Simple use Extends - Variables for Pipeline

Goal is simple

Deploy wordpress site.

If merge is to “dev” branch… then deploy to namespace in k8 of “dev” and use values_dev.yaml file to deploy wordpress.

variables:
    KUBECONFIG: "./files/k3s_kubeconfig.yml"
    APP_NAME: wordpress
    VALUES: ""  # needs placeholder 
    NAMESPACE: "" # needs placeholder

default:  
  tags:
    - k3s  # tag for onsite runner

stages:
  - build
  # - test
  # - deploy


################# BUILD STAGE #################
build-stage:
  stage: build
  image: alpine/helm:3.2.1
  script:
    - echo ${APP_NAME} 
    - echo ${VALUES}
    - echo ${NAMESPACE}
    - helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
    - helm upgrade --install ${APP_NAME} bitnami/wordpress --version 19.0.6  --values=./${APP_NAME}/${VALUES} --create-namespace --namespace ${NAMESPACE}

build-stage-dev:
    extends: build-stage
    rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'dev'
      when: always
    variables:
      VALUES: "./${APP_NAME}/values_dev.yaml"
      NAMESPACE: "net-dev"
      # EXTRA_VAR_FILES: " -var-file=./${APP_NAME}/blah.yaml"

build-stage-prod:
    extends: build-stage
    rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'main'
      when: always
    variables:
      VALUES: "./${APP_NAME}/values_prod.yaml"
      NAMESPACE: "net-prod"
      # EXTRA_VAR_FILES: " -var-file=./${APP_NAME}/blah.yaml"

I swear I had it working… it just. worked I even show in history of k8 cluster namepaces. did dev branch… did manual merge to main … two websites… it was beautiful. A few weeks came back to tear down and run again… . now it won’t take any variables from “extends” stanza and use them in “script”

I get error where it does provide variable for upper level variable but ignores those down in extends… which then breaks the whole evaluation logic / purpose to set variables based on pipeline deploy.

Created fresh repository.
Checking out 34d65058 as detached HEAD (ref is dev)...
Skipping Git submodules setup
Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
00:03
$ echo ${APP_NAME}
wordpress
$ echo ${VALUES}
$ echo ${NAMESPACE}
$ helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
"bitnami" has been added to your repositories
$ helm upgrade --install ${APP_NAME} bitnami/wordpress --version 19.0.6  --values=./${APP_NAME}/${VALUES} --create-namespace --namespace ${NAMESPACE}
Error: flag needs an argument: --namespace
Cleaning up project directory and file based variables
00:00
ERROR: Job failed: command terminated with exit code 1

I read through:
CI/CD YAML syntax reference | GitLab

and saw note " * Doesn’t merge the values of the keys. " but this is not very clear… and… I swear I had this working

Tried to backtrace to code that did work but… too many changes / beers ago.

Ok.

Called a friend… he is peer who is all around a good guy… and in 10 seconds pointed out my issue.

I “cleaned up” my code… which I copied from various places and examples… by removing that annoying and unneeded “.” at the begining

Well… That “.” means, dont run this job within the CD process, but parse on and run based on “extras” evaluation, and its variables.

.build-stage:
  stage: build
  image: alpine/helm:3.2.1
  script:
    - echo ${APP_NAME} 
    - echo ${VALUES}
    - echo ${NAMESPACE}
    - apk update
    - apk add curl
    - curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/$(curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
    - chmod +x ./kubectl ; mv ./kubectl /usr/bin/kubectl
    - pwd
    - kubectl apply -f ./$APP_NAME/wp_storage_claim.yaml
    - kubectl apply -f ./$APP_NAME/wp_cilium_ip.yaml
    - helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
    - helm upgrade --install ${APP_NAME} bitnami/wordpress --version 19.0.6 --set "wordpressPassword=${wordpressPassword},global.storageClass=${storageClass},persistence.existingClaim=${existingClaim},mariadb.auth.password=${mariadb_password},mariadb.auth.rootPassword=${mariadb_rootPassword}" --create-namespace --namespace ${NAMESPACE}

build-stage-dev:
    extends: .build-stage
    rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'dev'
      when: always
    variables:
      VALUES: "values_dev.yaml"
      NAMESPACE: "net-dev"
      existingClaim: mariadb-pv-dev
      # EXTRA_VAR_FILES: " -var-file=./${APP_NAME}/blah.yaml"

build-stage-prod:
    extends: .build-stage
    rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'main'
      when: always
    variables:
      VALUES: "values_prod.yaml"
      NAMESPACE: "net-prod"
      existingClaim: mariadb-pv-prod
      # EXTRA_VAR_FILES: " -var-file=./${APP_NAME}/blah.yaml"

thanks