GitLab CI

Overview

This topic explains how to set up and configure the Gitlab CI to use with LaunchDarkly.

You can use the ld-find-code-refs utility with GitLab CI to automatically populate code references in LaunchDarkly.

Follow the procedure below to create a GitLab CI configuration using LaunchDarkly's code references executable.

Prerequisites

To complete this procedure, you must have the following prerequisites:

• An API access token with writer permissions. To learn more, read API access tokens.

Setting up GitLab CI

Here's how to set up the GitLab CI:

1. Navigate to your GitLab project's CI / CD settings by clicking through Your project > Settings > CI/CD.
2. Expand Variables.
3. Create a variable called LD_ACCESS_TOKEN. Use the same value as your LaunchDarkly access token. Click the toggle to set the variable to Masked.
4. Create a variable called LD_PROJECT_KEY. Use your LaunchDarkly project's key as the value. Find the project key in Account Settings > Projects. To learn more about setting variables, read GitLab's documentation.

5. Open your .gitlab-ci.yml file. This file defines your project's CI/CD pipeline. To learn more about getting started with GitLab CI, read GitLab's documentation.
6. Copy and paste the following into .gitlab-ci.yml. No changes to the script are needed if your pipeline runs on Alpine Linux. If apk is unavailable in your environment then you'll need to modify the first three steps to use a different package manager:

1find-launchdarkly-code-refs:
2  stage: deploy
3  image:
4    name: launchdarkly/ld-find-code-refs:2.4.0
5    entrypoint: [""]
6  script:
7    - ld-find-code-refs
8       --accessToken $LD_ACCESS_TOKEN
9       --projKey $LD_PROJECT_KEY
10       --dir $CI_PROJECT_DIR
11       --repoName $CI_PROJECT_NAME
12       --repoUrl $CI_PROJECT_URL
13       --branch $CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
14       --updateSequenceId $CI_PIPELINE_IID
15       --commitUrlTemplate https://gitlab.com/${CI_PROJECT_PATH}/commit/"\${sha}"
16       --hunkUrlTemplate https://gitlab.com/${CI_PROJECT_PATH}/blob/"\${sha}/\${filePath}#L\${lineNumber}"
COPY

How the script works

When executed, this script downloads and runs the ld-find-code-refs docker image.

This script runs the docker image with previously-set variables, as well as GitLab-specific configurations.

The find-launchdarkly-code-refs script runs in GitLab's deploy phase. As written, find-launchdarkly-code-refs runs concurrent to other scripts in the deploy stage. We positioned the script this way so problems running ld-find-code-refs won't block the deployment pipeline.

In the example .gitlab-ci.yml below, the find-launchdarkly-code-refs script runs as a part of a project's pipeline:

1image: alpine:latest
2
3build1:
4  stage: build
5  script:
6    - echo "Build something"
7
8test1:
9  stage: test
10  script:
11    - echo "Test something"
12
13deploy1:
14  stage: deploy
15  script:
16    - echo "Deploy something"
17
18find-launchdarkly-code-refs:
19  stage: deploy
20  image:
21    name: launchdarkly/ld-find-code-refs:2.4.0
22    entrypoint: [""]
23  script:
24    - ld-find-code-refs
25       --accessToken $LD_ACCESS_TOKEN
26       --projKey $LD_PROJECT_KEY
27       --dir $CI_PROJECT_DIR
28       --repoName $CI_PROJECT_NAME
29       --repoUrl $CI_PROJECT_URL
30       --branch $CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
31       --updateSequenceId $CI_PIPELINE_IID
32       --commitUrlTemplate https://gitlab.com/${CI_PROJECT_PATH}/commit/"\${sha}"
33       --hunkUrlTemplate https://gitlab.com/${CI_PROJECT_PATH}/blob/"\${sha}/\${filePath}#L\${lineNumber}"
COPY

When the jobs run in the pipeline, they display like this:

Additional configuration options

There are more configuration options for ld-find-code-refs.

You can exclude files and directories from searches with an .ldignore file.

You can use the .launchdarkly/coderefs.yaml file for advanced configuration, such as configuring custom delimiters and aliases for your flag keys.

To learn more, read the configuration documentation.