Use GitLab CI to run tests locally?

Since a few months ago this is possible using gitlab-runner:

gitlab-runner exec docker my-job-name

Note that you need both docker and gitlab-runner installed on your computer to get this working.

You also need the image key defined in your .gitlab-ci.yml file. Otherwise won’t work.

Here’s the line I currently use for testing locally using gitlab-runner:

gitlab-runner exec docker test --docker-volumes "/home/elboletaire/.ssh/id_rsa:/root/.ssh/id_rsa:ro"

Note: You can avoid adding a --docker-volumes with your key setting it by default in /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml. See the official documentation for more details. Also, use gitlab-runner exec docker --help to see all docker-based runner options (like variables, volumes, networks, etc.).

Due to the confusion in the comments, I paste here the gitlab-runner --help result, so you can see that gitlab-runner can make builds locally:

   gitlab-runner --help
NAME:
   gitlab-runner - a GitLab Runner

USAGE:
   gitlab-runner [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]
   
VERSION:
   1.1.0~beta.135.g24365ee (24365ee)
   
AUTHOR(S):
   Kamil Trzciński <ayufan@ayufan.eu> 
   
COMMANDS:
   exec         execute a build locally
   [...]
   
GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --debug          debug mode [$DEBUG]
   [...]

As you can see, the exec command is to execute a build locally.

Even though there was an issue to deprecate the current gitlab-runner exec behavior, it ended up being reconsidered and a new version with greater features will replace the current exec functionality.

Note that this process is to use your own machine to run the tests using docker containers. This is not to define custom runners. To do so, just go to your repo’s CI/CD settings and read the documentation there. If you wanna ensure your runner is executed instead of one from gitlab.com, add a custom and unique tag to your runner, ensure it only runs tagged jobs and tag all the jobs you want your runner to be responsible of.