Or are you looking more for putting the values in the .gitlab-ci.yml itself? This is something we have thought a bit about, but it gets strange with branches and merges where it's not always clear you're doing what the user wants as the different merges happen.
Indeed I meant in the .gitlab-ci.yml. I would assume you'd name the branch in the schedule, and if not default to the default branch. Similarly, it's sad you can't set a variable in one stage and have it available in another, and there's a couple of other niggles that one needs to work around.
With that said, the product is fantastic and I'm just pointing out some flaws so the parent understands I've actually used the product, and not just a fanboy yelling. :)
Or are you looking more for putting the values in the .gitlab-ci.yml itself? This is something we have thought a bit about, but it gets strange with branches and merges where it's not always clear you're doing what the user wants as the different merges happen.
To your second point, you might be interested in some of the primitives we're looking at building next here: https://about.gitlab.com/direction/cicd/#powerful-integrated.... These, in concert, will help with a lot of more complex workflows.