[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":797},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey":3,"navigation-en-us":45,"banner-en-us":443,"footer-en-us":453,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Lee Tickett":692,"blog-related-posts-en-us-lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey":706,"assessment-promotions-en-us":748,"next-steps-en-us":787},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":30,"isFeatured":12,"meta":31,"navigation":32,"path":33,"publishedDate":20,"seo":34,"stem":38,"tagSlugs":39,"__hash__":44},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey.yml","Lee Tickett My Gitlab Journey",[7],"lee-tickett",null,"unfiltered",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"From user, to advocate, to contributor: my GitLab journey","Three years (as a user and as a contributor) with GitLab.",[18],"Lee Tickett","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749681735/Blog/Hero%20Images/cover_photo.jpg","2020-11-13","{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nI have had a passion for technology since before I can remember. Thirteen years ago I took the plunge, quit my day job, and started an IT development and support company called [Tickett Enterprises Limited](https://www.tickett.net). For the last three years, GitLab has been a part of my journey.\n\n## 3 Years Ago\nWe were (and still are) using a helpdesk system we built ourselves. It does exactly what we need it to do - and any time it doesn’t, we change it. The most important feature of the system is reporting. Specifically, facilitating our monthly billing process; with a click of a button, we generate timesheets and invoices for all of our clients.\n\nThough I was aware of Git (and GitHub), I had not heard of GitLab. We were using SVN in its most basic form (single repository for all projects and no branching), with an integration so all commits would create notes in our helpdesk.\n\n## 2.5 Years Ago\nWe decided that SVN was no longer fit for purpose. Our top issues were:\n* never knowing whether the code in our repository matched what was deployed\n* not being able to work collaboratively on projects\n* feature/knowledge limitations\n* Git was the industry standard\n\nWhile most of these issues were due to the way we were using SVN, we were keen to adopt a more popular system. I don’t remember how I found GitLab, but I did, and spun up a local on-prem instance of Community Edition (CE) using separate projects/repositories and basic branching. If you are considering running a local instance, I recommend the [Bitnami appliance/.ova](https://bitnami.com/stack/gitlab).\n\nIt took some time to get used to local vs remote and to remember to push as well as commit, but we picked it up pretty quickly.\n\n## 2 Years Ago\nWe wanted to use GitLab to help us improve our processes so we:\n* built a little UI for project creation (using the GitLab API). This ensures new projects fit our naming standards, contain our standard template files, have our standard master/test/dev branches, contain the relevant members, and use our webhooks\n* recreated the helpdesk integration we had with SVN (every commit and comment is replicated as a note on our helpdesk)\n* unaware of GitLab EE, we created a custom merge request approval process using webhooks. Our master branch is always protected - a merge request requires 2 approvals from 2 distinct reviewers (one for code and one for functionality)\n\n## 1.5 Years Ago\nA bit late to the party, but finally we set up the GitLab runner to automate our build, spin up our database, execute our unit tests and report test details and code coverage. GitLab CI for .NET was not as well documented as other use cases leading to a lot of trial and error when setting up the runner.\n\nWe are using the Windows runner configured to use a standard shell (which I think is no longer supported). We will either be moving to powershell on windows or possibly using docker images. Here’s a sample .gitlab-ci.yml\n\n```yml\nstages:\n  - build\n  - test\n\nvariables:\n  CI_DEBUG_TRACE: \"false\"\n  ASSEMBLY_VERSION: \"1.0.4\"\n\nbuild:\n stage: build\n script:\n  - 'C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v4.0.30319\\nuget restore'\n  - '\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\BuildTools\\MSBuild\\15.0\\bin\\msbuild\" /t:Restore,Clean,ReBuild /t:Database:Publish /p:Configuration=Debug;Platform=\"Any CPU\" /p:SqlPublishProfilePath=Database.publish.xml'\n  - 'ping 192.168.99.99 -n 1 -w 10000 2>nul || type nul>nul'\n artifacts:\n  paths:\n   - Tests/bin/\n\ntest:\n stage: test\n script:\n  - 'c:\\GitLab-Runner\\opencover\\OpenCover.Console.exe -returntargetcode:1000 -filter:\"+[*]* -[nunit*]* -[*Tests*]*\" -register -target:\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\NUnit.org\\nunit-console\\nunit3-console.exe\" -targetargs:\"Tests\\Tests.csproj --result=testresult.xml;transform=C:\\gitlab-runner\\nunit3-junit.xslt\"'\n coverage: '/^Visited Branches .