lint

I was trying to get started with GitLab CI today and trying for a few hours to get a working .gitlab-ci.yml. I found https://gitlab.com/ci/lint which is a huge help, but hard to find which fails the error message Error: jobs:job config can't be blank for the file

before_script:
- wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/1.8.1/vagrant_1.8.1_x86_64.deb && sudo dpkg -i vagrant_1.8.1_x86_64.deb
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install tor
# avoid `AppArmor parser error for /etc/apparmor.d/lxc-containers in /etc/apparmor.d/lxc-containers at line 5: Could not open 'tunables/global'` during `dpkg` for `lxc` (use `yes` command because `apt-get --yes` might have no effect of `dpkg`) (`apparmor` issue reported as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lxc/+bug/969228)
# removing `postgresql` in order to avoid `Refused to start PostgreSQL 9.4, because PostgreSQL 9.1 is currently running! You should first stop 9.1 instance...` (stopping service `postgresql` and `sudo apt-get remove postgresql` don't help - yes this doesn't make sense and sucks)
# - yes | sudo apt-get remove postgresql-9.1
# - yes | sudo apt-get upgrade
# - yes | sudo apt-get upgrade apparmor
- git clone https://git.torproject.org/torsocks.git && cd torsocks && ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make -j && sudo make install && cd ..
    # avoid `libtorsocks(4279): WARNING: The symbol res_send() was not found in any shared library with the reported error: Not Found!`
- sudo apt-get install ruby apache2 git apt-cacher-ng qemu-kvm virt-what lxc lxctl fakeroot faketime zip unzip subversion debian-archive-keyring curl pkg-config libgtk2.0-dev libglib2.0-dev python-vm-builder libparallel-forkmanager-perl
     # `python-vm-builder` and `libparallel-forkmanager-perl` aren't listed in the error message, but are necessary
# prerequisites for gitian build
- sudo apt-get install libyaml-perl libfile-slurp-perl libxml-writer-perl libio-captureoutput-perl libfile-which-perl libxml-libxml-perl
- git clone -b tor-browser-builder-3 https://git.torproject.org/builders/gitian-builder.git ../gitian-builder
- wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.1.26/virtualbox-5.1_5.1.26-117224~Ubuntu~zesty_amd64.deb && (sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-5.1_5.1.26-117224~Ubuntu~zesty_amd64.deb || /bin/true) && sudo apt-get install -f
    # avoid `No usable default provider could be found for your system.` when building with `vagrant`
    # installation fails at first because of missing dependencies which are then fixed with `apt-get install -f`

job:
script:
- cd gitian
- make -j alpha USE_LXC=1 TORSOCKS=
    # need to use `alpha` to build on master
- cd .. && cd vagrant
- make -j TORSOCKS=

This error message is not very helpful and made me think which shouldn't be the case. After working through the many documentation locations listed below, I have absolutely no clue what could be wrong (there's no config element mentioned in the docs and I don't even get a line number of the location of the error). I'm aware of the difficulty of providing meaningful error messages in a context-sensitive parsing problem, but this absolute absence of clue shouldn't be the outcome of validation.

The seems to be a mentionable redundancy of documentation considering https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/user/project/pages/getting_started_part_four.html, https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/ci/examples/README.html, https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/ci/quick_start/README.html and https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/ci/yaml/README.html, ... (some isn't avoidable like summarized information in a quick start guide, but a lot is).

Please note that this is not a support request, I'm trying to get this issue fixed for everyone instead of finding a workaround for myself and leave the issue untouched.

Edited Sep 10, 2017 by Karl-Philipp Richter