Manage projects

Most work in GitLab is done in a project. Files and code are saved in projects, and most features are in the scope of projects.

View projects

To view projects, on the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.

note
The Explore projects tab is visible to unauthenticated users unless the Public visibility level is restricted. Then the tab is visible only to authenticated users.

Who can view the Projects page

When you select a project, the project landing page shows the project contents.

For public projects, and members of internal and private projects with permissions to view the project’s code, the project landing page shows:

For users without permission to view the project’s code, the landing page shows:

  • The wiki homepage.
  • The list of issues in the project.

Access a project page with the project ID

Introduced in GitLab 11.8.

To access a project from the GitLab UI using the project ID, visit the /projects/:id URL in your browser or other tool accessing the project.

Explore topics

To explore project topics:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.
  2. Select the Explore topics tab.
  3. To view projects associated with a topic, select a topic.

The Explore topics tab shows a list of topics sorted by the number of associated projects.

You can assign topics to a project on the Project Settings page.

If you’re an instance administrator, you can administer all project topics from the Admin Area’s Topics page.

Star a project

You can add a star to projects you use frequently to make them easier to find.

To add a star to a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. In the upper right corner of the page, select Star.

View starred projects

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.
  2. Select the Starred projects tab.

  3. GitLab displays information about your starred projects, including:

    • Project description, including name, description, and icon.
    • Number of times this project has been starred.
    • Number of times this project has been forked.
    • Number of open merge requests.
    • Number of open issues.

View personal projects

Personal projects are projects created under your personal namespace.

For example, if you create an account with the username alex, and create a project called my-project under your username, the project is created at https://gitlab.example.com/alex/my-project.

To view your personal projects:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.
  2. In the Your projects tab, select Personal.

Delete a project

After you delete a project, projects in personal namespaces are deleted immediately. To delay deletion of projects in a group you can enable delayed project removal.

To delete a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > General.
  3. Expand the Advanced section.
  4. Scroll down to the Delete project section.
  5. Select Delete project.
  6. Confirm this action by completing the field.

View projects pending deletion

Version history

When delayed project deletion is enabled for a group, projects within that group are not deleted immediately, but only after a delay.

To view a list of all projects that are pending deletion:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.
  2. Based on your GitLab version:
    • GitLab 14.6 and later: select the Pending deletion tab.
    • GitLab 14.5 and earlier: select the Deleted projects tab.

Each project in the list shows:

  • The time the project was marked for deletion.
  • The time the project is scheduled for final deletion.
  • A Restore link to stop the project being eventually deleted.

View project activity

To view the activity of a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project..
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Activity.
  3. Select a tab to view the type of project activity.

Search in projects

You can search through your projects.

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu.
  2. In Search your projects, type the project name.

GitLab filters as you type.

You can also look for the projects you starred (Starred projects).

You can Explore all public and internal projects available in GitLab.com, from which you can filter by visibility, through Trending, best rated with Most stars, or All of them.

You can sort projects by:

  • Name
  • Created date
  • Updated date
  • Owner

You can also choose to hide or show archived projects.

Filter projects by language

Introduced in GitLab 15.9 with a flag named project_language_search. Enabled by default.

You can filter projects by the programming language they use. To do this:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects > View all projects.
  2. From the Language dropdown list, select the language you want to filter projects by.

A list of projects that use the selected language is displayed.

Change the visibility of individual features in a project

You can change the visibility of individual features in a project.

Prerequisite:

  • You must have the Owner role for the project.
  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
  4. Use the toggle by each feature you want to turn on or off, or change access for.
  5. Select Save changes.

Leave a project

When you leave a project:

  • You are no longer a project member and cannot contribute.
  • All the issues and merge requests that were assigned to you are unassigned.

To leave a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. Select Leave project. The Leave project option only displays on the project dashboard when a project is part of a group under a group namespace.

Use a project as a Go package

Prerequisites:

  • Contact your administrator to enable the GitLab Go Proxy.
  • To use a private project in a subgroup as a Go package, you must authenticate Go requests. Go requests that are not authenticated cause go get to fail. You don’t need to authenticate Go requests for projects that are not in subgroups.

To use a project as a Go package, use the go get and godoc.org discovery requests. You can use the meta tags:

Authenticate Go requests to private projects

Prerequisites:

  • Your GitLab instance must be accessible with HTTPS.
  • You must have a personal access token with read_api scope.

To authenticate Go requests, create a .netrc file with the following information: 

machine gitlab.example.com
login <gitlab_user_name>
password <personal_access_token>

On Windows, Go reads ~/_netrc instead of ~/.netrc.