*(\\(\\d+\\.?\\d*\\))/'\n dependencies:\n  - build\n artifacts:\n  reports:\n   junit: testresult.xml\n\n```\n\nWe were building another customization to allow us to search for code across all repositories. Unfortunately, we hit a limitation because the API did not allow searching anything but the default branch.\n\nAt this point, while Googling for help getting CI up and running, I learned that GitLab is open-source. So I thought maybe I could extend the API to support searching any branch. This lead to [my first contribution](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/merge_requests/28069).\n\n## 1 Year Ago\nAt this point, I was completely new to all of the technologies, techniques, and best practices used by GitLab but found myself participating in my first [GitLab hackathon](https://about.gitlab.comhttps://contributors.gitlab.com/hackathon). Somehow, I managed to take joint first prize!\n\nMy first few contributions were achieved by modifying my production GitLab installation (not ideal). So it was time to get the [GitLab Development Kit (GDK)](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-development-kit) up and running. This was certainly not without its challenges (many of which I suspect stem from me being in the minority of GitLab contributors running Windows).\n\nI have since contributed to the [GDK project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-development-kit) and joined the GDK office hour calls to help shape the way forward and resolve some of the problems and frustrations.\n\nAt this point, I was leearning a lot. Not just about the tools and languages but about the best practices and work ethos within the GitLab team. Better yet, I was able to start taking some of these learnings back to the office.\n\n## 0.5 Years Ago\nI attended GitLab Commit - London 2019. This really helped to confirm my suspicions; we are only scraping the surface of GitLab's capabilities.\n\nOn a few occasions, I wondered whether GitLab may not be a good fit for my company as I watched huge companies like Porsche and Goldman Sachs present. A [presentation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0Eh1sq9r5s) by Huss El-Sheikh from startup 9fin helped ease my concerns.\n\nAround this time, I moved from Windows to Ubuntu to make it easier to work with GDK.\n\nI continued to learn a lot from my contributions, feedback, and interactions with the GitLab team, again applying what I could back in the office. Much around the languages/technologies I hadn’t previously worked with (namely ruby, postgres and vue), but also other takeaways such as:\n* when carrying out code reviews ask questions rather than give instructions (“what do you think about x?” is more productive than “change this to y”)\n* GitLab CI is capable of automating a lot of what we currently do by hand (e.g. code review for best practices)\n* always try to add tests when making code changes\n\nI am a firm believer of documenting processes, decisions, and rationale. There’s nothing worse than someone saying “we do it this way” without being able to back that up with reasoning. With that in mind, we implemented Merge Request Templates to ensure our team was consistent in our approach to coding, testing, and releasing.\n\nBy now our development team had plenty of experience with GitLab and we were starting to move our support team over. To help our team leads monitor merge requests, we adopted 2 simple departmental labels (`Support`/`Development`) and used our webhook engine to ensure every MR is automatically labelled.\n\n## Today / What’s Next\nIn preparation for a transition to .NET core, deprecation of the Windows shell runner and a desire to start testing our frontend (web), I started putting a CI script together using docker and the mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:latest image. The .gitlab-ci.yml looks like;\n\n```yml\nstages:\n  - build\n  - test\n\nvariables:\n  CI_DEBUG_TRACE: \"false\"\n  ASSEMBLY_VERSION: \"1.0.1\"\n\nbuild:\n stage: build\n tags:\n  - docker\n script:\n  - 'dotnet build'\n\ntest:\n stage: test\n tags:\n  - docker\n script:\n  - 'nohup dotnet run --project Web &'\n  - 'apt-get update'\n  - 'apt-get install -y unzip'\n  - 'wget https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/83.0.4103.14/chromedriver_linux64.zip'\n  - 'unzip chromedriver_linux64.zip -d ~/'\n  - 'rm chromedriver_linux64.zip'\n  - 'mv -f ~/chromedriver /usr/local/bin/chromedriver'\n  - 'chown root:root /usr/local/bin/chromedriver'\n  - 'chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/chromedriver'\n  - 'wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | apt-key add -'\n  - 'sh -c ''echo \"deb https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main\" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'''\n  - 'apt-get update'\n  - 'apt-get install -y google-chrome-stable'\n  - 'dotnet test -l:trx Tests/Tests.csproj /p:CollectCoverage=true'\n coverage: '/Total\\s*\\|.