gitlab-ci-cd

Reuse arbitrary script blocks without full job inheritance. With the !reference tag, you can inject specific script arrays from one section of your YAML into another, avoiding copy-paste errors for repeated commands.

Keep your code DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). Use extends to inherit properties from hidden base jobs. Define common configurations like scripts or rules once and reuse them across multiple jobs effortlessly.

Manage complex pipelines by splitting large YAML files. Use include to import configuration from local files, remote URLs, or centralized templates, keeping your main .gitlab-ci.yml clean and readable.

Automate your changelog. We’ll use the Release keyword to automatically generate release notes, tag your commit, and attach binary assets, creating a formal snapshot of your software that users can download.

Clean up after yourself. We’ll define on_stop actions to automatically tear down temporary Review Apps when a Merge Request is merged or closed, preventing resource waste and keeping your infrastructure tidy.

Preview changes before merging. We’ll set up Review Apps to spin up a temporary, live environment for every Merge Request, allowing stakeholders to test new features in a browser immediately.

Organize your release strategy. We'll structure pipelines to deploy automatically to Staging for testing, while reserving Production for stable releases, potentially using Canary deployments to roll out changes gradually.

Track where your code lives. By defining an environment in your job, GitLab tracks deployments in the UI, giving you a history of what version of code is currently running in Staging, Production, or Development.

Once built, images need a home. We’ll authenticate with GitLab’s integrated Container Registry to push your build artifacts securely, making them instantly available for deployment or other projects to consume.

CI is the perfect place to bake Docker images. We’ll cover Docker-in-Docker (dind) for standard builds and explore Kaniko for building images in secure Kubernetes environments without needing privileged access.