Managing Artifacts in GitLab CI Pipelines

Managing Artifacts in GitLab CI

Artifacts are files created by a job and stored on the GitLab server. They can be downloaded, browsed in the GitLab UI, and passed to downstream jobs.

Basic Artifact Configuration

build:
  script: npm run build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - dist/
      - build/
    expire_in: 1 week

Test Reports

test:
  script: pytest --junitxml=report.xml
  artifacts:
    reports:
      junit: report.xml
      coverage_report:
        coverage_format: cobertura
        path: coverage.xml

JUnit reports appear in merge requests. Cobertura coverage reports show line-by-line coverage diffs.

Conditional Artifacts

test:
  script: npm test
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - test-results/
    when: always
    expire_in: 7 days

The when: always ensures artifacts are uploaded even if the job fails. This is critical for test reports and logs.

Artifact Dependencies

build:
  stage: build
  script: make build
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - dist/

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  needs:
    - job: build
      artifacts: true
  script: make deploy

The needs keyword with artifacts: true ensures the deploy job receives the build artifacts. Without needs, all artifacts from the previous stage are downloaded by default.

Exclude Patterns

build:
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - build/
    exclude:
      - build/**/*.map
      - build/**/*.test.js

Size Limits

GitLab imposes artifact size limits per project (default 100MB on GitLab.com). For large artifacts, consider uploading to external storage (S3, GCS) from your script instead.