Rules and Workflow

Rules

• Purpose: Specify when a job or pipeline runs, or specify properties based on IF conditions.
• Evaluation: Evaluated in order until the first match. When found, the job is included/excluded, and the rest of the conditions are ignored.

job:
  script: echo "Hello world!"
  rules: 
  - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE=="merge_request"
	when: manual
	allow_failure: true

Common if Conditions

• $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == "main"
• $CI_COMMIT_TAG (if tag exists)
• $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "schedule"
• $MY_VARIABLE == "true"

Configurations used with if

• changes: Run job only if specific file/folders change.
• exists: Run job only if specific file exists.
• when: always, manual, never, delayed, on_success, on_failure. (defaults to never when used with Rules)
• allow_failure: If false, pipeline stops on job failure.
• variables: Set variables conditionally.
• extends: Include templates conditionally.

Workflow

• Purpose: Decides if an entire pipeline should be created or not.
• Use Case: Primarily to prevent duplicate pipelines (e.g., preventing a duplicate pipeline on push if an open Merge Request already triggered one).

workflow:
  rules:
    - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "merge_request_event"
      when: always