*\\|\\s(\\d+\\.?\\d*)%\\s*\\|.*\\|/'\n\n```\n\nAnd the tests look something like;\n\n```c#\n\n    public class UiTests : IDisposable\n    {\n        private readonly Process _webServerProcess;\n        private readonly IWebDriver _driver;\n\n        [Fact]\n        public void ClickNavPrivacyPolicy()\n        {\n            _driver.Navigate()\n                .GoToUrl(\"http://localhost:5000/\");\n\n            var link = _driver.FindElement(By.LinkText(\"Privacy\"));\n            link.Click();\n\n            Assert.Equal(\"http://localhost:5000/Home/Privacy\", _driver.Url);\n        }\n\n        public UiTests()\n        {\n            ChromeOptions chromeOptions = new ChromeOptions();\n            chromeOptions.AddArguments(\"headless\", \"no-sandbox\");\n            _driver = new ChromeDriver(chromeOptions);\n\n            if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Linux)) return;\n\n            _webServerProcess = new Process\n            {\n                StartInfo = {\n                    WorkingDirectory = Path.Combine(System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, \"..\", \"..\", \"..\", \"..\", \"Web\"),\n                    FileName = $\"dotnet.exe\",\n                    Arguments = \" run\",\n                    UseShellExecute = true,\n                }\n            };\n            _webServerProcess.Start();\n        }\n\n        private void KillWebServer()\n        {\n            if (_webServerProcess != null && !_webServerProcess.HasExited)\n            {\n                _webServerProcess.Kill();\n            }\n        }\n\n        public void Dispose()\n        {\n            _driver.Dispose();\n            KillWebServer();\n        }\n    }\n\n```\n\nYou can see some conditional code in there which allows Selenium tests to work both locally on our development machines and remotely on our GitLab runner. If you have a better way of achieving this, please leave a comment. I would love to chat and learn!\n\nI also want to start introducing some linting like we see in the GitLab project to enforce rules around code formatting (spaces, carriage returns, indentation, etc.). I have started to look at JetBrains Resharper (R#) command-line but haven’t had enough time to implement it yet. Ideally. I would like to start with just a rule or two and then slowly introduce more, but it looks quite tricky to take this approach. Please let me know if you’ve been able to achieve this!\n\nI would also like to lose our helpdesk and start using GitLab issues, service desk, timelogs, etc. I am working on identifying the gaps and working with the product managers to understand whether it is realistic to fill those gaps within the GitLab product. Alternatively, I will be looking to build some additional “bolt-ons” using webhooks and the API.\n\nWhile investigating gaps, I stumbled upon the [GitLab-Triage project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-triage) and I expect we'll use this to automate various workflows. I managed to help close a few issues and even create a few additional features which would make it work for us by [contributing to the GitLab-Triage project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-triage/-/merge_requests?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=merged&author_username=leetickett).\n\nWe also added more labels (`needs code review` & `needs functional review`) for our merge request approval process now. We can see where we are and what needs to be done at a glance. We previously relied on an MR checklist that we are deprecating.\n\n![Merge request checklist](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey/mr_checklist.png)\n\n![Merge requests with labels](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey/merge_requests_with_labels.png)\n\n## Contributing to GitLab\n\nI am very proud to have joined the GitLab Core Team. Thanks to everyone who has held my hand and patiently assisted me with contributions.\n\nWith the release of Microsoft Windows Subsystem for Linux v2, I have gone back to running Windows on my laptop with GDK running in Ubuntu on WSL2. This is working brilliantly for me at the moment (the way Visual Studio Code handles things especially is really cool).\n\nI now have 95 [merged merge requests!](https://gitlab.com/dashboard/merge_requests?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=merged&author_username=leetickett) and have been helping several others get started contributing (getting GDK up and running etc). Once this crazy pandemic is over and we can start to socialise again, I would like to try and start some sort of local meetup/group.