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| false | Learn how to use and administer GitLab, the most scalable Git-based fully integrated platform for software development. |
GitLab Docs
Welcome to GitLab Documentation.
Here you can access the complete documentation for GitLab, the single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle.
Overview
No matter how you use GitLab, we have documentation for you.
| Essential Documentation | Essential Documentation |
|---|---|
| User Documentation Discover features and concepts for GitLab users. |
Administrator documentation Everything GitLab self-managed administrators need to know. |
| Contributing to GitLab At GitLab, everyone can contribute! |
New to Git and GitLab? We have resources to get you started. |
| Building an integration with GitLab? Consult our automation and integration documentation. |
Coming to GitLab from another platform? Consult our handy guides. |
| Install GitLab Installation options for different platforms. |
Customers Information for new and existing customers. |
| Update GitLab Update your GitLab self-managed instance to the latest version. |
GitLab Releases What's new in GitLab. |
Popular Documentation
Have a look at some of our most popular documentation resources:
| Popular Topic | Description |
|---|---|
Configuring .gitlab-ci.yml |
Complete syntax documentation for configuring your CI pipelines. |
| GitLab CI/CD examples | Get up to speed quickly with common CI/CD scenarios. |
| GitLab Container Registry | Host Docker images within GitLab. |
| GitLab Pages | Host static websites for your projects with GitLab. |
| GitLab.com settings | Settings for GitLab.com. |
| Kubernetes integration | Use GitLab with Kubernetes. |
| SSH authentication | Secure your network communications. |
| Using Docker images | Build and test your applications with Docker. |
The entire DevOps Lifecycle
GitLab is the first single application for software development, security, and operations that enables Concurrent DevOps, making the software lifecycle faster and radically improving the speed of business.
GitLab provides solutions for all the stages of the DevOps lifecycle:
GitLab is like a top-of-the-line kitchen for making software. As the executive chef, you decide what software you want to serve. Using your recipe, GitLab handles all the prep work, cooking, and delivery, so you can turn around orders faster than ever.
The following sections provide links to documentation for each DevOps stage:
| DevOps Stage | Documentation for |
|---|---|
| Manage | Statistics and analytics features. |
| Plan | Project planning and management features. |
| Create | Source code and data creation and management features. |
| Verify | Testing, code quality, and continuous integration features. |
| Package | Docker container registry. |
| Release | Application release and delivery features. |
| Configure | Application and infrastructure configuration tools. |
| Monitor | Application monitoring and metrics features. |
| Secure | Security capability features. |
Manage
GitLab provides statistics and insight into ways you can maximize the value of GitLab in your organization.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Manage stage:
| Manage Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Authentication and Authorization (CORE ONLY) |
Supported authentication and authorization providers. |
| GitLab Cycle Analytics | Measure the time it takes to go from an idea to production for each project you have. |
| Instance Statistics | Discover statistics on how many GitLab features you use and user activity. |
Plan
Whether you use Waterfall, Agile, or Conversational Development, GitLab streamlines your collaborative workflows.
Visualize, prioritize, coordinate, and track your progress your way with GitLab’s flexible project management tools.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Plan stage:
| Plan Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Burndown Charts (STARTER) | Watch your project's progress throughout a specific milestone. |
| Discussions | Threads, comments, and resolvable threads in issues, commits, and merge requests. |
| Due Dates | Keep track of issue deadlines. |
| Epics (ULTIMATE) | Tracking groups of issues that share a theme. |
| Issues, including confidential issues, issue and merge request templates, and moving issues |
Project issues, restricting access to issues, create templates for submitting new issues and merge requests, and moving issues between projects. |
| Labels | Categorize issues or merge requests with descriptive labels. |
| Milestones | Set milestones for delivery of issues and merge requests, with optional due date. |
| Project Issue Board | Display issues on a Scrum or Kanban board. |
| Quick Actions | Shortcuts for common actions on issues or merge requests, replacing the need to click buttons or use dropdowns in GitLab's UI. |
| Related Issues (STARTER) | Create a relationship between issues. |
| Roadmap (ULTIMATE) | Visualize epic timelines. |
| Service Desk (PREMIUM) | A simple way to allow people to create issues in your GitLab instance without needing their own user account. |
| Time Tracking | Track time spent on issues and merge requests. |
| Todos | Keep track of work requiring attention with a chronological list displayed on a simple dashboard. |
Create
Consolidate source code into a single distributed version control system that’s easily managed and controlled without disrupting your workflow.
