Allow defining scheduled pipelines triggers as yaml

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Proposal

Currently, pipelines can only be triggered on a schedule using the UI (CI/CD -> Schedules), or REST API. Ideally, it should be possible to define schedules in the .gitlab-ci.yml file. This has several benefits, but most importantly, we can use a single schedule definition and share it with other projects using include. This also complies with our policies to define (as much as possible) "as code".

See: https://support.gitlab.com/hc/en-us/requests/182472

Intended users

Proposal

Option A : In .gitlab-ci.yml (keeps all CI/CD config in one place)

Add a new top-level schedules keyword that allows defining multiple schedules directly from code. Proposed syntax:

schedules:
- name: Schedule name
  cron: * * * * *
  timezone: UTC # could come in future iteration
  target_branch: main
  variables: {} # could come in future iteration

Required fields:

  • name
  • cron

Field with defaults values:

  • timezone: Defaults to UTC
  • target_branch: Defaults to CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH
  • variables: Defaults to an empty block {}

Option B : Separate .gitlab-pipeline-schedule.yml file

yaml

`# .gitlab/schedules.yml (on default branch) schedules:

  • name: "Nightly build" cron: "0 2 * * *" ref: main variables: ENVIRONMENT: production`

Design ideas/questions

  • Which option is the preferred configuration approach?
  • Which takes precedence in case of conflict between schedules block in the gitlab-ci.yml, schedules in UI or defined through the API? The last schedule change takes precedence
Edited by Rutvik Shah