\n\nI would like to help make it easier to connect GitLab users. I have visions of a mechanism to search for others based:\n* the size of their user base\n* the languages they are using\n* the feature they are using\n\nAt present, we have several tools (Gitter, Issues, Forum etc) but there is a strong reliance on being engaged and stumbling on questions/support requests. I suspect many of us would be happy to have other users reach out directly.\n\nIf you need any more information around:\n* getting your development environment/tools setup on Windows 10\n* getting CI working with .NET and SQL Server projects\n* building customisations using GitLab webhooks and API\n\n...or would like to see a demo of anything discussed above, I would be happy to oblige!\n\nI would love to connect with others who are either looking to, or already using GitLab for:\n* .NET projects\n* customer helpdesk\n* customer billing (using timelogs)\n\nThanks for reading! Here's a picture of me and the family repping with our GitLab merch!\n\n![The tickett family repping GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey/landing_page.png)\n",[23,24,25,26,27,28,29],"CI/CD","community","user stories","workflow","open source","DevOps","collaboration","yml",{},true,"/en-us/blog/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey",{"title":15,"description":16,"ogTitle":15,"ogDescription":16,"noIndex":12,"ogImage":19,"ogUrl":35,"ogSiteName":36,"ogType":37,"canonicalUrls":35},"https://about.gitlab.com/blog/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey","https://about.gitlab.com","article","en-us/blog/lee-tickett-my-gitlab-journey",[40,24,41,26,42,43,29],"cicd","user-stories","open-source","devops","dqzRonbLyaxbbqT9psvzYXmvmmoSAxS5NfUkWFMHsMo",{"data":46},{"logo":47,"freeTrial":52,"sales":57,"login":62,"items":67,"search":373,"minimal":404,"duo":423,"pricingDeployment":433},{"config":48},{"href":49,"dataGaName":50,"dataGaLocation":51},"/","gitlab 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Takeaways from Jacie","Recap of my experience in the CEO Shadow Program.",[712],"Jacie Bandur","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664102/Blog/Hero%20Images/gitlab-values-cover.png","2021-05-18","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\nHi! I’m Jacie Bandur. I completed GitLab’s CEO Shadow program from 2021-04-26 through 2021-05-07. It was a really enlightening experience. I generally work in Learning and Development and consider myself a lifelong learner. I can’t even explain how much I learned in such a short about of time. I learned a lot about the business. I learned a lot about the product. But learned even more about the importance of iteration in everything we do.\n\n### Qualifications to Participate\n\nI wanted to start this off with touching on qualifications to participate in the program.\n\nI am the type of person that has gone through most of my life thinking I’m not qualified for things. I’m not qualified for that job, that promotion, that program. The list goes on and on.\n\nWhen I saw the [CEO Shadow program](/blog/ceo-shadow-impressions-takeaways/) kick off in 2019, I really wanted to participate. I was a little intimidated. Who wouldn’t be, spending 2 weeks with the CEO of any company? But time passed and all the sudden it was 2021 and I had not taken any steps to participating in the program.\n\nIf you are sitting there waiting for someone to tell you that you are qualified to participate in this program, I’m not big on giving “pep talks,” but here’s me telling you - You are qualified for this program. There’s never going to be a good or perfect time to do it. Tell your manager you want to do the CEO Shadow program. Stop waiting. Sign up today.\n\nNote: Take a look at the [eligibility](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/shadow/#eligibility) section of the CEO Shadow page for more information on signing up.\n\n### Pre-Program Tips\n\nThere are many things recommended for shadows to do pre-program outlined on the CEO Shadow handbook page. As I was going through the program there were things that I thought helped me (or would have helped me).\n\nHere are my top 6 recommendations:\n\n1. Make sure your team knows you will be unavailable for 2 weeks. This isn’t a program that can or should be done alongside your normal day to day work. I found catching up from the 2 weeks away kind of difficult because I was trying to keep up on what was going on and I had a bunch of half done things.\n1. Talk with people who have done the shadow program - schedule at least 3 coffee chats with CEO Shadow Alumni.