GitLab’s Git repositories come complete with branching tools and access controls, providing a scalable, single source of truth for collaborating on projects and code.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Create stage:
Projects and Groups
| Create Topics - Projects and Groups | Description |
|---|---|
| Advanced global search (STARTER) | Leverage Elasticsearch for faster, more advanced code search across your entire GitLab instance. |
| Advanced syntax search (STARTER) | Use advanced queries for more targeted search results. |
| Contribution analytics (STARTER) | See detailed statistics of group contributors. |
| Create and fork projects, and import and export projects between instances |
Create, duplicate, and move projects. |
| File locking (PREMIUM) | Lock files to avoid merge conflicts. |
| GitLab Pages | Build, test, and deploy your static website with GitLab Pages. |
| Groups and Subgroups | Organize your projects in groups. |
| Issues Analytics (PREMIUM) | Check how many issues were created per month. |
| Projects, including project access and settings |
Host source code, and control your project's visibility and set configuration. |
| Search through GitLab | Search for issues, merge requests, projects, groups, and todos. |
| Snippets | Snippets allow you to create little bits of code. |
| Web IDE | Edit files within GitLab's user interface. |
| Wikis | Enhance your repository documentation with built-in wikis. |
Repositories
| Create Topics - Repositories | Description |
|---|---|
| Branches and the default branch | How to use branches in GitLab. |
| Commits and signing commits | Work with commits, and use GPG to sign your commits. |
| Create branches, create and upload files, and create directories |
Create branches, create and upload files, and create directories within GitLab. |
| Delete merged branches | Bulk delete branches after their changes are merged. |
| File templates | File templates for common files. |
| Files | Files management. |
| Jupyter Notebook files | GitLab's support for .ipynb files. |
| Protected branches | Use protected branches. |
| Push rules (STARTER) | Additional control over pushes to your projects. |
| Repositories | Manage source code repositories in GitLab's user interface. |
| Repository mirroring (STARTER) | Push to or pull from repositories outside of GitLab |
| Start a merge request | Start merge request when committing via GitLab's user interface. |
Merge Requests
| Create Topics - Merge Requests | Description |
|---|---|
| Checking out merge requests locally | Tips for working with merge requests locally. |
| Cherry-picking | Use GitLab for cherry-picking changes. |
| Merge request thread resolution | Resolve threads, move threads in a merge request to an issue, and only allow merge requests to be merged if all threads are resolved. |
| Merge requests | Merge request management. |
| Work In Progress "WIP" merge requests | Prevent merges of work-in-progress merge requests. |
Integration and Automation
| Create Topics - Integration and Automation | Description |
|---|---|
| GitLab API | Integrate GitLab via a simple and powerful API. |
| GitLab Integration | Integrate with multiple third-party services with GitLab to allow external issue trackers and external authentication. |
| GitLab Webhooks | Let GitLab notify you when new code has been pushed to your project. |
| Jira Development Panel (PREMIUM) | See GitLab information in the Jira Development Panel. |
| Project Services | Integrate a project with external services, such as CI and chat. |
| Trello Power-Up | Integrate with GitLab's Trello Power-Up. |
Verify
Spot errors sooner, improve security and shorten feedback cycles with built-in static code analysis, code testing, code quality, dependency checking, and Review Apps. Customize your approval workflow controls, automatically test the quality of your code, and spin up a staging environment for every code change.
GitLab Continuous Integration is the most popular next generation testing system that scales to run your tests faster.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Verify stage:
| Verify Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Code Quality reports (STARTER) | Analyze source code quality. |
| GitLab CI/CD | Explore the features and capabilities of Continuous Integration with GitLab. |
| JUnit test reports | Display JUnit test reports on merge requests. |
| Multi-project pipelines (PREMIUM) | Visualize entire pipelines that span multiple projects, including all cross-project inter-dependencies. |
| Pipeline Graphs | Visualize builds. |
| Review Apps | Preview changes to your application right from a merge request. |
Package
GitLab Packages allows organizations to utilize GitLab as a private repository for a variety of common package managers. Users are able to build and publish packages, which can be easily consumed as a dependency in downstream projects.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Package stage:
| Package Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Container Registry | The GitLab Container Registry enables every project in GitLab to have its own space to store Docker images. |
| Dependency Proxy (PREMIUM) | The GitLab Dependency Proxy sets up a local proxy for frequently used upstream images/packages. |
| Conan Repository (PREMIUM) | The GitLab Conan Repository enables every project in GitLab to have its own space to store Conan packages. |
| Maven Repository (PREMIUM) | The GitLab Maven Repository enables every project in GitLab to have its own space to store Maven packages. |
| NPM Registry (PREMIUM) | The GitLab NPM Registry enables every project in GitLab to have its own space to store NPM packages. |
Release
Spend less time configuring your tools, and more time creating. Whether you’re deploying to one server or thousands, build, test, and release your code confidently and securely with GitLab’s built-in Continuous Delivery and Deployment.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Release stage:
| Release Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto Deploy | Configure GitLab for the deployment of your application. |
| Canary Deployments (PREMIUM) | Employ a popular CI strategy where a small portion of the fleet is updated to the new version first. |
| Deploy Boards (PREMIUM) | View the current health and status of each CI environment running on Kubernetes, displaying the status of the pods in the deployment. |
| Environments and deployments | With environments, you can control the continuous deployment of your software within GitLab. |
| Environment-specific variables | Limit scope of variables to specific environments. |
| GitLab CI/CD | Explore the features and capabilities of Continuous Deployment and Delivery with GitLab. |
| GitLab Pages | Build, test, and deploy a static site directly from GitLab. |
| Protected Runners | Select Runners to only pick jobs for protected branches and tags. |
| Scheduled Pipelines | Execute pipelines on a schedule. |
Configure
Automate your entire workflow from build to deploy and monitoring with GitLab Auto DevOps. Best practice templates get you started with minimal to zero configuration. Then customize everything from buildpacks to CI/CD.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Configure stage:
| Configure Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Auto DevOps | Automatically employ a complete DevOps lifecycle. |
| Create Kubernetes clusters on GKE | Use Google Kubernetes Engine and GitLab. |
| Executable Runbooks | Documented procedures that explain how to carry out particular processes. |
| GitLab ChatOps | Interact with CI/CD jobs through chat services. |
| Installing Applications | Deploy Helm, Ingress, and Prometheus on Kubernetes. |
| Mattermost slash commands | Enable and use slash commands from within Mattermost. |
| Multiple Kubernetes Clusters (PREMIUM) | Associate more than one Kubernetes clusters to your project. |
| Protected variables | Restrict variables to protected branches and tags. |
| Serverless | Run serverless workloads on Kubernetes. |
| Slack slash commands | Enable and use slash commands from within Slack. |
Monitor
Ensure your applications are always responsive and available.
