Context: Whenever a user creates a merge request I want to run a CI/CD pipeline which prints out something on basis of some code. The code requires access to CI/CD variables. If there are any commits inside this merge request then also pipelines should run doing same thing as when merge request was created. Also when merge request is merged I need to again run a pipeline which will run some different code.
Question : Now what I want to know is if someone uses a protect variable then when merge request is created the merge request pipeline can't access it (https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/pipelines/merge_request_pipelines.html). So how should we solve this problem? The problem being pipeline is not able to access these variables and hence the code is not able to make API calls. Is there any alternative way to get access to protect variables? Inside this merge request pipeline? Or any other alternative way to solve this problem?
The branch from which MR is created is a protected branch.
In-depth explanation
So Basically i wanted to run a pipeline when (1) MR was created, (2)when commits were added after MR was created and finally when MR got merged. This also required access to CI variables as the code that ran after pipeline got triggered required access to CI variables. Now when i make these variables as protected variables they cant be accessed inside MR pipeline. They can be accessed inside branch pipeline which gets triggered on a commit, considering we make this branch protected. So basically my MR pipelines fails every-time i make these CI variables as protected. This is the rule i was using.
rules: - if: '$CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == "merge_request_event" || $CI_COMMIT_MESSAGE'
Now since these MR pipelines cant access these protected variable, MR pipelines keep getting failed and thus nothing is printed.
If i stop using protected variable it can work but i want to know can we make it work with protected variables?