Using the Gitlab built in CI/CD Pipeline by writing and putting it in the root of your repo .gitlab-ci.yml

Well there is a lot to it but, this link has a little demo that will get you going on how to manually (hint use the “manaul” keyword and automatically kick off a build with Gitlab .gitlab-ci.yml

https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/12/10/basics-of-gitlab-ci-updated/

Ok, that link does not show you how to use “when: manual” here is how:

You can set tasks to be manual by using when: manual in the job (documentation).

Here’s an example of using “when: manual”, in otherwords in this example the “destroy” job never runs automatically – but deploy does (automatic is the default).

stages:
  - deploy
  - destroy

deploy:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - [STEPS TO DEPLOY]

destroy:
  stage: destroy
  script:
    - [STEPS TO DESTROY]
  when: manual