I’m currently working on a website with a somewhat complex architecture, which is structured as follows:

REPO-A
  /.git
  /files
  /SUB-REPO
    /.git
    /files
REPO-B
  /.git
  /files

My technical manager has tasked me with implementing continuous integration for this project. However, I’m just starting to learn Devops.

We’re using PHPUnit 10.5 and PHP 8.1, and we host our repositories on GitLab.

The challenge I’m facing is that I’ve been asked to manage the tests from a single test directory within a single project, despite the architecture spreading across multiple repositories. I believe this is an unusual requirement for a non-standard architecture, which is why I’m seeking advice.

My Questions:

1. How can I automate these tests using GitLab CI pipelines across this setup? Is it possible to have a single YAML file in one repository that triggers all the automated tests for each push in all repositories?

2. Is this approach considered a bad practice? If so, could you explain why?