Pass variables from deployment project services to CI runner

This commit introduces the concept of deployment variables - variables
that are collected from deployment services and passed to CI runner
during a deployment build.
Deployment services specify the variables by overriding
"predefined_variables" method.

This commit also configures variables for KubernetesService

2 files changed, 26 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/ci/variables/README.md b/doc/ci/variables/README.md
index eb540a50606..baa5fc67816 100644
--- a/doc/ci/variables/README.md
+++ b/doc/ci/variables/README.md
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ this order:
 1. [Secret variables](#secret-variables)
 1. YAML-defined [job-level variables](../yaml/README.md#job-variables)
 1. YAML-defined [global variables](../yaml/README.md#variables)
+1. [Deployment variables](#deployment-variables)
 1. [Predefined variables](#predefined-variables-environment-variables) (are the
    lowest in the chain)
 
@@ -148,6 +149,20 @@ Secret variables can be added by going to your project's
 
 Once you set them, they will be available for all subsequent builds.
 
+## Deployment variables
+
+>**Note:**
+This feature requires GitLab CI 8.15 or higher.
+
+[Project services](../../project_services/project_services.md) that are
+responsible for deployment configuration may define their own variables that
+are set in the build environment. These variables are only defined for
+[deployment builds](../environments.md). Please consult the documentation of
+the project services that you are using to learn which variables they define.
+
+An example project service that defines deployment variables is
+[Kubernetes Service](../../project_services/kubernetes.md).
+
 ## Debug tracing
 
 > Introduced in GitLab Runner 1.7.
diff --git a/doc/project_services/kubernetes.md b/doc/project_services/kubernetes.md
index cb577b608b4..fda364b864e 100644
--- a/doc/project_services/kubernetes.md
+++ b/doc/project_services/kubernetes.md
@@ -36,3 +36,14 @@ to create one. You can also view or create service tokens in the
 Fill in the service token and namespace according to the values you just got.
 If the API is using a self-signed TLS certificate, you'll also need to include
 the `ca.crt` contents as the `Custom CA bundle`.
+
+## Deployment variables
+
+The Kubernetes service exposes following
+[deployment variables](../ci/variables/README.md#deployment-variables) in the
+GitLab CI build environment:
+
+- `KUBE_URL` - equal to the API URL
+- `KUBE_TOKEN`
+- `KUBE_NAMESPACE`
+- `KUBE_CA_PEM` - only if a custom CA bundle was specified