\n1. Have food that is easy to eat quickly. Sid’s meetings are back to back most days, so you will have small amounts of time to eat throughout the day. Sid does eat during calls, which you are welcome to do, too, but if you are taking notes, it is difficult to eat. And this will make you realize why speedy meetings are so important!\n1. Listen to the [Executive Leadership LinkedIn Learning course](https://www.linkedin.com/learning/executive-leadership/).\n1. Be prepared to ask questions. When doing the program virtually, there isn’t a ton of time for asking questions, so when one would come up, I would add it to a note on my computer and ask if there was ever time with just the shadows and Sid.\n1. Take at least 1 day off after the program. Take even a couple of days off if you can! This is recommended on the handbook page, but I can’t stress this enough.\n\n\n### Takeaways\n\n**Group Conversations**\n\nI’ve been at GitLab for almost 4 years. When I joined, I made it a point to attend as many GC’s as I could. I had gotten out of the habit of attending Group Conversations. After attending them again for 2 weeks, I realized how important they are to understand better what is going on across the business. Everything in the organization is so intertwined. It’s helpful to understand what other teams are working on and succeeding in.\n\n**Feedback**\n\nWe should all be giving and receiving feedback often. We have a whole [handbook page on giving and receiving feedback](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/guidance-on-feedback/). Read the handbook page and watch the videos, as well. Practice giving feedback. I recommend using the [1-1 agenda](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/leadership/1-1/suggested-agenda-format/) Sid uses, because Feedback is an essential piece of that agenda, and it makes feedback more of a routine thing.\n\n**Biggest Takeaway**\n\nWe have an incredible team here at GitLab, from Engineering to Product to Sales to People and all the groups in between. There are so many great ideas. I observed the constant reinforcement by Sid to start with something small and build on it. You can ALWAYS make something more complex. It’s hard to go back to something more simple when you start with something complex.\n\nA couple of quotes that I heard from Sid during the program that reinforced this point:\n\n- “Every complex system evolves from a simple system that worked.”\n- “It’s very clear what is the simple solution. We can always make it more complicated as we go on.”\n\nI know they are very similar, but they happened in different meetings on different days, so the point was reinforced repeatedly.\n\nDuring the program, I reflected on the projects that I’am working on. How many of them am I trying to do too much on before releasing. Probably all of them. When I’m working on projects in the future, I will break them down into smaller, more doable chunks. Iteration is hard - it’s a skill to be practicing constantly.\n\n\n### Overall\n\nOverall, the program was really insightful and impactful. If you haven’t participated in it yet, I cannot encourage you enough to do so!\n",{"slug":717,"featured":12,"template":13},"ceo-shadow-recap",{"content":719,"config":731},{"title":720,"description":721,"authors":722,"heroImage":724,"date":725,"body":726,"category":9,"tags":727},"Why I love contributing to GitLab","Making small meaningful changes is what it's all about.",[723],"Austin Regnery","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679501/Blog/Hero%20Images/new-feature.png","2021-05-11","It was mid-morning on a Tuesday in February, and I had 10 minutes in between meetings. So I decided to try and solve a pain point of mine.\nYou see, I had to memorize this HTML snippet to create a collapsible section in GitLab Issue descriptions and comments, but I kept forgetting it. Was it `summary` or `section`? I could never remember.\n```html\n\u003Cdetails>\n\u003Csummary>Insert Title\u003C/summary>\nHidden content\n\u003C/details>\n```\nEven though it is not vanilla Markdown, GitLab knows how to interpret some HTML. I used this formatting trick fairly often since full-page screenshots can occupy a lot of screen space, which leads to excessive scrolling.\nSo I decided to poke around our codebase to see how the other Markdown shortcuts worked. To my surprise, it was pretty straightforward. Each shortcut had a simple text input that mapped to each button. This implementation was simple to replicate since I just needed to copy/paste and replace a few words.\n![Image of Vue and Haml files with editor shortcuts](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/vue-haml.png){: .shadow}\nThe Vue and Haml files with the new shortcut\n\nI started a branch and began hacking away at the code. Now, I would never call myself a Software Engineer, but I like to try and make things from time to time. I was able to add a new shortcut to the toolbar to insert this code snippet for me in less than 10 minutes. No more memorizing! Making contributions like this is what makes working at GitLab so special.