I am trying to deploy to kubernetes using Gitlab CICD. No matter what I do, kubectl apply -f helloworld-deployment.yml --record in my .gitlab-ci.yml always returns that the deployment is unchanged:

$ kubectl apply -f helloworld-deployment.yml --record
 deployment.apps/helloworld-deployment unchanged

Even if I change the tag on the image, or if the deployment doesn't exist at all. However, if I run kubectl apply -f helloworld-deployment.yml --record from my own computer, it works fine and updates when a tag changes and creates the deployment when no deployment exist. Below is my .gitlab-ci.yml that I'm testing with:

image: docker:dind
services:
    - docker:dind

stages:
    - deploy

deploy-prod:
    stage: deploy
    image: google/cloud-sdk
    environment: production
    script:
        - kubectl apply -f helloworld-deployment.yml --record

Below is helloworld-deployment.yml:

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
    name: helloworld-deployment
spec:
    replicas: 2
    selector:
        matchLabels:
            app: helloworld
    template:
        metadata:
            labels:
                app: helloworld
        spec:
            containers:
                - name: helloworld
                  image: registry.gitlab.com/repo/helloworld:test
                  imagePullPolicy: Always
                  ports:
                  - containerPort: 3000
            imagePullSecrets:
                - name: regcred

Update:

This is what I see if I run kubectl rollout history deployments/helloworld-deployment and there is no existing deployment:

Error from server (NotFound): deployments.apps "helloworld-deployment" not found

If the deployment already exists, I see this:

REVISION  CHANGE-CAUSE
1         kubectl apply --filename=helloworld-deployment.yml --record=true

With only one revision.

I did notice this time that when I changed the tag, the output from my Gitlab Runner was:

deployment.apps/helloworld-deployment configured

However, there were no new pods. When I ran it from my PC, then I did see new pods created.

Update:

Running kubectl get pods shows two different pods in Gitlab runner than I see on my PC.

I definitely only have one kubernetes cluster, but kubectl config view shows some differences (the server url is the same). The output for contexts shows different namespaces. Does this mean I need to set a namespace either in my yml file or pass it in the command? Here is the output from the Gitlab runner:

 apiVersion: v1
 clusters:
 - cluster:
     certificate-authority-data: DATA+OMITTED
     server: URL
   name: gitlab-deploy
 contexts:
 - context:
     cluster: gitlab-deploy
     namespace: helloworld-16393682-production
     user: gitlab-deploy
   name: gitlab-deploy
 current-context: gitlab-deploy
 kind: Config
 preferences: {}
 users:
 - name: gitlab-deploy
   user:
     token: [MASKED]

And here is the output from my PC:

apiVersion: v1
clusters:
- cluster:
    certificate-authority-data: DATA+OMITTED
    server: URL
contexts:
- context:
    cluster: do-nyc3-helloworld
    user: do-nyc3-helloworld-admin
  name: do-nyc3-helloworld
current-context: do-nyc3-helloworld
kind: Config
preferences: {}
users:
- name: do-nyc3-helloworld-admin
  user:
    exec:
      apiVersion: client.authentication.k8s.io/v1beta1
      args:
      - kubernetes
      - cluster
      - kubeconfig
      - exec-credential
      - --version=v1beta1
      - --context=default
      - VALUE
      command: doctl
      env: null

It looks like Gitlab adds their own default for namespace:

<project_name>-<project_id>-<environment>

Because of this, I put this in the metadata section of helloworld-deployment.yml:

namespace: helloworld-16393682-production

And then it worked as expected. It was deploying before, but kubectl get pods didn't show it since that command was using the default namespace.