GitLab Advanced CI/CD - Hands-On Lab: Optimizing Pipeline Testing

This Hands-On Guide walks you through optimizing a test pipeline

The goal of this lab is to explore the different ways that we can configure testing in an application.

Estimated time to complete: 15 minutes

Objectives

Stop a pipeline after failure
Unit test reporting

In this lab, we will explore the different ways that we can configure testing in an application. Currently, we have the following testing setup for our project:

stages:
  - deps
  - test

default:
  image: node:latest

install deps:
  stage: deps
  script:
    - npm install jest
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test binarysearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest binarysearch.test.js
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test linearsearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest linearsearch.test.js
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

This lab will explore how we can ensure a test pipeline when a single job fails. We will also see how we can add test reporting to our test jobs.

Task A. Stopping a Pipeline after Failure

In this example, let’s look at how we can cancel the pipeline in the case where one of our tests fails.

Navigate to your Node project repository.
Select .gitlab-ci.yml.
Select Edit > Edit in pipeline editor.
Just below the stages section of your .gitlab-ci.yml file, add a workflow to auto cancel the jobs.
```
workflow:
  auto_cancel:
    on_job_failure: all
```
With this configuration, if any jobs fail, the whole pipeline will fail. To test this, you can create a test job that will purposely fail.
```
test fail:
  stage: test
  script:
    - jet test.js
```
Select Commit changes.

Let’s see how the pipeline handles the failed job.
In the left sidebar, select Build > Pipelines.
Select your most recent pipeline and observe the jobs. Note that when the test fail job fails, other jobs cancel, showing a gray slash icon.

Now that we have verified the auto cancel works, let’s remove the failing job.
Navigate to your repository.
Select .gitlab-ci.yml.
Select Edit > Edit in pipeline editor.

Remove the test fail job. Your .gitlab-ci.yml file will look like this:

stages:
  - deps
  - test

workflow:
  auto_cancel:
    on_job_failure: all

default:
  image: node:latest

install deps:
  stage: deps
  script:
    - npm install jest
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test binarysearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest binarysearch.test.js
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test linearsearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest linearsearch.test.js
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

Select Commit changes.

Task B. Adding Test Reports

In this task, we will add a test report to our test jobs.

Ensure you are still in the Pipeline Editor (if not, navigate to Build > Pipeline Editor).

We are going to adjust our jest commands for the test binarysearch and test linearsearch jobs to add a testResultsProcessor to the command. We can do this by adding the --ci --testResultsProcessor=jest-junit flags to the command. The --ci flag will make Jest assume it is running in a CI environment. For this to work we also have to install jest-junit by adding it to our install deps. Below is an example of the jobs after the changes have been made:

install deps:
  stage: deps
  script:
    - npm install jest jest-junit
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test binarysearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest --ci --testResultsProcessor=jest-junit binarysearch.test.js
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test linearsearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest --ci --testResultsProcessor=jest-junit linearsearch.test.js
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

The test results need to be stored in a JUnit file in order to be accessed by the pipeline. To do so, we need to add the following code snippet to both of our tests after the script keyword:

  artifacts:
    when: always
    reports:
      junit: junit.xml

The tests will now look like this:

test binarysearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest --ci --testResultsProcessor=jest-junit binarysearch.test.js
  artifacts:
    when: always
    reports:
      junit: junit.xml
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

test linearsearch:
  stage: test
  script:
    - node_modules/.bin/jest --ci --testResultsProcessor=jest-junit linearsearch.test.js
  artifacts:
    when: always
    reports:
      junit: junit.xml
  cache:
    key: $CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
    paths:
      - node_modules

After making these changes, select Commit changes.
In the left sidebar, select Build > Pipelines.
Select your most recent pipeline.
Wait for the tests to complete. Refresh after the test jobs are complete and select the tab Tests.
You will see a report of your test results in the tab.

Lab Guide Complete

You have completed this lab exercise. You can view the other lab guides for this course.

Suggestions?

If you wish to make a change to the lab, please submit your changes via Merge Request.

Last modified October 31, 2025: Removed the Parallelization objective from lab (db5b702f)

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