Set up Tracing on a GitLab Pipeline

Docs > Continuous Integration Visibility > Pipeline Visibility in Datadog > Set up Tracing on a GitLab Pipeline

Compatibility

Supported GitLab versions:
- GitLab.com (SaaS)
- GitLab >= 14.1 (self-hosted)
- GitLab >= 13.7.0 (self-hosted) by enabling the datadog_ci_integration feature flag
Partial pipelines: View partially retried and downstream pipeline executions
Manual steps: View manually triggered pipelines
Queue time: View amount of time pipeline jobs wait in the queue before processing
Logs correlation: Correlate pipeline spans to logs and enable job log collection
Infrastructure metric correlation: Correlate pipelines to infrastructure host metrics for self-hosted GitLab runners
Custom pre-defined tags: Configure custom tags to all generated pipeline, stages, and job spans
Custom tags and metrics at runtime: Configure custom tags and metrics at runtime
Parameters: Set custom env or service parameters
Pipeline failure reasons: Identify pipeline failure reasons from error messages

Configure the Datadog integration

Configure the integration on a project or group by going to Settings > Integrations > Datadog for each project or group you want to instrument.

You can also activate the integration at the GitLab instance level, by going to Admin > Settings > Integrations > Datadog.

Enable the datadog_ci_integration feature flag to activate the integration. Run one of the following commands, which use GitLab’s Rails Runner, depending on your installation type:

Omnibus installations

sudo gitlab-rails runner "Feature.enable(:datadog_ci_integration)"

From source installations

sudo -u git -H bundle exec rails runner \
  -e production \
  "Feature.enable(:datadog_ci_integration)"

Kubernetes installations

kubectl exec -it <task-runner-pod-name> -- \
  /srv/gitlab/bin/rails runner "Feature.enable(:datadog_ci_integration)"

Then, configure the integration on a project by going to Settings > Integrations > Datadog for each project you want to instrument.

Note: Due to a bug in early versions of GitLab, the Datadog integration cannot be enabled at group or instance level on GitLab versions < 14.1, even if the option is available on GitLab's UI

Fill in the integration configuration settings:

Active: Enables the integration.
Datadog site: Specifies which Datadog site to send data to.
Default: datadoghq.com
Selected site:
API URL (optional): Allows overriding the API URL used for sending data directly, only used in advanced scenarios.
Default: (empty, no override)
API key: Specifies which API key to use when sending data. You can generate one in the APIs tab of the Integrations section on Datadog.
Service (optional): Specifies which service name to attach to each span generated by the integration. Use this to differentiate between GitLab instances.
Default: gitlab-ci
Env (optional): Specifies which environment (env tag) to attach to each span generated by the integration. Use this to differentiate between groups of GitLab instances (for example: staging or production).
Default: none
Tags (optional): Specifies any custom tags to attach to each span generated by the integration. Provide one tag per line in the format: key:value.
Default: (empty, no additional tags)
Note: Available only in GitLab.com and GitLab >= 14.8 self-hosted.

You can test the integration with the Test settings button (only available when configuring the integration on a project). After it’s successful, click Save changes to finish the integration set up.

Integrate through webhooks

As an alternative to using the native Datadog integration, you can use webhooks to send pipeline data to Datadog.

Note: The native Datadog integration is the recommended approach and the option that is actively under development.

Go to Settings > Webhooks in your repository (or GitLab instance settings), and add a new webhook:

URL: https://webhook-intake./api/v2/webhook/?dd-api-key=<API_KEY> where <API_KEY> is your Datadog API key.
Secret Token: leave blank
Trigger: Select Job events and Pipeline events.

To set custom env or service parameters, add more query parameters in the webhooks URL: &env=<YOUR_ENV>&service=<YOUR_SERVICE_NAME>

Set custom tags

To set custom tags to all the pipeline and job spans generated by the integration, add to the URL a URL-encoded query parameter tags, with key:value pairs separated by commas. If a key:value pair contains any commas, surround it with quotes. For example, to add key1:value1,"key2: value with , comma",key3:value3, the following string would need to be appended to the Webhook URL:

?tags=key1%3Avalue1%2C%22key2%3A+value+with+%2C+comma%22%2Ckey3%3Avalue3

Visualize pipeline data in Datadog

After the integration is successfully configured, the Pipelines and Pipeline Executions pages populate with data after the pipelines finish.

