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Frontend: MVC Iteration: Simulate pipeline under conditions: `git push event to the default branch`

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Release notes

Creating a complex pipeline configuration requires trial and error, and every time you commit a faulty configuration you need to wait for the pipeline to run to realize there's a problem.

Currently, it's possible to validate the pipeline syntax statically in the pipeline editor, but we don't evaluate the pipeline logic like rules and needs job dependencies.

In this release, we've added the ability to test the pipeline creation before running the pipeline, which takes into consideration the different rules you've configured on your pipeline.

🧩 Problem

Creating a complex pipeline configuration requires trial and error, and every time you commit faulty configuration you need to wait for the pipeline to run to realize there's a problem.

Currently, it's possible to validate the pipeline syntax statically in the pipeline editor, but we don't evaluate the pipeline logic like rules and needs job dependencies.

The standalone CI Lint tool offers an option to simulate the pipeline for the default branch, but that feature is not discoverable, not well documented, and is difficult to understand what it does from how it's presented in the Linter UI.

Intended users

Metrics

  • We can measure the usage of this feature by tracking the click events on the "Validate pipeline" button.
  • We will further gather feedback on this feature by linking a feedback issue in the ? popover next to the dropdown.

☝ Feedback issue needs to be refined.

User experience goal

The user should be able to validate their pipeline under selected conditions. In the MVC iteration, only one type of condition will be available (a git push event for the default branch).

✨ Proposal

  • Move the existing pipeline simulation functionality to the pipeline editor Validate tab (currently called Lint).
  • The tab content will be replaced with the simulation functionality which will validate the pipeline on demand (including the syntax and logic).

Feature acceptance criteria

  • In order to drive the feature usage and encourage feedback, we will show a NEW badge in the Validate tab the first time the user opens the Validate tab after the feature release. The badge should disappear once you close the Validate tab after your first interaction with it upon the feature release.
  • The Pipeline source dropdown with a pre-selected option will be added to the Validate tab. No other choices will be available yet and the button will be disabled. In the future we will add more options and inputs to that controls bar.
  • The ? button will open a popover with supplemental content and docs + feedback issue links.
  • The simulation empty state will explain the details of what happens during the simulation.
  • The simulation will run with the current content of the Edit tab input.
  • While the simulation is running, we will show a loading state.
  • Simulation can be stopped by clicking on the "Cancel" button.
  • Closing the page should continue running the simulation in the background. We will only stop the simulation if you cancel it by clicking on the cancel button as the simulation is running.
  • When the simulation completes, we will show either a "success" or "error" alert with updated UI copy to indicate whether any errors were found in the simulation. The error messages will appear below the alert in case there are errors.
  • The continuous syntax validation widget will work unrelated to the results of the simulation and will only show the syntax status. The text of the syntax validation widget will be updated to reflect the scope of that validation (syntax only).
  • Closing the Editor page will reset content of the Validate tab to the empty state.
  • If the contents of the configuration or the branches change, we'll show a UI text note next to the Validate button notifying the developer that the config has changed.

Design specs

🔗 Designs

🔗 Figma specs

Further suggested improvements (out of scope in this issue)

Click to expand
  • Add additional pipeline conditions and variables support
  • In the future we could reuse the same design in the Visualise tab to allow you to see what the pipeline will look like with certain conditions and/or inputs.
  • It would be great to make this functionality available as an extension of sort for those GitLab CI users who prefer to use their local editor for writing the configuration.
  • User would like to know about these logic errors in real time, without having to run the simulation.
  • Users would like to know more information about the different pipeline conditions.
  • The errors should be more actionable, making it easy to fix the problem in the pipeline editor. (ex. highlight the place where the error occurs in the editor and link to that place from the error).
  • User would like to see the output of what worked correctly in the simulation, up until the error occurred, to see a trace of what happened and where the pipeline configuration "broke".
  • The output formatting needs improvement.
  • The status of the latest pipeline can be confused for the status of the current pipeline configuration or simulation.

Permissions and Security

According to the current implementation you need to have permissions to push to the the default branch to use the simulation. When you have insufficient access, the current simulation implementation allows you to run the simulation in the UI, but throws an error about insufficient permissions. This is far from ideal experience and needs to be addressed as a follow-up to the MVC.

You must have permissions to create pipelines on this branch to validate with a simulation.

Documentation

This feature needs to be documented in detail on the pipeline editor page, as well as any other page in the docs where we talk about pipeline validation/ linting. We need to cover exactly what checks the simulation performs, as well as its limitations. We can also link the feedback issue in the docs to encourage users to provide feedback. We should make our vision clear that this feature will evolve into allowing you to set specific conditions like branch, pipeline source, variables, etc, to give context for this MVC feature.

Implementation Table

frontend MR
Introduce feature flag to replace Lint tab with Validate tab in the pipeline editor !89497 (merged)
Add popover and NEW badge to the Validate tab !90345 (merged)
Add simulation functionality to the Validate tab !91241 (merged)
Roll out feature flag #364257 (closed)

Availability & Testing

Available Tier

  • Free
Edited by Mireya Andres