How can caching and artifacts speed up Jobs and CronJobs on GitLab CI?

Caching and artifacts can significantly speed up Jobs and CronJobs on GitLab CI by reducing the execution time of builds and tests. By storing completed tasks and their outputs, subsequent runs can leverage these results instead of recalculating or re-fetching them. This results in faster build times and a more efficient CI/CD pipeline.

For example, when using caching, dependencies that are required for the build can be stored after the first job run. On subsequent runs, these dependencies can be retrieved from the cache, significantly reducing the time needed to set up the environment. Similarly, artifacts allow you to save the output of a job, allowing other jobs to pick up from where the previous job left off, minimizing redundant work.

Implementing these features effectively can lead to faster CI/CD processes, helping teams deliver code changes more quickly and reliably.

Examples of Caching and Artifacts in GitLab CI

    cache:
      paths:
        - vendor/
    
    job1:
      script:
        - composer install
    
    job2:
      dependencies:
        - job1
      script:
        - phpunit tests/