GitLab PM here. As part of 11.10, we introduced the ability to disable Auto DevOps at the group-level (https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/topics/autodevops/#at-the-group-l...). This will disable it for all projects under the particular group.

We are working to make Auto DevOps smarter and only run in cases where it can add value (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/57483).

I agree with you, we don't currently cover all the use cases we'd like to, but we're working to expand the feature set and technologies we cover.

If you had a particular use case that was not well covered, I'd love to learn more about it so we can evaluate related improvements. You can reach me at daniel at gitlab dot com. Thanks.