Job Fetch Ingress URL amp Integration testing

In this guide, we’ll extend our GitLab CI pipeline by adding an integration testing job. After deploying to Kubernetes, we’ll extract the Ingress host URL, save it as a dotenv report, and consume it in downstream tests to verify our service endpoints.

1. Define the Integration Testing Job

Begin by declaring a k8s_dev_integration_testing job in the dev-deploy stage. This job installs curl and jq, then probes the /live and /ready endpoints to confirm service health:

k8s_dev_integration_testing:
  stage: dev-deploy
  image: alpine:3.7
  before_script:
    - apk --no-cache add curl jq
  script:
    - curl -s -k https://$INGRESS_URL/live  | jq -r .status | grep -i live
    - curl -s -k https://$INGRESS_URL/ready | jq -r .status | grep -i ready

2. Capture the Ingress Host URL in CI

After your application manifests are applied, list the Ingress resource to confirm its host:

kubectl -n development get ing

NAME           CLASS    HOSTS                                          ADDRESS         PORTS   AGE
solar-system   <none>   solar-system-development.139.84.208.48.nip.io 139.84.208.48   80,443  39m

Extract the hostname via JSONPath:

kubectl -n development get ing -o jsonpath="{.items[0].spec.tls[0].hosts[0]}"

Automate this in your deploy job and append the result to a dotenv file:

k8s_dev_deploy:
  stage: dev-deploy
  image: alpine:3.7
  script:
    - export KUBECONFIG=$DEV_KUBE_CONFIG
    - kubectl version -o yaml
    - kubectl config get-contexts
    - kubectl get nodes
    - export INGRESS_IP=$(kubectl -n ingress-nginx get svc ingress-nginx-controller \
        -o jsonpath="{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}")
    - echo "🔍 Ingress IP: $INGRESS_IP"
    - kubectl -n $NAMESPACE create secret generic mongo-db-creds \
        --from-literal=MONGO_URI=$MONGO_URI \
        --from-literal=MONGO_USERNAME=$MONGO_USERNAME \
        --from-literal=MONGO_PASSWORD=$MONGO_PASSWORD \
        --save-config --dry-run=client -o yaml | kubectl apply -f -
    - for manifest in kubernetes/manifest/*.yaml; do
        envsubst < "$manifest" | kubectl apply -f -
      done
    - echo "INGRESS_URL=$(kubectl -n $NAMESPACE get ing \
        -o jsonpath='{.items[0].spec.tls[0].hosts[0]}')" >> app_ingress_url.env
  artifacts:
    reports:
      dotenv: app_ingress_url.env

3. Consume the Ingress URL in Integration Tests

Now update the integration testing job to depend on the deploy job. This ensures that INGRESS_URL is available:

k8s_dev_integration_testing:
  stage: dev-deploy
  needs:
    - k8s_dev_deploy
  image: alpine:3.7
  before_script:
    - apk --no-cache add curl jq
  script:
    - echo "Using Ingress URL: $INGRESS_URL"
    - curl -s -k https://$INGRESS_URL/live  | jq -r .status | grep -i live
    - curl -s -k https://$INGRESS_URL/ready | jq -r .status | grep -i ready

4. Visualize the Pipeline

After committing your .gitlab-ci.yml, your pipeline in the dev-deploy stage will include two sequential jobs:

Upon completion, both jobs report success:

References

• GitLab CI/CD Pipelines
• GitLab artifacts:reports:dotenv
• kubectl Overview
• JSONPath in kubectl