Advanced Artifact Management

For more advanced artifact management, GitLab CI/CD provides additional options:

Expire Artifacts

You can set an expiration time for artifacts, after which they will be automatically deleted. This helps manage storage usage.

To incorporate advanced artifact management features into your .gitlab-ci.yml file for the calculator project, you can implement expiration times for artifacts and expose artifacts to all jobs. Here’s how to do it:

Updated .gitlab-ci.yml for the Calculator Project with Advanced Artifact Management

build_job:
  stage: build
  script:
    - echo "Building the application..."     
    - pip install -r requirements.txt     
    - echo "Build complete"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - build/
    expire_in: 1 week

Expose Artifacts to All Jobs

If you want to expose the artifacts generated by build_job to all jobs, you can modify the artifacts section like this:

build_job:
  stage: build
  - script:     
    - echo "Building the application..."     
    - pip install -r requirements.txt     
    - echo "Build complete"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - build/
    public: true  # Expose artifacts to all jobs
    expire_in: 1 week

Explanation of Advanced Artifact Management

1. Expiration Time (expire_in):

The expire_in field specifies how long GitLab should keep the artifacts before automatically deleting them. In the examples above, artifacts are set to expire after one week, which helps manage storage and keep your project tidy.

2. Expose Artifacts (public: true):

• When public: true is set, the artifacts from build_job are available to all subsequent jobs without needing to declare explicit dependencies. This can be useful if multiple jobs need to access the same artifacts, simplifying the pipeline structure.

Practical Steps for Implementation

1. Update your .gitlab-ci.yml file: Modify your existing .gitlab-ci.yml file in your Data Analysis Project repository with the new configurations provided above.

2. Test the Pipeline: Commit and push the changes to trigger the pipeline in GitLab. Ensure that the pipeline runs correctly, with artifacts being stored, accessed, and expiring as expected.

3. Access Artifacts: After the pipeline runs, check the GitLab interface to verify that artifacts are stored, accessible, and subject to the expiration rules you’ve defined.