gitlab-org--gitlab-foss/doc/development/testing_guide/ci.md

---
stage: none
group: unassigned
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
---

# GitLab tests in the Continuous Integration (CI) context

## Test suite parallelization on the CI

Our current CI parallelization setup is as follows:

1. The `retrieve-tests-metadata` job in the `prepare` stage ensures we have a
   `knapsack/report-master.json` file:
   - The `knapsack/report-master.json` file is fetched from the latest `master` pipeline which runs `update-tests-metadata`
     (for now it's the 2-hourly scheduled master pipeline), if it's not here we initialize the file with `{}`.
1. Each `[rspec|rspec-ee] [unit|integration|system|geo] n m` job are run with
   `knapsack rspec` and should have an evenly distributed share of tests:
   - It works because the jobs have access to the `knapsack/report-master.json`
     since the "artifacts from all previous stages are passed by default".
   - the jobs set their own report path to
     `"knapsack/${TEST_TOOL}_${TEST_LEVEL}_${DATABASE}_${CI_NODE_INDEX}_${CI_NODE_TOTAL}_report.json"`.
   - if knapsack is doing its job, test files that are run should be listed under
     `Report specs`, not under `Leftover specs`.
1. The `update-tests-metadata` job (which only runs on scheduled pipelines for
   [the canonical project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab) takes all the
   `knapsack/rspec*_pg_*.json` files and merge them all together into a single
   `knapsack/report-master.json` file that is saved as artifact.

After that, the next pipeline will use the up-to-date `knapsack/report-master.json` file.

## Monitoring

The GitLab test suite is [monitored](../performance.md#rspec-profiling) for the `master` branch, and any branch
that includes `rspec-profile` in their name.

## CI setup

- Rails logging to `log/test.log` is disabled by default in CI [for
  performance reasons](https://jtway.co/speed-up-your-rails-test-suite-by-6-in-1-line-13fedb869ec4). To override this setting, provide the
  `RAILS_ENABLE_TEST_LOG` environment variable.

---

[Return to Testing documentation](index.md)