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GitLab CI pipelines

When working in GitLab, for example on merge requests, you will notice green ticks, red crosses and yellow warning symbols.

To complete a work item, in general the gate is green ticks and reviewed yellow warnings. But you are not alone! Sometimes getting the tests green can be a challenge. The investigation can be rewarding but don't feel you need to work alone. Very often, tickets are completed by several contributors so reach out to maintainers if you would like some input on diagnosing or fixing tests.

These show the result of the pipeline: a set of automated jobs that runs every time you push to a branch.

LocalGov Drupal projects use the standard Drupal GitLab CI templates, so most projects run the same set of jobs.

Screenshot of the pipelines with some red crosses and green ticks

Diagnosing problems

Items can be clicked to see logs and drill down to diagnose the issue. In amongst the output are often a few lines that describe the error.

For PHPUnit tests we can drill down to see real test artefacts. We don't cover that fully here - it's a big topic!

Composer

Builds the project and installs its dependencies. If this job fails, nothing else can run. Failures here are usually a problem in composer.json or a dependency conflict.

Coding standards

Checks the code against Drupal coding standards with PHPCS, runs static analysis with PHPStan, and lints JavaScript, CSS and spelling. Some of these jobs are allowed to fail, which is what the yellow warning symbol means. A warning will not block a merge, but it is good practice to fix what you reasonably can while you are in the code.

PHP unit testing

Runs the project's PHPUnit tests against a Drupal installation. If your change breaks a test, the job log shows which test failed and why. If you are adding a feature or fixing a bug, consider whether a test should be added or updated as part of the merge request.

Building pages (assembling docs)

This documentation site has a pages job that builds the MkDocs site from the markdown files. A green tick on the pipeline means your change builds cleanly and will publish when merged.