Skip to content

Scheduled pipelines (FREE ALL)

Use scheduled pipelines to run GitLab CI/CD pipelines at regular intervals.

Prerequisites

For a scheduled pipeline to run:

  • The schedule owner must have the Developer role. For pipelines on protected branches, the schedule owner must be allowed to merge to the branch.
  • The .gitlab-ci.yml file must have valid syntax.

Otherwise, the pipeline is not created. No error message is displayed.

Add a pipeline schedule

Scheduled pipelines for tags introduced in GitLab 14.9.

To add a pipeline schedule:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Build > Pipeline schedules.
  3. Select New schedule and fill in the form.
    • Interval Pattern: Select one of the preconfigured intervals, or enter a custom interval in cron notation. You can use any cron value, but scheduled pipelines cannot run more frequently than the instance's maximum scheduled pipeline frequency.
    • Target branch or tag: Select the branch or tag for the pipeline.
    • Variables: Add any number of CI/CD variables to the schedule. These variables are available only when the scheduled pipeline runs, and not in any other pipeline run.

If the project already has the maximum number of pipeline schedules, you must delete unused schedules before you can add another.

Edit a pipeline schedule

Introduced in GitLab 14.8, only a pipeline schedule owner can edit the schedule.

The owner of a pipeline schedule can edit it:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Build > Pipeline schedules.
  3. Next to the schedule, select Edit ({pencil}) and fill in the form.

The user must have the Developer role or above for the project. If the user is not the owner of the schedule, they must first take ownership of the schedule.

Run manually

To trigger a pipeline schedule manually, so that it runs immediately instead of the next scheduled time:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Build > Pipeline schedules.
  3. On the right of the list, for the pipeline you want to run, select Play ({play}).

You can manually run scheduled pipelines once per minute.

When you run a scheduled pipeline manually, the pipeline runs with the permissions of the user who triggered it, not the permissions of the schedule owner.

Take ownership

Scheduled pipelines execute with the permissions of the user who owns the schedule. The pipeline has access to the same resources as the pipeline owner, including protected environments and the CI/CD job token.

To take ownership of a pipeline created by a different user:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Build > Pipeline schedules.
  3. On the right of the list, for the pipeline you want to become owner of, select Take ownership.

You need at least the Maintainer role to take ownership of a pipeline created by a different user.

Related topics