Exploring Predefined CICD Variables

In this lesson we explore GitLab’s predefined CI/CD variables—auto-generated environment variables that provide contextual information about jobs, pipelines, repositories, and more. Leveraging these variables makes your pipelines flexible and secure by avoiding hardcoded values.

For a complete list of all predefined variables, see the GitLab Documentation on Predefined CI/CD Variables.

Categories of Predefined Variables

Inspecting All Available Variables

To view every environment variable supplied to a CI job, add a job that runs the export command:

export CI_JOB_ID="50"
export CI_COMMIT_SHA="1ecfd27573eff1d6b4844ea3168962458c9f27a"
export CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA="1ecfd275"
export CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME="main"
export CI_REPOSITORY_URL="https://gitlab-ci-token:[masked]@example.com/gitlab-org/gitlab.git"
export CI_COMMIT_TAG="1.0.0"
export CI_JOB_NAME="spec:other"
export CI_JOB_STAGE="test"
export CI_JOB_MANUAL="true"
export CI_JOB_TRIGGERED="true"
export CI_PIPELINE_ID="1000"
export CI_PIPELINE_IID="10"
export CI_PAGES_DOMAIN="gitlab.io"
export CI_PAGES_URL="https://gitlab-org.gitlab.io/gitlab"

1. Creating a New GitLab Project

1. Navigate to your GitLab instance and click New project.
2. Select Create blank project, choose a group (e.g., demos-group), set visibility to Public, and initialize with a README.
3. Clone the repository locally or open it in the Web IDE.

Create a .gitlab-ci.yml file at the root of your project:

workflow:
  name: Exploring Predefined Variable Pipeline

export_variable_job:
  script:
    - export

generic_predefined_variables:
  script: |
    echo "GITLAB_USER_LOGIN = $GITLAB_USER_LOGIN"
    echo "GITLAB_USER_EMAIL = $GITLAB_USER_EMAIL"
    echo "CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR = $CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR"
    echo "CI_COMMIT_BRANCH = $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH"
    echo "CI_PROJECT_NAME = $CI_PROJECT_NAME"
    echo "CI_PROJECT_URL = $CI_PROJECT_URL"
    echo "CI_JOB_STAGE = $CI_JOB_STAGE"
    echo "CI_PIPELINE_NAME = $CI_PIPELINE_NAME"
    echo "CI_PIPELINE_ID = $CI_PIPELINE_ID"
    echo "CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE = $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE"

merge_request_predefined_variables:
  script: |
    echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS"
    echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME"
    echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ASSIGNEES = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ASSIGNEES"
    echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME"
    echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE"

Commit and push your changes to trigger the pipeline:

git add .gitlab-ci.yml
git commit -m "Add predefined variable exploration pipeline"
git push origin main

2. Pipeline Overview

Once pushed, GitLab triggers a pipeline named Exploring Predefined Variable Pipeline. By default, all jobs run in the test stage and execute in parallel:

2.1 export_variable_job

This job dumps all environment variables. Here’s a truncated output:

$ export
declare -x CI="true"
declare -x CI_API_GRAPHQL_URL="https://gitlab.com/api/graphql"
declare -x CI_API_V4_URL="https://gitlab.com/api/v4"
declare -x CI_BUILD_ID="6035315241"
declare -x CI_COMMIT_SHA="2eb37fc3a7591ffecfbab205433395b34ef4a88c"
declare -x CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME="main"
declare -x CI_JOB_ID="6035315241"
declare -x CI_JOB_NAME="export_variable_job"
declare -x CI_JOB_STAGE="test"
declare -x CI_PIPELINE_ID="1154671161"
declare -x CI_PIPELINE_NAME="Exploring Predefined Variable Pipeline"
declare -x CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE="push"
# … plus over 100 more variables

2.2 generic_predefined_variables

This job echoes commonly used variables to illustrate dynamic scripting:

$ echo "GITLAB_USER_LOGIN = $GITLAB_USER_LOGIN"
GITLAB_USER_LOGIN = sidd-harth

$ echo "GITLAB_USER_EMAIL = $GITLAB_USER_EMAIL"
GITLAB_USER_EMAIL = [email protected]

$ echo "CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR = $CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR"
CI_COMMIT_AUTHOR = Barahalikar Siddharth <[email protected]>

$ echo "CI_COMMIT_BRANCH = $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH"
CI_COMMIT_BRANCH = main

$ echo "CI_PROJECT_NAME = $CI_PROJECT_NAME"
CI_PROJECT_NAME = predefined-variables

$ echo "CI_PROJECT_URL = $CI_PROJECT_URL"
CI_PROJECT_URL = https://gitlab.com/demos-group/predefined-variables

$ echo "CI_JOB_STAGE = $CI_JOB_STAGE"
CI_JOB_STAGE = test

$ echo "CI_PIPELINE_ID = $CI_PIPELINE_ID"
CI_PIPELINE_ID = 1154671161

$ echo "CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE = $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE"
CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE = push

Use these variables to customize your jobs based on commit metadata and pipeline context.

2.3 merge_request_predefined_variables

This job attempts to print merge-request–specific variables:

$ echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS"
CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS = 

$ echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME"
CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME = 

$ echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ASSIGNEES = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ASSIGNEES"
CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ASSIGNEES = 

$ echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME"
CI_MERGE_REQUEST_SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME = 

$ echo "CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE = $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE"
CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE = 

For more on Merge Request CI/CD variables, see the GitLab Merge Request Variables documentation.

Links and References

• GitLab Predefined CI/CD Variables
• Merge Request CI/CD Variables
• Kubernetes Basics
• Docker Hub