Pass variables from deployment project services to CI runnerexpose-deployment-variables

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

1 files changed, 15 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.