Glossary
- Bridge
- Trigger Job
A job with
trigger, which starts a downstream pipeline instead of running a script on a runner. GitLab’s REST API lists it among a pipeline’s bridges. See GitLab’s downstream pipelines.- CI/CD Component
A reusable unit of pipeline configuration, included with
include:componentand configured by its inputs. See GitLab’s CI/CD components.- CI_JOB_TOKEN
The token GitLab creates for every job, with which a job reads the API of its own project. See GitLab’s CI/CD job token.
- Child Pipeline
A downstream pipeline of the same project, started by a trigger job with
trigger:include. See GitLab’s downstream pipelines.- Domain
A Sphinx domain groups the directives and roles describing objects of one kind, under a name like
pyorglci. See Overview.- DOT
The graph description language of Graphviz, which the pipeline graph is written in.
- Downstream Pipeline
A pipeline started by a trigger job of another pipeline: a child pipeline of the same project, or a multi-project pipeline of another project. See GitLab’s downstream pipelines.
- Gantt Chart
A bar chart of timespans on a time axis, a row per task. See Pipeline Trace Diagram.
Wikipedia: Gantt chart
- Include
The
includekeyword, which adds the configuration of other YAML files - local, from another project, from a URL, a template or a CI/CD component - to a pipeline file. See GitLab’s includes.- Job
The script a runner executes, or a trigger job. Jobs of a stage run in parallel; a job with needs starts as soon as the jobs it needs are done. See GitLab’s jobs.
- Matrix
A job’s
parallel:matrix: the job runs once per combination of the matrix’ variables.parallel: Nruns a job N times. See GitLab’s CI/CD YAML syntax.- Needs
The jobs a job depends on, which have to complete before it starts, regardless of its stage. See GitLab’s CI/CD YAML syntax.
- OTLP
The OpenTelemetry Protocol, which carries traces to a collector or viewer; its JSON encoding is OTLP/JSON. See Pipeline Trace Diagram.
- Pipeline
One run of a pipeline file, with the jobs it ran, read from GitLab’s REST API - its pipelines and jobs. See GitLab’s pipelines and Pipeline Run.
- Pipeline File
The YAML file describing a project’s pipeline, by default
.gitlab-ci.yml, and the files it includes: its stages, jobs, variables and rules. See GitLab’s CI/CD YAML syntax and Pipeline File.- Rules
A job’s
rules, deciding whether the job is added to a pipeline and how it runs, by conditions (if) on variables, changed files and existing files. See GitLab’s rules.- Runner
The application executing a job, selected by the job’s
tags. See GitLab’s runner.- Span
A timespan of a trace, with a name, a begin and an end, attributes, and the spans below it. See OpenTelemetry’s traces.
- spec:inputs
The parameters of a pipeline file or CI/CD component, declared in a header document before
---: a name, a type, a default, a description, the allowed options. See GitLab’s CI/CD inputs and Pipelines and Parameters.- Stage
A group of jobs, listed in
stages. A stage’s jobs start when the jobs of the earlier stages are done, unless they declare needs. See GitLab’s CI/CD YAML syntax.- Trace
A tree of spans recording where time went. The trace of a pipeline has a span for every child pipeline, matrix and job, with the attributes of OpenTelemetry’s semantic conventions for CI/CD. See Pipeline Trace Diagram.
- Variable
A name-value pair a job sees in its environment. A variable of a pipeline file with a
descriptionis offered in the Run pipeline form. See GitLab’s CI/CD variables.