GitLab collects and displays performance metrics for deployed applications so you can know in an instant how code changes impact your production environment.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Monitor stage:
| Monitor Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| GitLab Performance Monitoring (CORE ONLY) | Use InfluxDB and Grafana to monitor the performance of your GitLab instance (will be eventually replaced by Prometheus). |
| GitLab Prometheus (CORE ONLY) | Configure the bundled Prometheus to collect various metrics from your GitLab instance. |
| Health check | GitLab provides liveness and readiness probes to indicate service health and reachability to required services. |
| Prometheus project integration | Configure the Prometheus integration per project and monitor your CI/CD environments. |
| Prometheus metrics | Let Prometheus collect metrics from various services, like Kubernetes, NGINX, NGINX Ingress controller, HAProxy, and Amazon Cloud Watch. |
Secure
Check your application for security vulnerabilities that may lead to unauthorized access, data leaks, and denial of services. GitLab will perform static and dynamic tests on the code of your application, looking for known flaws and report them in the merge request so you can fix them before merging. Security teams can use dashboards to get a high-level view on projects and groups, and start remediation processes when needed.
The following documentation relates to the DevOps Secure stage:
| Secure Topics | Description |
|---|---|
| Container Scanning (ULTIMATE) | Use Clair to scan docker images for known vulnerabilities. |
| Dependency List (ULTIMATE) | View your project's dependencies and their known vulnerabilities. |
| Dependency Scanning (ULTIMATE) | Analyze your dependencies for known vulnerabilities. |
| Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (ULTIMATE) | Analyze running web applications for known vulnerabilities. |
| Group Security Dashboard (ULTIMATE) | View vulnerabilities in all the projects in a group and its subgroups. |
| License Compliance (ULTIMATE) | Search your project's dependencies for their licenses. |
| Pipeline Security Dashboard (ULTIMATE) | View the security reports for your project's pipelines. |
| Project Security Dashboard (ULTIMATE) | View the latest security reports for your project. |
| Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (ULTIMATE) | Analyze source code for known vulnerabilities. |
New to Git and GitLab?
Working with new systems can be daunting.
We have the following documentation to rapidly uplift your GitLab knowledge:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| GitLab basics guides | Start working on the command line and with GitLab. |
| GitLab workflow overview | Enhance your workflow with the best of GitLab Workflow. |
| Get started with GitLab CI/CD | Quickly implement GitLab CI/CD. |
| Auto DevOps | Learn more about GitLab's Auto DevOps. |
| GitLab Markdown | GitLab's advanced formatting system (GitLab Flavored Markdown) |
User account
Learn more about GitLab account management:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| User account | Manage your account. |
| Authentication | Account security with two-factor authentication, set up your SSH keys, and deploy keys for secure access to your projects. |
| Profile settings | Manage your profile settings, two factor authentication, and more. |
| User permissions | Learn what each role in a project can do. |
Git and GitLab
Learn more about using Git, and using Git with GitLab:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Git | Getting started with Git, branching strategies, Git LFS, and advanced use. |
| Git cheatsheet | Download a PDF describing the most used Git operations. |
| GitLab Flow | Explore the best of Git with the GitLab Flow strategy. |
Coming to GitLab from another platform
If you are coming to GitLab from another platform, you'll find the following information useful:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Importing to GitLab | Import your projects from GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab.com, FogBugz, and SVN into GitLab. |
| Migrating from SVN | Convert a SVN repository to Git and GitLab. |
Building an integration with GitLab
There are many ways to integrate with GitLab, including:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| GitLab API | Integrate GitLab via a simple and powerful API. |
| Integrations and automation | All GitLab integration and automation options. |
Contributing to GitLab
GitLab Community Edition is open source and GitLab Enterprise Edition is open-core.
Learn how to contribute to GitLab with the following resources:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Development | How to contribute to GitLab development. |
| Legal | Contributor license agreements. |
| Writing documentation | How to contribute to GitLab Docs. |