GitLab Continuous Integration (GitLab CI)

The benefits of Continuous Integration are huge when automation plays an integral part of your workflow. GitLab comes with built-in Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, and Continuous Delivery support to build, test, and deploy your application.

Here's some info we've gathered to get you started.

Getting started

The first steps towards your GitLab CI journey.

• Getting started with GitLab CI
• Pipelines and jobs
• Configure a Runner, the application that runs your jobs
• Articles:
  • Getting started with GitLab and GitLab CI - Intro to CI
  • Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment with GitLab - Intro to CI/CD
  • GitLab CI: Run jobs sequentially, in parallel, or build a custom pipeline
  • Setting up GitLab Runner For Continuous Integration
  • GitLab CI: Deployment & environments
• Videos:
  • Demo (Streamed live on Jul 17, 2017): GitLab CI/CD Deep Dive
  • Demo (March, 2017): how to get started using CI/CD with GitLab
  • Webcast (April, 2016): getting started with CI in GitLab
• Third-party videos:
  • Intégration continue avec GitLab (September, 2016)
  • GitLab CI for Minecraft Plugins (July, 2016)

Reference guides

Once you get familiar with the getting started guides, you'll find yourself digging into specific reference guides.

• .gitlab-ci.yml reference - Learn all about the ins and outs of .gitlab-ci.yml definitions
• CI Variables - Learn how to use variables defined in your .gitlab-ci.yml or secured ones defined in your project's settings
• The permissions model - Learn about the access levels a user can have for performing certain CI actions
  • User permissions
  • Job permissions

Auto DevOps

• Auto DevOps

GitLab CI + Docker

Leverage the power of Docker to run your CI pipelines.

• Use Docker images with GitLab Runner
• Use CI to build Docker images
• CI services (linked Docker containers)
• Articles:
  • Setting up GitLab Runner For Continuous Integration

Advanced use

Once you get familiar with the basics of GitLab CI, it's time to dive in and learn how to leverage its potential even more.

• Environments and deployments - Separate your jobs into environments and use them for different purposes like testing, building and deploying
• Job artifacts
• Git submodules - How to run your CI jobs when Git submodules are involved
• Auto deploy
• Use SSH keys in your build environment and status of each CI environment running on Kubernetes
• Trigger pipelines through the GitLab API
• Trigger pipelines on a schedule
• Deploy Boards - Check the current health
• Kubernetes clusters - Integrate one or more Kubernetes clusters to your project

Review Apps

• Review Apps
• Articles:
  • Introducing Review Apps
  • Example project that shows how to use Review Apps

GitLab CI for GitLab Pages

See the topic on GitLab Pages.

Special configuration

You can change the default behavior of GitLab CI in your whole GitLab instance as well as in each project.

• Project specific
  • Pipelines settings
  • Learn how to enable or disable GitLab CI
• Affecting the whole GitLab instance
  • Continuous Integration admin settings

Examples

Note: A collection of .gitlab-ci.yml files is maintained at the GitLab CI Yml project. If your favorite programming language or framework is missing we would love your help by sending a merge request with a .gitlab-ci.yml.

Here is an collection of tutorials and guides on setting up your CI pipeline.

• GitLab CI examples for the following languages and frameworks:
  • PHP
  • Ruby
  • Python
  • Clojure
  • Scala
  • Phoenix
  • Run PHP Composer & NPM scripts then deploy them to a staging server
  • Analyze code quality with the Code Climate CLI
• Articles
  • How to test and deploy Laravel/PHP applications with GitLab CI/CD and Envoy
  • How to deploy Maven projects to Artifactory with GitLab CI/CD
  • Automated Debian packaging
  • Spring boot application with GitLab CI and Kubernetes
  • Setting up GitLab CI for iOS projects
  • Setting up GitLab CI for Android projects
  • Building a new GitLab Docs site with Nanoc, GitLab CI, and GitLab Pages
  • CI/CD with GitLab in action
  • Building an Elixir Release into a Docker image using GitLab CI
• Miscellaneous
  • Using dpl as deployment tool
  • Repositories with examples for various languages
  • The .gitlab-ci.yml file for GitLab itself
  • Example project that shows how to use Review Apps

Integrations

• Articles:
  • Continuous Delivery with GitLab and Convox
  • Getting Started with GitLab and Shippable Continuous Integration
  • GitLab Partners with DigitalOcean to make Continuous Integration faster, safer, and more affordable

Why GitLab CI?

• Articles:
  • Why We Chose GitLab CI for our CI/CD Solution
  • Building our web-app on GitLab CI: 5 reasons why Captain Train migrated from Jenkins to GitLab CI

Breaking changes

• CI variables renaming for GitLab 9.0 Read about the deprecated CI variables and what you should use for GitLab 9.0+.
• New CI job permissions model Read about what changed in GitLab 8.12 and how that affects your jobs. There's a new way to access your Git submodules and LFS objects in jobs.