Syntax Validation: Stage References, Job Definitions, and Dependency Errors

Problem/Feature Description

A backend team has migrated their CI/CD pipeline from a legacy tool to GitLab CI. The pipeline was assembled quickly and has never successfully run — it fails at pipeline creation with schema errors. The team has asked for a complete syntax analysis before they attempt to run it.

Validate the syntax of the .gitlab-ci.yml below. Identify all schema violations, invalid stage references, and dependency graph errors. For each error, explain the violation and the correction, then produce a corrected version of the file.

Output Specification

Produce:

• A corrected .gitlab-ci.yml with all syntax errors fixed
• A syntax-report.md listing each error with: job or key name, violation type, and correction applied

Input Files

The following file is provided as input.

=============== FILE: inputs/.gitlab-ci.yml =============== stages:

• build
• test
• deploy

default: image: node:18-alpine

build_app: stage: build script: - npm ci - npm run build artifacts: paths: - dist/ expire_in: 1 hour

unit_tests: stage: test needs: - build_app - integration_tests script: - npm test

integration_tests: stage: test script: - npm run test:integration

lint: stage: validate script: - npm run lint

security_scan: stage: test needs: - build_app script: - npm audit allow_failure: true

deploy_staging: stage: deploy needs: - unit_tests - lint script: - echo "Deploying to staging..." environment: name: staging