Support variables:expand

[HauserV]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I would like to use run pipelines using the gitlab-ci-utils templates by Aaron Goldenthal. This currently seems impossible because his prepare_release job embedded in virtually all templates uses the variables:expand keyword which prevents gitlab-ci-local from parsing the pipeline.

Here's a simple MWE:

mwe:
  variables:
    RELEASE:
      value: '{"defaults":{"name":"$$CHANGELOG","description":"$$CHANGELOG"}}'
      expand: false
  script:
    - echo $RELEASE

and the output from gitlab-ci-local:

$ gitlab-ci-local 
mwe has invalid variables hash of key value pairs. RELEASE=[object Object]

Describe the solution you'd like
gitlab-ci-local should parse the pipeline code, start the job and, ideally, print the unexpanded $RELEASE variable.

Describe alternatives you've considered
I have tried overriding the job which uses this syntax but it didn't help because gitlab-ci-local exits before evaluating my overrides.

Additional context

$ gitlab-ci-local --version
4.63.0