\nNow, it wasn't ready for production, but I at least had something that worked. I shared it with my UX colleagues in Slack, and it started to gain traction with several up-votes and few constructive comments on how to make it better.\nWith the functionality flushed out, a few other designers helped me get a better icon added to our SVG library. Using clear iconography is critical for communicating information more clearly.\n| Initial Icon | Final Icon |\n| - | - |\n| ![SVG of chevron right icon](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/chevron-right.svg) | ![SVG of details block icon](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/details-block.svg) |\n\nThe last thing to do was resolve my failing tests, and I had several teammates help me do that.\n![Gif of the shortcut being used](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/demo.gif)\n\nToday [this change](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/54938) merged! Now I solved a pain point for me and others. It took a few months to go from idea to production, but the effort was super low. I'd say the return on my initial investment, 10 minutes, is super high.\n> Having a direct impact on a product was never an option for me before joining GitLab.\n\n![Image of participants in the Merge Request](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab/participants.png)\n\n\nThank you to everyone that helped me deploy this\n",[728,729,730],"UX","product","AWS",{"slug":732,"featured":12,"template":13},"why-i-love-contributing-to-gitlab",{"content":734,"config":746},{"title":735,"description":736,"authors":737,"heroImage":739,"date":725,"body":740,"category":9,"tags":741},"Placebo Lines on the Pipeline Graph","Have you noticed the connecting lines missing on your pipelines lately? Here's why",[738],"Sam Beckham","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749679507/Blog/Hero%20Images/ci-cd.png","\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\n\nHave you ever pressed the close door button on the elevator, in the hope that you'll save a few precious seconds?\nOr got frustrated at the person stood next to you at the cross-walk, neglecting to press the button?\nWell, maybe they know something you don't, or perhaps you know this already.\nMany buttons in our society lie to us.\n[David McRaney](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/) dubbed these, \"Placebo buttons\" and they're everywhere.\nThose elevator doors won't close any faster and the cross-walk button has no effect on the lights.\nThe only lights they control are the lights on the buttons themselves.\nThey give you the feedback you crave, but that's all they're doing.\n\nThese placebos aren't constrained to the physical world, they're prevalent in [UI design](/blog/the-evolution-of-ux-at-gitlab/) too.\nFrom literal placebo buttons like [YouTube's downvote](https://www.quora.com/Does-downvoting-a-comment-on-YouTube-even-do-anything), to more subtle effects like Instagram always [pretending to work](https://www.fastcompany.com/1669788/the-3-white-lies-behind-instagrams-lightning-speed), or progress bars that have a [fixed animation](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/02/why-some-apps-use-fake-progress-bars/517233/).\nThey're everywhere if you know where to look.\n\nAt GitLab, we created a placebo of our own in one of our core features; the pipeline graph.\n\nThose of you who have used our pipeline graph, will be familiar with its appearance.\nThere's a series of jobs, grouped by stages, connected by a series of lines depicting the relationships between the jobs.\nBut these lines might be lying to you.\nThese lines are indiscriminately drawn between each job in a stage, regardless of their relationship.\nThese lines are placebos.\n\n![The old pipeline rendering with lines connecting every job in a stage](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_old-graph.png)\n\nThis wasn't a problem to begin with.\nA basic pipeline has several jobs across a handful of stages.\nJobs in each stage would run parallel to each other, but each stage would run sequentially.\nIn the image shown above, all the jobs in the test stage would trigger at the same time. Once those jobs had finished, all the jobs in the build stage would trigger.\nWe used rudimentary CSS to draw lines connecting each job in one stage to each job in the next.\nThese lines weren't calculated based on their connections, but still reflected the story they were telling.\n\nSince the introduction of `needs` relationships in [v12.2](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss/-/issues/47063), pipelines got a bit more complicated.