Add queued and duration times to runners>job list in Admin Area > Runners

Release notes

It is difficult to get more insight into what jobs a runner runs today, especially if a job is pending for a while and you want to investigate it. We will add queue and duration times of jobs run by a runner in the runner's job list.

Problem

If a CI/CD job won't start, then how do you quickly determine if the reason is that the target runner is busy servicing active jobs?

Video discussion on customer problem

JTBD

When I am troubleshooting CI jobs, I want to quickly know if the problem connects with the job execution agent, so I can resolve the problem and continue working.

User story

As a Platform Engineer who is checking on CI jobs' performance for an instance, I need to see pending and running jobs, so that I can quickly determine if there are performance issues with that runner and the underlying host system or platform.

Further details:

Sometimes developers will report that their job is pending and they ask the admin if something is wrong with the runner. The admin has no insight into how many jobs the runner has in its queue, so they wouldn't have any answer. Also, from an infrastructure perspective, the admin may see the same runner continuously in "pending" states, but they don't have data around that, so they'd have to guess if they should create another runner to pick up those types of jobs.

MVC proposal

• Add a Queued column to the runner details > jobs list in the admin area and include the queue time for that job in 00:00:00 format.
• Add a Duration column to the runner details < jobs list in the admin area and include the duration time for that job in 00:00:00 format.

Designs in design management

Future iterations

#377963 (closed)

Technical details

We know the waiting time for a job, and we know the runner who ran that job, along with the tags used. We will calculate the average wait time of the last X jobs run by that runner with X tags to calculate the "estimated job wait time".

Disclaimer

This page may contain information related to upcoming products, features and functionality. It is important to note that the information presented is for informational purposes only, so please do not rely on the information for purchasing or planning purposes. Just like with all projects, the items mentioned on the page are subject to change or delay, and the development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab Inc.