Docs feedback: Develop holistic approach to denoting limitations of using GitLab CI/CD with external repositories
Background
The GitLab CI/CD for external repositories documentation carries a limitations section that describes some of the limitations associated with using GitLab CI/CD for external repositories.
The Problem and The Impact
The limitations section does not carry a complete list of limitations associated with using GitLab CI/CD for external repositories. I am opening this docs issue/feature proposal on behalf of a customer who would like to see a proactive and holistic approach to maintaining this list of limitations. In their words, the impact that not having this functionality has:
Engineers can spend time trying to implement a GitLab feature that is documented, not knowing that it isn’t supported on mirrored repos
Examples
In December 2020, this customer recently opened a support ticket (available to GitLab team members with access to ZenDesk) that was ultimately resolved by updating the documentation to note that the specific piece of functionality that they were interested in was not available to them because they were using GitLab CI/CD with an external repository. The MR that resulted from that support ticket:
In January 2021, this customer opened another support ticket (available to GitLab team members with access to ZenDesk) inquiring about an open issue that may be related to a different piece of functionality (only:changes
) not being available when using GitLab CI/CD with an external repository.
Notes on a Solution
One way to address this problem is to treat the Limitations section as the single source of truth for any limitations associated with using GitLab CI/CD for external repositories. (There are other ways to go about solving this problem but I wanted to provide guidance on what seems most useful in this situation.)