The Verify:Pipeline Execution Group is focused on all the functionality with respect to Pipeline Execution, as part of GitLab Continuous Integration. This UX team is responsible for the following categories:
Merge Trains: For an overview of our plans for Merge Trains, see epic Merge Trains Vision
The Pipeline Execution design tracking epic and regular syncs are used by the product manager and product designer to keep track of issues that are ready for design, usually aligned to a quarterly theme.
In Pipeline Execution group, design works ahead of development. Therefore, the issues that are being worked on by the designer get assigned to a milestone only after the design proposal has been added, and the status moved from workflow::design to workflow::planning breakdown.
We dedicate ~10% of our capacity by weight in each milestone to working on UX Debt issues and address them within their SLOs. Read more about the collaboration between UX and engineering on the Pipeline Execution group page.
We use the CI/CD UX Definition of Done (DoD) as a tool for assessing the readiness of an issue and tracking the expected deliverables, objectives, and the approval process.
We use the UX Weight definitions for milestone capacity.
The UX Debt and UI Polish issues for CI are tracked in this epic. Our goal is to work on a minimum of one of these issues each milestone.
| Issue | Scope | Stage-groups impacted |
|---|---|---|
Simplify merge strategies with Auto merge |
Merge Widget, Settings Page | group::source code group::code review |
| Removing user access to Shared Runners UI | Admin controls | group::runner |
| Define the runner settings workflow for users with blocked shared runner access | Users with stuck pipeline due to interrupted shared runner access | group::runner |
| Provide a breakdown of jobs for a runner rather than total job count | Runner list view | group::runner |
| MVC: Configure CI/CD Quotas by project | Settings » CI/CD | group::fulfilment |
| Configure CI/CD Quotas by project under groups | Settings » CI/CD | group::fulfilment |
The development merge requests get assigned to a product designer by the GitLab Roulette. We follow the standard guidelines for the reviewing process and hand-off as well.
There are areas in Pipeline Executions that can be tricky to setup the test data for reviewing the merge request. Depending on the requirement, we clone projects from the CI sample projects pool on the local GDK ot Gitpod instance and test.
Merge requests related to CI/CD minutes and shared runner usage usually require some historical usage data, which can be difficult to set up if it doesn't exist already on the local GDK environment. Below is a video and instructions for how to set that up in under 7 minutes.
Checkout the branch in the MR and open rails console using bundle exec rails console.
1. Edit CI minutes
ApplicationSetting.current.update(shared_runners_minutes: 400)
project = Project.find(20)
root_namespace = project.root_namespace
namespace_usage = Ci::Minutes::NamespaceMonthlyUsage.find_or_create_current(namespace_id: root_namespace.id)
Ci::Minutes::NamespaceMonthlyUsage.update_counters(namespace_usage, amount_used: 100, shared_runners_duration: 100)
project_usage = Ci::Minutes::ProjectMonthlyUsage.find_or_create_current(project_id: project)
Ci::Minutes::ProjectMonthlyUsage.update_counters(project_usage, amount_used: 100, shared_runners_duration: 100)
Type :wq to exit the log lines. Do not exit the rails console.
2. Add helper method to rails console
def increase_ci_usage(project:, date:, amount_used:, shared_runners_duration:)
date = date.utc.beginning_of_month
project_usage = Ci::Minutes::ProjectMonthlyUsage.where(date: date).safe_find_or_create_by(project_id: project.id)
Ci::Minutes::ProjectMonthlyUsage.update_counters(project_usage, amount_used: amount_used, shared_runners_duration: shared_runners_duration)
root_namespace = project.root_namespace
namespace_usage = Ci::Minutes::NamespaceMonthlyUsage.where(date: date).safe_find_or_create_by(namespace_id: root_namespace.id)
Ci::Minutes::NamespaceMonthlyUsage.update_counters(namespace_usage, amount_used: amount_used, shared_runners_duration: shared_runners_duration)
end
3. Use helper method
increase_ci_usage(project: project, date: 1.month.ago, amount_used: 10, shared_runners_duration: 20)
The usage quota page should now reflect the changes data.
If you wish to educate yourself further around the updates realted to this area, watch this video by our Product Manager, James Heimbuck.