GitLab CI/CD's 2018 highlights

This post highlights several key CI/CD improvements in 2018: Access control for GitLab Pages (community contribution), Feature flags for applications, Pipelines for merge requests (`only/except: merge_requests`), Usability improvements to the merge request widget (JUnit XML Test Summary, enhanced information on running deploys, direct links to changed pages in Review App), Consistent naming of status checks to support GitHub-integrated CI workflow, and moving the `include:` keyword from Starter to Core tier. Honorable mentions include manually stopping environments, `extend` keyword for job reuse, controlling jobs based on path changes, interactive web terminal for Docker executor, timed deployments for AutoDevOps, `parallel` job keyword, and allowing pipelines to be deleted by project owners.