在管道事件源中使用“分支推送”方法计算“仅：更改：” - 合并请求

Question

The behaviour of "only: changes:" pipeline's rules in merge-request and in push branches event are different:

• During the push event changes calculates relative on previous commit.

• During the push in merge-request event changes calculates between the current branch and the target branch. (To tell the truth, if target branch is also a source branch, this is a not a HEAD commit of target branch, this is a merge-base commit - fork point or last merge commit with source branch )

So, if the branch have some code and some tests. Some stages relative from catalog of code, and test stages relative from test catalog. If I commit some changes of tests in branch having an merge-request event i expect run test stage only, but pipeline calculates changes relative target branch and it will be changes of tests, and as the code too. As result pipeline run all stages, include application build too, not only tests.

Is the way to solve this problem: calculate the changes like in branch push - from previous commit, instead of target branch? An example below, i expect: If no merge request: each commit into catalog "app/src" raise app building only. Also if some test may be placed in other catalogs and it will not raise any built or tests. If merge request present: each commit into catalog "app/src" raise app building and run tests. Also, if some test changed outside catalog "app/src" it will raise tests only.

Stages:
    - build
    - test
build_job:
    stage: build
    script: 
        - echo App building
    only: 
        changes: 
        - app/src/**/* 
        variables:
        - $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME =~ /^dev\/.*/ && $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'merge_request_event'
        - $CI_OPEN_MERGE_REQUESTS == null && $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'push'
        - $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'web'
        - $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'api'

tests_job:
    stage: test
    script: 
        - echo App testing
    only: 
        variables:
        - $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TARGET_BRANCH_NAME =~ /^dev\/.*/ && $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'merge_request_event'

Answer 1

In GitLab 15.3 you can used rules:changes with rules:changes:compare_to to compare a branch.

in your case:

build_job:
  stage: build
  script: 
    - echo App building
  rules: 
    changes:
      paths:
        - app/src/**/*
      compare_to: 'main'