Runner terminology
Problem to solve
There are several GitLab Runner terms that need clarification.
UPDATE: We are working a bit in this google sheet.
If you're reading this issue, please update this table with any terms you'd like to see clarified. If you want to add a definition, that's great, but it's not required.
Term | Definition/usage |
---|---|
runner | The agent that runs your CI job |
GitLab Runner | The product you install. GitLab Runner is installed on a host. A runner is registered on a host? |
runner manager | Used for auto-scaling |
gitlab-runner binary |
If you manage your own runners, you either use the runner container or you install the gitlab-runner binary |
gitlab-runner user |
Mostly for Linux. We have at least two users - the owner of the process and the owner of the job script execution, sometimes there are the same, sometimes not. |
the runner process | Started by the gitlab-runner binary |
worker | A single [[runners]] entry in the runner config file |
runner config file | |
GitLab.com shared runners | Shared runners managed by GitLab. Available only on GitLab.com for projects on GitLab.com |
self-managed shared runners | Shared runners managed by administrators of a self-managed GitLab installation |
Runner Cloud | |
Runner Core | |
Runner Enterprise Management | |
gitlab-ci coordinator URL | The URL you use when registering a runner |
the runner's host | The machine or the container where GitLab Runner is running, and where jobs will be run. (Although if you have Docker-in-Docker, the host is the second container, right?) |
Windows shared runner | |
executor | |
instance runners | I don't think we use this term? Though we are thinking about it. |
Need a term for "the main pod" when describing what we do in Kubernetes. (See comment below.) | |
Edited by Suzanne Selhorn