GitLab CI Stages, Needs, and Artifacts
A three-stage GitLab CI pipeline with a default block, global variables, artifact expiry, a needs-based DAG, and a coverage-extraction regex. The baseline the other GitLab fixtures vary from.
stages:
- build
- test
- deploy
default:
image: registry.example.invalid/ci/node:20
interruptible: true
retry:
max: 2
when: runner_system_failure
variables:
BUILD_DIR: build
GIT_DEPTH: "20"
build:
stage: build
script:
- npm ci
- npm run build
artifacts:
paths:
- $BUILD_DIR/
expire_in: 1 week
unit-tests:
stage: test
needs: [build]
script:
- npm test
coverage: '/Lines\s*:\s*(\d+\.\d+)%/'
deploy:
stage: deploy
needs: [unit-tests]
environment:
name: staging
url: https://staging.example.invalid
script:
- echo "deploying $CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA"
Specifications
- System
- GitLab CI
- Stages
- 3
- Jobs
- 3
- Needs Edges
- 2
- Has Default Block
- true
- Coverage Regex
- true
Testing contract
Expected to pass- Scenario
- Read a GitLab CI file's stage list, job graph, and coverage regex
- Expected result
- Three stages and three jobs resolve, the needs graph has two edges, and the coverage regex compiles
What is a .yml file?
YML is an alternate file extension for YAML, a human-readable data-serialization format based on indentation, key-value mappings, and lists. The content and parsing rules are identical to .yaml; only the extension differs. It is widely used for CI and application configuration files.
How to use this file
Use an example YML file to test that config loaders treat .yml and .yaml identically, and to exercise indentation, comment, and multi-document parsing.
How to use this file for testing
“GitLab CI Stages, Needs, and Artifacts” is a deterministic Novus Examples fixture for Config testing, Config parsing, Editor testing. TOML, INI, YAML, .env, and dotfile configuration samples with nested sections and typed values — for testing config parsers, loaders, and environment tooling.
Documented properties for this file: YML · 632 bytes. Compare results against paired or grouped companions on this page when present (clean↔damaged, searchable↔scanned, or format twins) so scores stay reproducible across runs.
Download the file once, keep the path stable in CI or local scripts, and treat the spec table as the contract: dimensions, seeds, field lists, and roles are intentional. Corrupt or invalid samples are labelled as such — expect parsers to fail loudly rather than silently accept them.
Pipeline and infrastructure fixtures are inert configuration: steps reference fictional images and scripts, and nothing here executes. Run your linter, schema validator, migrator, or policy engine against them, and expect the deprecated-syntax and intentionally invalid variants to be rejected.
Point your config loader at the file and assert it reads the documented sections and typed values, including any deliberately-tricky nesting or comments.
Code examples
import yaml # pip install pyyaml
with open("gitlab-ci-stages.yml") as f:
data = yaml.safe_load(f)
print(data)Related files
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- ymlGitLab CI Deprecated only/except SyntaxA deprecated-syntax GitLab CI file using `only`/`except` in both the array and keyed forms, plus the long-retired `type:` keyword. For scoring a migrator that must rewrite all of it to `rules` and `stage`.
- ymlGitLab CI Include ResolutionFive include entries across the four include kinds — local path, local glob, another project at a pinned ref, a remote URL, and a bundled template. For testing include resolvers and dependency graphing without any file actually being fetched.
- ymlGitLab CI Parallel Matrix ExpansionBoth GitLab parallelisation forms in one file: a plain `parallel: 4` shard split and a `parallel: matrix` block whose two entries expand to seven combinations. Eleven jobs in total, documented so an expander can be checked exactly.
- ymlGitLab CI Rules and Workflow ConditionsRule-driven GitLab CI: a workflow block with four ordered conditions ending in `when: never`, plus job rules combining changes patterns, regex tag matching, a null-branch comparison, and a manual allow-failure fallback.
- yamlArgo CD Application with Sync PolicyAn Argo CD Application with automated sync, prune and self-heal, retry backoff, sync options, and an ignoreDifferences rule that exempts replica counts from drift detection. All Git and cluster endpoints are example.invalid.
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