\nNow you could configure a job in a later stage to trigger as soon as a job in an earlier stage completed.\nLooking at our old example, we could set the API deployment to run as soon as our spec tests passed.\nThis skips the remaining tests and the entire build stage, turning our lines into pretty little liars.\n\nWe had many internal discussions about these lines, and how to show the relationships between jobs.\nThere's the [`needs` visualization](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/directed_acyclic_graph/#needs-visualization), which does an excellent job of displaying these relationships, but the main pipeline graph was still inaccurate.\nFor the past few months, we've been [refactoring the pipeline graph](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/276949), giving it a new lease of life and fixing some of its issues along the way.\nOne of those issues were the faked lines.\nIn the new version, we can accurately draw lines between jobs.\nLines that actually depict the relationships jobs have with each other.\nNow the lines no-longer lie!\n\n![The newer pipeline graph showing the correct needs links between jobs](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_new-graph.png)\n\nThe above image shows an unreleased version of the pipeline graph.\nYou can see the lines drawn between the jobs to show that the `deploy:API` job can start as soon as the `rspec` job is successful.\nSomething the old lines (shown earlier in this post) would have been unable to depict.\n\nOne unfortunate downside of this is that these lines can be quite expensive to calculate.\nThey're actual DOM nodes, drawn deliberately and placed precisely.\nOn smaller graphs this isn't a problem, but some of our initial tests have found pipelines with a potential 8000+ job connections.\nThat kind of calculation would grind the browser to a halt, and nobody wants that.\n\nAt GitLab, we believe in boring solutions.\nWe make the simple change that sets us on the path towards where we want to be.\nShip it, get feedback, and iterate.\nSo that's what we did.\nIn the first phase of this rollout, we shipped the new pipeline graph with no lines connecting the jobs.\nWe don't have to worry about the expensive calculations, and we still get to roll out the refactored pipeline graph.\n\n![The current (v13.11) pipeline graph showing no links between jobs](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/placebo-lines_current-graph.png)\n\nWe know some of you will miss them, but fear not.\nBoring solutions are just technical debt if you don't iterate on them.\nSo the [improved lines are coming](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/4509) in a future release, along with several other improvements to the pipeline graph.\nWe're already starting to roll out the new [Job Dependencies](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/298973) view which shows the jobs in a (much closer to) execution order.\nStay tuned for more updates, and watch [Sarah Groff Hennigh Palermo's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2EKqKjB7OQ) for the technical side of this effort and a deeper dive into some of the decisions we made.\n",[742,743,744,745],"CI","frontend","agile","design",{"slug":747,"featured":12,"template":13},"placebo-lines-on-the-pipeline-graph",{"promotions":749},[750,764,775],{"id":751,"categories":752,"header":754,"text":755,"button":756,"image":761},"ai-modernization",[753],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":757,"config":758},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":759,"dataGaName":760,"dataGaLocation":248},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":762},{"src":763},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":765,"categories":766,"header":767,"text":755,"button":768,"image":772},"devops-modernization",[729,560],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":769,"config":770},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":771,"dataGaName":760,"dataGaLocation":248},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":773},{"src":774},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":776,"categories":777,"header":779,"text":755,"button":780,"image":784},"security-modernization",[778],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":781,"config":782},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":783,"dataGaName":760,"dataGaLocation":248},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":785},{"src":786},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":788,"blurb":789,"button":790,"secondaryButton":795},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":791,"config":792},"Get your free trial",{"href":793,"dataGaName":56,"dataGaLocation":794},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":499,"config":796},{"href":60,"dataGaName":61,"dataGaLocation":794},1772652079993]