How to Test Gitlab Ci Locally

I have a gitlab-ci.yml file and I want to test this file locally?

I have decided to write this article to not watch pipeline in gitlab site and to give some useful tip for other developers.

I will show this steps by my system. It is Mac OSX. Click for other systems.

First of all, lets install gitlab-runner via brew and then we must register gitlab-runner by url and token that is in Setup a specific Runner manually section in Project Settings > CI / CD tab. Also, we must enter executor type. (Gitlab provide a few executor type for runners. I user shell type but you can choose docker and some think like that. Check other executor types this link) I will use shell because my all codes will run on command line.

gitlab-runner register

When this command runs, A wizard will open. You can write something that is about your project for description and alias. These will show in your Project Settings > CI / CD > Runners tab.

Now, lets create gitlab-ci.yml file in project root directory. I will use two stage in this section. Test and deploy. Also, I will define cache file locations, variables that used by script and lastly, commands are in stages.

stages:
  - test
  - deploy

cache:
  paths:
    - vendor/
    - node_modules/
    - storage/framework/cache

variables:
  DEPLOYMENT_PATH: /usr/local/my_project
  PROJECT_ROOT: /home/gitlab-runner/my_project

my_project_test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - composer install
    - php vendor/bin/phpunit --colors

my_project_deploy:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - rsync -a -e 'ssh -p 1881' --delete-before -r ${PROJECT_ROOT}/* root@$STAGE_SERVER:${DEPLOYMENT_PATH}

Finally, lets make test locally. In this section, we will use gitlab-runner exec command with executor type and stage title. I will run test stage. Furthermore, I will share deploy stage to be reference. You can run in your computer but you have to add ssh key to server otherwise it does not connect.

gitlab-runner exec shell my_project_test

This command will clone your project from gitlab, install the dependencies and run the tests.

Happy Coding!