gitlab ci always downloads dependencies - cache in runners isn't working

Question

I am new to gitlab CI and trying to build my maven project using gitlab. I created my own docker image for builds and I am using my local runner.
My .gitlab-ci.yml looks as below: Edited:

image: registry.gitlab.com/girishenoy2003/docker-java-8-mvn-3.6.3:latest
services:
  - docker:dind
stages:
  - compile
  - test
before_script:
  - export MVN_USER_HOME=`pwd`/.m2
cache:
  paths:
    - $MVN_USER_HOME/.m2/repository/
    - target/
maven-compile:
  stage: compile
  script:
    - mvn compile
  tags:
    - my-local-runner
  only:
    - master
maven-test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - mvn test
  tags:
    - my-local-runner
  only:
    - master

During the compile stage I expect all the dependencies to download and cache it and while running test I expect it to get it from cache as I am using my local runner for both jobs.

How can we avoid download of dependent jars from downloading in different jobs?

P.S.:

I already looked at this question - but didn't help
I know that if I use mvn test-compile it will do the trick but I wanted to make it in different jobs to segregate the stages

Edit: Some runner logs:

Fetching changes with git depth set to 50...
Reinitialized existing Git repository in /builds/aws-learning-path/spring-boot-rest/.git/
Checking out f86f9c63 as master...
Removing "..\\..\\..\\cache\\aws-learning-path\\spring-boot-rest\\default\\cache.zip"
Removing target/
Skipping Git submodules setup
Restoring cache
00:00
Checking cache for default...
No URL provided, cache will not be downloaded from shared cache server. Instead a local version of cache will be extracted. 
Successfully extracted cache
Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
$ export MVN_USER_HOME=/root
$ mvn test
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
Downloading from central: https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/springframework/boot/spring-boot-starter-parent/2.2.2.RELEASE/spring-boot-starter-parent-2.2.2.RELEASE.pom
Downloaded from central: https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/springframework/boot/spring-boot-starter-parent/2.2.2.RELEASE/spring-boot-starter-parent-2.2.2.RELEASE.pom (8.1 kB at 3.3 kB/s)

Sergio Tanaka Sergio Tanaka · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-14T19:32:34

Your issue is related to your /root folder

The gitlab-runner do not cache any paths outside of project directory, you need to configure your CI to download and store the dependencies inside your project path

gitlab ci always downloads dependencies - cache in runners isn't working

1 Answers