gitlab-ci-local overwrites a pre-defined variable from gitlab-ci.yml

[BenediktBertsch]

Minimal .gitlab-ci.yml illustrating the issue

---
test:
  stage: deploy
  variables:
    CI_PROJECT_DIR: "TEST_DIRECTORY"
  script:
    - |
      echo "CI_PROJECT_DIR: $CI_PROJECT_DIR"

Expected behavior
The expected behavior should be that the CI_PROJECT_DIR variable is overwritten by the job's variable.
Expected output should be:
"test > CI_PROJECT_DIR: TEST_DIRECTORY" instead I get "test > CI_PROJECT_DIR: /gcl-builds"

Host information
Ubuntu
gitlab-ci-local 4.56.2

Containerd binary
I'm using docker.

Thank you for this great tool.

[ANGkeith]

what exactly are you trying to achieve here by overriding CI_PROJECT_DIR ?

because, i don't think it does what you think it does in gitlab.com

PS:
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/doc/ci/variables/predefined_variables.md?plain=1#L15-16

if not #1330 is probably what you're requesting for

[BenediktBertsch]

what exactly are you trying to achieve here by overriding CI_PROJECT_DIR ?

We got a template that is essentially looking like that:

  - /kaniko/executor --context ${DOCKER_CONTEXT:-$CI_PROJECT_DIR} ${DOCKER_MIRRORS} ${DOCKER_BUILD_ARGS} --dockerfile "${DOCKERFILE:-$CI_PROJECT_DIR/Dockerfile}" --no-push

So we were until now just adapting the CI_PROJECT_DIR to e.g. our docker folder like CI_PROJECT_DIR: "docker", instead we could also just define beforehand the full path of DOCKERFILE. In our testing with gitlab-ci-local we saw that the behavior differs. The source of that is that as far as I read the code the CI_PROJECT_DIR gets always overwritten with some default value.

I think its a bug because the behavior differs between gitlab-ci-local and the real pipeline but its up to you guys to decide on that. I do know that we can easily resolve it on our side but my expection would've been that the prio is more like this: gitlab-ci.yml, .env, global .env and then if some default values are not set set them.

[ANGkeith]

oo if that's the case why not use other variable name instead of overriding the pre-defined variables ?

since it's explicitly recommended against from doing so

[BenediktBertsch]

oo if that's the case why not use other variable name instead of overriding the pre-defined variables ?

since it's explicitly recommended against from doing so

Yeah already did it, just wanted to confirm if this behavior is intended. I mean gitlab says its not recommended is enough for me to close this issue.