• Schedule an export
• Export status
• Export download
• Import a file
• Import a file from a remote object storage
• Import a file from AWS S3
• Import status

Project import/export API

See also:

• Project import/export documentation.
• Project import/export administration Rake tasks.

Schedule an export

Start a new export.

The endpoint also accepts an upload hash parameter. It contains all the necessary information to upload the exported project to a web server or to any S3-compatible platform. For exports, GitLab:

• Only supports binary data file uploads to the final server.
• Sends the Content-Type: application/gzip header with upload requests. Ensure that your pre-signed URL includes this as part of the signature.
• Can take some time to complete the project export process. Make sure the upload URL doesn’t have a short expiration time and is available throughout the export process.
• Administrators can modify the maximum export file size. By default, the maximum is unlimited (0). To change this, edit max_export_size using either:
  • Application settings API
  • GitLab UI.

The upload[url] parameter is required if the upload parameter is present.

For uploads to Amazon S3, refer to Generating a pre-signed URL for uploading objects documentation scripts to generate the upload[url].

POST /projects/:id/export

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/export" \
    --data "upload[http_method]=PUT" \
    --data-urlencode "upload[url]=https://example-bucket.s3.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com/backup?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIMBJHN2O62W8IELQ%2F20180312%2Feu-west-3%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20180312T110328Z&X-Amz-Expires=900&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=8413facb20ff33a49a147a0b4abcff4c8487cc33ee1f7e450c46e8f695569dbd"

{
  "message": "202 Accepted"
}

Export status

Get the status of export.

GET /projects/:id/export

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/export"

Status can be one of:

• none: No exports queued, started, finished, or being regenerated.
• queued: The request for export is received, and is in the queue to be processed.
• started: The export process has started and is in progress. It includes:
  • The process of exporting.
  • Actions performed on the resulting file, such as sending an email notifying the user to download the file, or uploading the exported file to a web server.
• finished: After the export process has completed and the user has been notified.
• regeneration_in_progress: An export file is available to download, and a request to generate a new export is in process.

_links are only present when export has finished.

created_at is the project create timestamp, not the export start time.

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": "Itaque perspiciatis minima aspernatur corporis consequatur.",
  "name": "Gitlab Test",
  "name_with_namespace": "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Test",
  "path": "gitlab-test",
  "path_with_namespace": "gitlab-org/gitlab-test",
  "created_at": "2017-08-29T04:36:44.383Z",
  "export_status": "finished",
  "_links": {
    "api_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/export/download",
    "web_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-test/download_export"
  }
}

Export download

Download the finished export.

GET /projects/:id/export/download

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" --remote-header-name \
     --remote-name "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/export/download"

ls *export.tar.gz
2017-12-05_22-11-148_namespace_project_export.tar.gz

Import a file

POST /projects/import

The override parameters passed take precedence over all values defined inside the export file.

To upload a file from your file system, use the --form argument. This causes cURL to post data using the header Content-Type: multipart/form-data. The file= parameter must point to a file on your file system and be preceded by @. For example:

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" --form "path=api-project" \
     --form "file=@/path/to/file" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/import"

cURL doesn’t support posting a file from a remote server. This example imports a project using Python’s open method:

import requests

url =  'https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/import'
files = { "file": open("project_export.tar.gz", "rb") }
data = {
    "path": "example-project",
    "namespace": "example-group"
}
headers = {
    'Private-Token': "<your_access_token>"
}

requests.post(url, headers=headers, data=data, files=files)

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": null,
  "name": "api-project",
  "name_with_namespace": "Administrator / api-project",
  "path": "api-project",
  "path_with_namespace": "root/api-project",
  "created_at": "2018-02-13T09:05:58.023Z",
  "import_status": "scheduled",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": []
}

Import a file from a remote object storage

This endpoint is behind a feature flag that is enabled by default.

