GitLab Templates: One Repo to Rule Them All!

Ever wonder what a GitLab template is and why you should even care?
Let me break it down with a little dev analogy

Think of a GitLab template like a base class in Object-Oriented Programming. Your .gitlab-ci.yml files (or any yaml file) in each project are the subclasses — inheriting behavior, structure, and rules. Clean, consistent, and DRY.

Since I started using templates in GitLab, here’s what changed:
✅ Drastically reduced duplicated code across repos
✅ Centralized logic into a single “template repo”
✅ Rules built-in — so no more confusion around when jobs run
✅ Faster repo spin-ups with reusable logic
✅ Improved developer experience from day one

Now, spinning up a new repo is as easy as importing a template and passing in a few variables. No more reinventing the CI/CD wheel.

Templates = consistency + speed + sanity.

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Written by

Tyler Durham

Hi everyone, Nice to meet you all! I found Hashnode from a cloud tech channel that I follow and I am glad to be here.Tech has always been a passion of mine and I enjoy how expansive it is. A little about me, I've been in tech for ~12 years, started by doing a help desk role supporting the first iPhone. Most of my experience is in QA/Test from mobile devices, to SaaS platforms, automation, Ci/CD, etc... Currently, I am looking to learn all can about "the cloud" in the form of AWS. I am very interested in building a career as a DevOps/SRE. Most of blog will be about learning cloud technologies and how they fit together.