Note: The Pipelines page shows data for only the default branch of each repository.

Partial and downstream pipelines

In the Pipeline Executions page, you can use the filters below in the search bar:

Downstream Pipeline: Possible values: true, false
Manually Triggered: Possible values: true, false
Partial Pipeline: Possible values: retry, paused, resumed

The Pipeline executions page with Partial Pipeline:retry entered in the search query

These filters can also be applied through the facet panel on the left hand side of the page.

The facet panel with Partial Pipeline facet expanded and the value Retry selected, the Partial Retry facet expanded and the value true selected

Correlate infrastructure metrics to jobs

If you are using self-hosted GitLab runners, you can correlate jobs with the infrastructure that is running them. For this feature to work, the GitLab runner must have a tag of the form host:<hostname>. Tags can be added while registering a new runner. For existing runners, add tags by updating the runner’s config.toml. Or add tags through the UI by going to Settings > CI/CD > Runners and editing the appropriate runner.

After these steps, CI Visibility adds the hostname to each job. To see the metrics, click on a job span in the trace view. In the drawer, a new tab named Infrastructure appears which contains the host metrics.

View error messages for pipeline failures

Error messages are supported for GitLab versions 15.2.0 and above.

For failed GitLab pipeline executions, each error under the Errors tab within a specific pipeline execution displays a message associated with the error type from GitLab.

See the table below for the message and domain correlated with each error type. Any unlisted error type will lead to the error message of Job failed and error domain of unknown.

Error Type	Error Message	Error Domain
unknown_failure	Failed due to unknown reason	unknown
config_error	Failed due to error on CI/CD configuration file	user
external_validation_failure	Failed due to external pipeline validation	unknown
user_not_verified	The pipeline failed due to the user not being verified	user
activity_limit_exceeded	The pipeline activity limit was exceeded	provider
size_limit_exceeded	The pipeline size limit was exceeded	provider
job_activity_limit_exceeded	The pipeline job activity limit was exceeded	provider
deployments_limit_exceeded	The pipeline deployments limit was exceeded	provider
project_deleted	The project associated with this pipeline was deleted	provider
api_failure	API Failure	provider
stuck_or_timeout_failure	Pipeline is stuck or timed out	unknown
runner_system_failure	Failed due to runner system failure	provider
missing_dependency_failure	Failed due to missing dependency	unknown
runner_unsupported	Failed due to unsupported runner	provider
stale_schedule	Failed due to stale schedule	provider
job_execution_timeout	Failed due to job timeout	unknown
archived_failure	Archived failure	provider
unmet_prerequisites	Failed due to unmet prerequisite	unknown
scheduler_failure	Failed due to schedule failure	provider
data_integrity_failure	Failed due to data integrity	provider
forward_deployment_failure	Deployment failure	unknown
user_blocked	Blocked by user	user
ci_quota_exceeded	CI quota exceeded	provider
pipeline_loop_detected	Pipeline loop detected	user
builds_disabled	Build disabled	user
deployment_rejected	Deployment rejected	user
protected_environment_failure	Environment failure	provider
secrets_provider_not_found	Secret provider not found	user
reached_max_descendant_pipelines_depth	Reached max descendant pipelines	user
ip_restriction_failure	IP restriction failure	provider

Enable job log collection (beta)

The following GitLab versions support collecting job logs:

GitLab.com (SaaS)
GitLab >= 14.8 (self-hosted) only if using object storage to store job logs

To enable collection of job logs:

Enable the datadog_integration_logs_collection feature flag in your GitLab self-hosted or GitLab.com account. This reveals the Enable logs collection option in the Datadog integration.
Enable the Enable logs collection option and save the changes.

Job logs are collected in the Logs product and automatically correlated with the GitLab pipeline within CI Visibility.

Note: Logs are billed separately from CI Visibility

Log files larger than 1GiB are truncated.