Gitlab CI YAML tricks

• Use YAML anchors to duplicate/inherit properties.
• Use the !reference custom YAML tag to select keyword configuration from other job sections and reuse it in the current section.

.builds: &builds  # anchor definition
- "rhel8"
- "rhel9"
- "rocky8"
- "rocky9"
- "ubuntu2204"
- "ubuntu2404"
 
.watch_paths:  # custom tag
- builds/**/*
- scripts/**/*
- .gitlab-ci.yml
 
build_templates:
  rules:
    - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE = "merge_request_event"
      changes: 
        compare_to: 'refs/heads/main'
        paths: !reference [.watch_paths] # reference to tag
  parallel:
    matrix:
    - BUILD: *builds     # anchor invokation
  script:
  - /bin/build.sh $BUILD

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Refs:

• Optimize GitLab CI/CD configuration files

Related:

• Use YAML features in Docker Compose