Install the GitLab Runner with the GitLab Kubernetes Agent

Release notes

Users of custom GitLab Runners could use GitLab Managed Apps or manual installation for setting up the Runners. While the former was easy to use, it was not flexible for advanced use cases, and the latter was not integrated with GitLab, thus it meant maintenance tasks for our users. The GitLab Kubernetes Agent turns any GitLab project into a Kubernetes management project, and we have created an example repository and documentation to show how to use the Agent to install the GitLab Runner. This provides an integrated, GitLab-centered gitops workflow for managing custom runners.

Definition of Done

• Create an example project the uses the Agent to deploy Runners and register them with a GitLab instance.
• Document how to do this.

Problem to solve

As a Platform Engineer, I would like to manage GitLab Runners with the agent, so I don't have to open up my cluster towards GitLab and I can benefit from the integrated experience GitLab provides.

Intended users

• Priyanka (Platform Engineer)

User experience goal

Configure the agent to deploy GitLab Runners and register them with GitLab automatically.

Proposal

Could we do this using the current Runner Helm charts and a manifest project?

• are there any hooks in the Helm chart that prevent a simple helm template output to be deployed?
• once installed, how can we register the Runners with GitLab?

Further details

GitLab Runners are the most widely used GitLab Managed App. Still, they are not adequate for some users given the lack of customization options.

The direction of GitLab Managed Apps is to support other GitLab features, to make it easy to get started with those features. The Runner is clearly something we would like to support, even if we want to deprecate some less used GitLab Managed Apps.

Permissions and Security

Documentation

Availability & Testing

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

What is the type of buyer?

Is this a cross-stage feature?

Links / references

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