinasse/foobar-shared-ci-templates/-/blob/main/pipeline-with-hardcoded-values.yml
test-branch:
  stage: test
  before_script:
    - ls
  script: # it's for the example, the script can be more complex
    - ls ./wrong-folder

    This rigid setup causes pipeline failure in their project:

    # https://gitlab.com/rlespinasse/foobar-project/-/blob/main/.gitlab-ci.yml
include:
  - project: 'rlespinasse/foobar-shared-ci-templates'
    ref: HEAD
    file:
      - '/pipeline-with-hardcoded-values.yml'

    $ ls ./wrong-folder
ls: cannot access './wrong-folder': No such file or directory

    Ideal Solution

    The optimal approach involves implementing variables as configuration points :

    # https://gitlab.com/rlespinasse/foobar-shared-ci-templates/-/blob/main/pipeline-with-variables.yml
variables:
  FOLDER_TO_TEST: wrong-folder

test-branch:
  stage: test
  before_script:
    - ls
  script:
    - ls ./${FOLDER_TO_TEST}

    This method allows for easy customization:

    # https://gitlab.com/rlespinasse/foobar-project/-/merge_requests/2
include:
  - project: 'rlespinasse/foobar-shared-ci-templates'
    ref: HEAD
    file:
      - '/pipeline-with-variables.yml'

variables:
  FOLDER_TO_TEST: folder

    $ ls ./${FOLDER_TO_TEST}
some-file

    Temporary Workaround

    In the meantime, one can override only the script part:

    # https://gitlab.com/rlespinasse/foobar-project/-/merge_requests/1
include:
  - project: 'rlespinasse/foobar-shared-ci-templates'
    ref: HEAD
    file:
      - '/pipeline-with-hardcoded-values.yml'

test-branch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - ls ./folder

    $ ls ./folder
some-file

    Conclusion

    While functional, this temporary solution may lead to divergences and maintenance issues.

    It’s recommended to contribute to open source or innersource projects (especially during Hacktoberfest ) by proposing the addition of variables. This would allow users to adapt shared pipeline behaviors to their needs while preserving the original intent.

    Explore the code

    You can explore the code on those repositories: