Top 10 Most Common Errors In GitLab CI Pipelines

Everyone will get this error at one point: “This GitLab CI configuration is invalid.” Getting started with GitLab CI is never easy. There are instances in which things don’t work as they should.

Last updated: November 2021

The pipeline is not starting

You have created the YML file with your pipeline but nothing happens. Now what?

First, check if you have named the pipeline exactly .gitlab-ci.yml and is located at the root of your project. This is not the same as gitlab-ci.yml , .gitlab-ci.yaml or anything else.

Most people enable Auto DevOps — this is rarely the solution you are looking for. Auto DevOps is meant to create the pipeline for you. Since you already have a pipeline, enabling Auto DevOps is NOT the solution.

Other common reasons for this problem include:

• the .gitlab-ci.yml has been added to a subdirectory;
• no commits have been pushed to the remote server;
• there are no runners to execute the job;

Found errors in your .gitlab-ci.yml: stages config should…