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Merged results pipelines

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A merged results pipeline runs on the result of the source and target branches merged together. It is a type of merge request pipeline.

GitLab creates an internal commit with the merged results, so the pipeline can run against it. This commit does not exist in either branch, but you can view it in the pipeline details. The author of the internal commit is always the user that created the merge request.

The pipeline runs against the target branch as it exists at the moment you run the pipeline. Over time, while you're working in the source branch, the target branch might change. Any time you want to be sure the merged results are accurate, you should re-run the pipeline.

Merged results pipelines can't run when the target branch has changes that conflict with the changes in the source branch. In these cases, the pipeline runs as a merge request pipeline and is labeled as merge request.

Prerequisites

To use merged results pipelines:

Enable merged results pipelines

To enable merged results pipelines in a project, you must have at least the Maintainer role:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > Merge requests.
  3. In the Merge options section, select Enable merged results pipelines.
  4. Select Save changes.

WARNING: If you select the checkbox but don't configure your pipeline to use merge request pipelines, your merge requests may become stuck in an unresolved state or your pipelines may be dropped.

Troubleshooting

Jobs or pipelines run unexpectedly with rules:changes:compare_to

You might have jobs or pipelines that run unexpectedly when using rules:changes:compare_to with merge request pipelines.

With merged results pipelines, the internal commit that GitLab creates is used as a base to compare against. This commit likely contains more changes than the tip of the MR branch, which causes unexpected outcomes.

Merged results pipelines are not created

In GitLab 13.7 and earlier, merged results pipelines might not be created due to a disabled feature flag. This feature flag was removed in GitLab 13.8. Upgrade to 13.8 or later, or make sure the :merge_ref_auto_sync feature flag is enabled on your GitLab instance.

Successful merged results pipeline overrides a failed branch pipeline

A failed branch pipeline is sometimes ignored when the Pipelines must succeed setting is activated. Issue 385841 is open to track this.