GitLab code references

Overview

This topic explains how to set up and configure the GitLab code references to use with LaunchDarkly.

You can use the ld-find-code-refs utility with GitLab CI to automatically populate code references in LaunchDarkly.

Follow the procedure below to create a GitLab code references configuration using LaunchDarkly’s code references executable.

Prerequisites

To complete this procedure, you must have the following prerequisites:

• An API access token with write permissions for the code-reference-repository resource, either through a base role, a LaunchDarkly-provided project role, or another role that you have created. To learn more, read API access tokens and Code reference actions.

Set up GitLab code references

Here’s how to set up the GitLab code references:

1. Navigate to your GitLab project’s CI / CD settings by clicking through Your project, then Settings, then CI/CD.
2. Expand Variables.
3. Create a variable called LD_ACCESS_TOKEN. Use the same value as your LaunchDarkly access token. Click the toggle to set the variable to Masked.
4. Create a variable called LD_PROJECT_KEY. Use your LaunchDarkly project’s key as the value. To learn how to find your project key, read Project keys. To learn more about setting variables, read GitLab’s documentation.

5. Open your .gitlab-ci.yml file. This file defines your project’s CI/CD pipeline. To learn more about getting started with GitLab code references, read GitLab’s documentation.
6. Copy and paste the following into .gitlab-ci.yml. No changes to the script are needed if your pipeline runs on Alpine Linux. If apk is unavailable in your environment then you’ll need to modify the first three steps to use a different package manager:

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find-launchdarkly-code-refs:
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  stage: deploy
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  image:
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    name: launchdarkly/ld-find-code-refs:latest
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    entrypoint: [""]
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  script:
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    - ld-find-code-refs
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       --accessToken $LD_ACCESS_TOKEN
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       --projKey $LD_PROJECT_KEY
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       --dir $CI_PROJECT_DIR
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       --repoName $CI_PROJECT_NAME
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       --repoUrl $CI_PROJECT_URL
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       --repoType gitlab
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       --branch $CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
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       --updateSequenceId $CI_PIPELINE_IID
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       --userAgent gitlab-pipeline

How the script works

When executed, this script downloads and runs the ld-find-code-refs docker image.

This script runs the docker image with previously-set variables, as well as GitLab-specific configurations.

The find-launchdarkly-code-refs script runs in GitLab’s deploy phase. As written, find-launchdarkly-code-refs runs concurrent to other scripts in the deploy stage. We positioned the script this way so problems running ld-find-code-refs won’t block the deployment pipeline.

In the example .gitlab-ci.yml below, the find-launchdarkly-code-refs script runs as a part of a project’s pipeline:

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image: alpine:latest
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build1:
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  stage: build
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  script:
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    - echo "Build something"
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test1:
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  stage: test
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  script:
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    - echo "Test something"
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deploy1:
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  stage: deploy
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  script:
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    - echo "Deploy something"
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find-launchdarkly-code-refs:
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  stage: deploy
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  image:
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    name: launchdarkly/ld-find-code-refs:latest
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    entrypoint: [""]
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  script:
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    - ld-find-code-refs
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       --accessToken $LD_ACCESS_TOKEN
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       --projKey $LD_PROJECT_KEY
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       --dir $CI_PROJECT_DIR
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       --repoName $CI_PROJECT_NAME
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       --repoUrl $CI_PROJECT_URL
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       --repoType gitlab
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       --branch $CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
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       --updateSequenceId $CI_PIPELINE_IID
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       --userAgent gitlab-pipeline

When the jobs run in the pipeline, they display like this:

Additional configuration options

There are more configuration options for ld-find-code-refs.

You can exclude files and directories from searches with an .ldignore file.

You can use the .launchdarkly/coderefs.yaml file for advanced configuration, such as configuring custom delimiters and aliases for your flag keys.

To learn more, read the configuration documentation.