> **Disclaimer:** This tool was built through iterative AI-assisted development with [Claude](https://claude.ai). It is experimental, incomplete, and not intended for production use. Coverage of GitLab CI keywords is best-effort and may lag behind GitLab's evolving spec. Use it at your own discretion — no correctness guarantees are made. Contributions and bug reports are welcome.
A local tool to validate and lint `.gitlab-ci.yml` pipelines without needing a GitLab server.
## Features
- **YAML validation** — detects malformed pipeline files early
- **Stage validation** — every job's `stage` must be declared in `stages`
- **`extends:` resolution** — resolves single and multi-level template inheritance before linting, so derived jobs are evaluated against their fully merged definition
- **`needs:` DAG validation** — checks that `needs:` references exist, respect stage ordering, and contain no circular dependencies
- **`dependencies:` validation** — checks that artifact dependency references exist and are in earlier stages
- **Keyword validation** — validates constraints on `when`, `parallel`, `retry`, `allow_failure`, `trigger`, `artifacts`, `cache`, `release`, `environment`, `coverage`, `rules`, and more
- **Remote project includes** — fetches `include: project:` templates from the GitLab API so extends/needs can be validated against the full merged pipeline
- **CI/CD catalog components** — resolves `include: component:` references from the GitLab CI/CD Catalog; public components work without a token
- **Local include resolution** — `include: local:` entries are read from disk and recursively merged before linting, so multi-file pipelines are fully validated
- **Extended variable declarations** — `variables:` entries may use the `{value, description, options}` map form (GitLab CI 13.7+); `default.image` accepts both string and map form; `rules.changes`/`rules.exists` accept both list and `{paths, compare_to}` map form
- **Graph output** — `glint graph` prints a job tree (stages → jobs) to the terminal; `glint graph includes` emits a Mermaid include dependency diagram; `glint graph pipeline` renders a GitLab CI-style PNG/SVG
- **Context simulation** — pass `--branch`, `--tag`, or `--source` to `glint check` or `glint graph` to see which jobs would be active, manual, or skipped for a specific pipeline event; evaluates `rules:if:` expressions and `only`/`except` filters
- **Variable expansion** — `$VAR` and `${VAR}` references inside variable values are expanded after all sources are merged (pipeline defaults → workflow-rule overrides → CLI flags); transitive chains resolve automatically; visible via `--list-vars`
- **Non-string variable scalars** — `BUILD: true`, `RETRIES: 3` and other bare boolean/integer variable values are handled correctly throughout: they render in `--list-vars` output and are injected into the evaluation context as their string equivalents, matching GitLab CI's behaviour
- **Static reachability (GL033)** — warns when a job's `rules:` block can never activate: if every rule has `when: never` the job is permanently excluded from any pipeline run, provable without evaluating any `if:` expressions
- **`services:` validation (GL034)** — map form requires a `name` key; `alias` must be a valid DNS label (letters, digits, hyphens, dots; no leading/trailing hyphens)
- **`rules:changes` / `rules:exists` glob safety (GL035)** — warns when paths are absolute (start with `/`), which can never match since GitLab CI paths are always relative to the repository root
- **`timeout:` format (GL036)** — validates that job and `default:` timeout values are valid GitLab CI duration strings (`1h 30m`, `90 minutes`, `2 hours`, etc.)
- **`id_tokens:` validation (GL037)** — each OIDC token entry must have an `aud` key (missing `aud` is a GitLab API error at runtime)
- **`secrets:` validation (GL038)** — each secret entry must declare exactly one provider (`vault`, `gcp_secret_manager`, or `azure_key_vault`)
- **`pages:` keyword + `artifacts.paths` (GL039)** — warns when a job uses the `pages:` keyword but `artifacts.paths` does not include the publish directory (default: `public`)
- **Duplicate stage names (GL040)** — warns when a stage name appears more than once in `stages:`; GitLab silently merges duplicates, which can cause confusing ordering
- **`cache.key.files` glob detection (GL041)** — warns when `cache.key.files` entries contain glob metacharacters; this field requires exact file paths, not patterns
- **Recursive include depth limit** — include chains are capped at 100 nesting levels (matching GitLab's own limit); project and component includes are now tracked in the visited-file set to prevent cross-include cycles
- **`include: inputs:` substitution** — when a `component:` entry has a `with:` block, all `$[[ inputs.KEY ]]` and `$[[ inputs.KEY | default(…) ]]` placeholders in the fetched template are substituted before parsing, so component-scoped jobs get their correct `stage:` and keyword values instead of `$[[…]]` placeholders
- **Offline mode + include cache** — pass `--cache-dir DIR` to cache fetched remote templates (project: and component: includes) to disk; `--offline` serves entirely from the cache without making network calls
- **Structured output formats** — `--format json` emits a stable JSON report; `--format sarif` emits SARIF 2.1.0 (consumed by GitHub Code Scanning and GitLab SAST); `--format junit` emits JUnit XML (consumable as a CI test-report artifact); `--format github` emits GitHub Actions annotation lines (`::error file=…::`) so findings appear as inline PR comments
- **Sorted findings output** — findings are sorted by source file then line number, so all issues from the same file appear together in order; pipeline-level findings (no file) sort first
- **Consistent ruff-style warnings** — all warnings (unresolvable includes, skipped extends chains, workflow non-start) use the same `path: [warning] message` format as lint findings
- **`--version` / `-v` flag** — prints the compiled version string (e.g. `glint v0.2.14`); the version is also shown at the top of every `--help` output
Cache entries are keyed by SHA-256 of the full request URL/coordinates and stored as plain YAML files in the cache directory. There is currently no automatic expiry — delete the directory or individual entries to force a fresh fetch.
- Variable expansion — `$VAR` / `${VAR}` references within variable values are expanded after all sources are merged; use `--list-vars` to inspect the resolved values
| GL032 | WARNING | `rules:if:` references `$VAR` not declared in `variables:` (pipeline, job, or `workflow:rules:variables:`) — may be a false positive for variables set in GitLab CI/CD project settings |
| GL035 | WARNING | `rules:changes` / `rules:exists` path is absolute; GitLab CI paths are relative to the repo root — absolute paths will never match |
