gitlab-ci.yml - parameterize job:when or expose $job_JOBNAME_result for better flow control

job:when currently allows four options:

• on_success
• on_failure
• always
• manual

What I'm trying to achieve is something among these lines:

run this job only when job1 and job2 are successful

Better explained by the gitlab-ci.yml example itself:

stages:
- build
- deploy

lint:
  stage: build
  allow_failure: true
  script:
  - make lint

test:
  stage: build
  script:
  - make test

compile:
  stage: build
  script:
  - make

assets:
  stage: build
  script:
  - make assets

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  when:
    on_success:
    - compile
    - assets
  script:
  - cap deploy

We could achieve the same result by adding allow_failure: true to the test job but then it would mark all builds as successful/green. What we're really looking to do is to mark the build as failed but yet execute some jobs based on the result of particular jobs. It's not possible today - on_success and on_failure run based on the result of the stage, not job.

An alternative approach that doesn't involve extending the current syntax is to expose some extra variables, e.g. $job_JOBNAME_result, in this case, $job_lint_result, $job_test_result, $job_compile_result and $job_assets_result. With this, I can simply exit 0 inside deploy based on results of specific jobs.

Your thoughts on this syntax, @ayufan and @tmaczukin?