To enable this endpoint:

Feature.enable(:import_project_from_remote_file)

To disable this endpoint:

Feature.disable(:import_project_from_remote_file)

POST /projects/remote-import

The passed override parameters take precedence over all values defined in the export file.

curl --request POST \
  --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/remote-import" \
  --data '{"url":"https://remoteobject/file?token=123123","path":"remote-project"}'

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": null,
  "name": "remote-project",
  "name_with_namespace": "Administrator / remote-project",
  "path": "remote-project",
  "path_with_namespace": "root/remote-project",
  "created_at": "2018-02-13T09:05:58.023Z",
  "import_status": "scheduled",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [],
  "import_error": null
}

The Content-Length header must return a valid number. The maximum file size is 10 gigabytes. The Content-Type header must be application/gzip.

Import a file from AWS S3

POST /projects/remote-import-s3

The passed override parameters take precedence over all values defined in the export file.

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/remote-import-s3" \
  --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your gitlab access key>" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
  "name": "Sample Project",
  "path": "sample-project",
  "region": "<Your S3 region name>",
  "bucket_name": "<Your S3 bucket name>",
  "file_key": "<Your S3 file key>",
  "access_key_id": "<Your AWS access key id>",
  "secret_access_key": "<Your AWS secret access key>"
}'

This example imports from an Amazon S3 bucket, using a module that connects to Amazon S3:

import requests
from io import BytesIO

s3_file = requests.get(presigned_url)

url =  'https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/import'
files = {'file': ('file.tar.gz', BytesIO(s3_file.content))}
data = {
    "path": "example-project",
    "namespace": "example-group"
}
headers = {
    'Private-Token': "<your_access_token>"
}

requests.post(url, headers=headers, data=data, files=files)

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": null,
  "name": "Sample project",
  "name_with_namespace": "Administrator / sample-project",
  "path": "sample-project",
  "path_with_namespace": "root/sample-project",
  "created_at": "2018-02-13T09:05:58.023Z",
  "import_status": "scheduled",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [],
  "import_error": null
}

Import status

Get the status of an import.

GET /projects/:id/import

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/import"

Status can be one of:

• none
• scheduled
• failed
• started
• finished

If the status is failed, it includes the import error message under import_error. If the status is failed, started or finished, the failed_relations array might be populated with any occurrences of relations that failed to import either due to unrecoverable errors or because retries were exhausted (a typical example are query timeouts.)

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": "Itaque perspiciatis minima aspernatur corporis consequatur.",
  "name": "Gitlab Test",
  "name_with_namespace": "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Test",
  "path": "gitlab-test",
  "path_with_namespace": "gitlab-org/gitlab-test",
  "created_at": "2017-08-29T04:36:44.383Z",
  "import_status": "started",
  "import_type": "github",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [
    {
      "id": 42,
      "created_at": "2020-04-02T14:48:59.526Z",
      "exception_class": "RuntimeError",
      "exception_message": "A failure occurred",
      "source": "custom error context",
      "relation_name": "merge_requests",
      "line_number": 0
    }
  ]
}

When importing from GitHub, the a stats field lists how many objects were already fetched from GitHub and how many were already imported:

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": "Itaque perspiciatis minima aspernatur corporis consequatur.",
  "name": "Gitlab Test",
  "name_with_namespace": "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Test",
  "path": "gitlab-test",
  "path_with_namespace": "gitlab-org/gitlab-test",
  "created_at": "2017-08-29T04:36:44.383Z",
  "import_status": "started",
  "import_type": "github",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [
    {
      "id": 42,
      "created_at": "2020-04-02T14:48:59.526Z",
      "exception_class": "RuntimeError",
      "exception_message": "A failure occurred",
      "source": "custom error context",
      "relation_name": "merge_requests",
      "line_number": 0
    }
  ],
  "stats": {
    "fetched": {
      "diff_note": 19,
      "issue": 3,
      "label": 1,
      "note": 3,
      "pull_request": 2,
      "pull_request_merged_by": 1,
      "pull_request_review": 16
    },
    "imported": {
      "diff_note": 19,
      "issue": 3,
      "label": 1,
      "note": 3,
      "pull_request": 2,
      "pull_request_merged_by": 1,
      "pull_request_review": 16
    }
  }
}