How to eliminate code repitition in a ".gitlab-ci.yml"-script that uses stages that are almost identical?

Question

I have a gitlab-ci/cd.yaml-file that executes 2 test scripts. As you can see there is a lot of repetition going on. As a matter of fact, both stages are identical, except for their "script" value.

For the smoke-suite the value is

• npm run docker_smoke --single-run --progress false

For the regression-suite the value is

• npm run docker_regression --single-run --progress false

image: node-karma-protractor

stages:
  - suiteSmoke
  - suiteRegression

before_script:
  - npm install

# Smoke suite =================================
smoke_suite:
  stage: suiteSmoke
  tags:
    - docker-in-docker
  cache:
    key: ${CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG}
    paths:
      - node_modules/
  script:
    - npm run docker_smoke --single-run --progress false
  retry: 1
  #saving the HTML-Report
  artifacts:
    when: on_failure
    paths:
      - reporting/
    expire_in: 1 week
  allow_failure: true

# Regression suite ============================
regression_suite:
  stage: suiteRegression
  tags:
    - docker-in-docker
  cache:
    key: ${CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG}
    paths:
      - node_modules/
  script:
    - npm run docker_regression --single-run --progress false
  retry: 1
  #saving the HTML-Report
  artifacts:
    when: on_failure
    paths:
      - reporting/
    expire_in: 1 week
  allow_failure: true

The script needs to adhere to the following rules:

• The tests need to run consecutively (as problems may occur if they're executed in a simultaneous fashion). The order of execution doesn't matter, though.
• If either of the test fails, it gets a second chance and will be executed one more time.
• If one of the tests fails on both attempts and is marked as a 'failed', the other one will still be executed regardless.

Is there a way to eliminate all this repetition via abstraction? How can this be achieved?

Answer 1

You can define templates and then extend your jobs with them.

Documentation: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#extends

Example:

.job-template:
  tags:
    - tag
  allow_failure: true

job1:
  extends:
    - .job-template
  script:
    - do something

job2:
  extends:
    - .job-template
  script:
    - do something