Gitlab feature branch deployment - gitlab-ci

Question

We have successfully created a .gitlab-ci.yml which is able to deploy feature branches to different environments. We are also able to skip deployment with specific commit messages [skip deploy]
now we want to make the deployment a manual job on first run or if nothing is deployed yet, but if one there is already one deployment, the job should always run.
We tried the following settings, but it doesn't work.
deploy:
rules
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID && $CI_COMMIT_MESSAGE =~ /\[skip\sdeploy\]/
when: never
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID
exists:
- already-deployed
when: always
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID
when: manual
script:
- echo "already-deployed" > already-deployed
cache:
key: ${CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG}
paths:
- already-deployed
Anybody with any ideas?

Answer 1

deploy:
rules:
# don't create job for [skip deploy]
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID && $CI_COMMIT_MESSAGE =~ /\[skip\sdeploy\]/
when: never
# run always when it is a MR and label `deployed exists`
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID && $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_LABELS =~ /\bdeployed\b/
when: always
# otherwise create a manual job for MRs
- if: $CI_MERGE_REQUEST_ID
when: manual
after_script:
- |
curl \
--request PUT \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--header "Private-Token: ${GITLAB_TOKEN}" \
--data '{"labels": "deployed"}' \
https://${GITLAB_SERVER}/api/v4/projects/${CI_PROJECT_ID}/merge_requests/${CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID}
This is now working, only downside is: if you already use labels on your MRs you should use a more sophisticated script to update the labels instead of overwriting them.