gitlab runner The requested URL returned error: 403

I also encountered this problem

fatal: unable to access 'http://gitlab-ci-token:xxxx.git':The Requested URL returned error:403
ERROR: Job Failed: command terminated with exit code 1

but it seems that the reason for the above answer is not the same, because my account is an administrator, ci job pulls the project and reports an error 403, because the administrator account is not a project member, added as a project Members will no longer report this error.

ci_build_permissions

To resolve this issue I had to add myself as a project member. This is a private repo. I'm not sure if that caused the runner to fail with the different permission setup or not, but it is highly possible.

This help article at gitlab outlines this issue.

With the new permission model in place, there may be times that your build will fail. This is most likely because your project tries to access other project's sources, and you don't have the appropriate permissions. In the build log look for information about 403 or forbidden access messages.

As an Administrator, you can verify that the user is a member of the group or project they're trying to have access to, and you can impersonate the user to retry the failing build in order to verify that everything is correct.

From the project page click the settings gear and then click members. Add yourself (or user generating builds) as a member to the project. I used the "Master" Role, but based off of this document you can probably use the "Reporter" role as a minimum. The reporter role is the least privilege that still has access to "Pull project code." This removed my 403 error and allowed me to continue on.