The go command does not transmit credentials over insecure connections. It authenticates HTTPS requests made by Go, but does not authenticate requests made through Git.

Authenticate Git requests

If Go cannot fetch a module from a proxy, it uses Git. Git uses a .netrc file to authenticate requests, but you can configure other authentication methods.

Configure Git to either:

  • Embed credentials in the request URL: 

      git config --global url."https://${user}:${personal_access_token}@gitlab.example.com".insteadOf "https://gitlab.example.com"

  • Use SSH instead of HTTPS: 

      git config --global url."git@gitlab.example.com:".insteadOf "https://gitlab.example.com/"

Disable Go module fetching for private projects

To fetch modules or packages, Go uses the environment variables:

  • GOPRIVATE
  • GONOPROXY
  • GONOSUMDB

To disable fetching:

  1. Disable GOPRIVATE:
    • To disable queries for one project, disable GOPRIVATE=gitlab.example.com/my/private/project.
    • To disable queries for all projects on GitLab.com, disable GOPRIVATE=gitlab.example.com.
  2. Disable proxy queries in GONOPROXY.
  3. Disable checksum queries in GONOSUMDB.
  • If the module name or its prefix is in GOPRIVATE or GONOPROXY, Go does not query module proxies.
  • If the module name or its prefix is in GONOPRIVATE or GONOSUMDB, Go does not query Checksum databases.

Fetch Go modules from Geo secondary sites

Use Geo to access Git repositories that contain Go modules on secondary Geo servers.

You can use SSH or HTTP to access the Geo secondary server.

Use SSH to access the Geo secondary server

To access the Geo secondary server with SSH:

  1. Reconfigure Git on the client to send traffic for the primary to the secondary: 

    git config --global url."git@gitlab-secondary.example.com".insteadOf "https://gitlab.example.com"
git config --global url."git@gitlab-secondary.example.com".insteadOf "http://gitlab.example.com"
    • For gitlab.example.com, use the primary site domain name.
    • For gitlab-secondary.example.com, use the secondary site domain name.

  2. Ensure the client is set up for SSH access to GitLab repositories. You can test this on the primary, and GitLab replicates the public key to the secondary.

The go get request generates HTTP traffic to the primary Geo server. When the module download starts, the insteadOf configuration sends the traffic to the secondary Geo server.

Use HTTP to access the Geo secondary

You must use persistent access tokens that replicate to the secondary server. You cannot use CI/CD job tokens to fetch Go modules with HTTP.

To access the Geo secondary server with HTTP:

  1. Add a Git insteadOf redirect on the client: 

    git config --global url."https://gitlab-secondary.example.com".insteadOf "https://gitlab.example.com"
    • For gitlab.example.com, use the primary site domain name.
    • For gitlab-secondary.example.com, use the secondary site domain name.

  2. Generate a personal access token and add the credentials in the client’s ~/.netrc file: 

    machine gitlab.example.com login USERNAME password TOKEN
machine gitlab-secondary.example.com login USERNAME password TOKEN

The go get request generates HTTP traffic to the primary Geo server. When the module download starts, the insteadOf configuration sends the traffic to the secondary Geo server.

Troubleshooting

When working with projects, you might encounter the following issues, or require alternate methods to complete specific tasks.

Find projects using an SQL query

While in a Rails console session, you can find and store an array of projects based on a SQL query: 

# Finds projects that end with '%ject'
projects = Project.find_by_sql("SELECT * FROM projects WHERE name LIKE '%ject'")
=> [#<Project id:12 root/my-first-project>>, #<Project id:13 root/my-second-project>>]

Clear a project’s or repository’s cache

If a project or repository has been updated but the state is not reflected in the UI, you may need to clear the project’s or repository’s cache. You can do so through a Rails console session and one of the following:

caution
Commands that change data can cause damage if not run correctly or under the right conditions. Always run commands in a test environment first and have a backup instance ready to restore.
## Clear project cache
ProjectCacheWorker.perform_async(project.id)

## Clear repository .exists? cache
project.repository.expire_exists_cache

Find projects that are pending deletion

If you need to find all projects marked for deletion but that have not yet been deleted, start a Rails console session and run the following: 

projects = Project.where(pending_delete: true)
projects.each do |p|
  puts "Project ID: #{p.id}"
  puts "Project name: #{p.name}"
  puts "Repository path: #{p.repository.full_path}"
end

Delete a project using console

If a project cannot be deleted, you can attempt to delete it through Rails console.

caution
Commands that change data can cause damage if not run correctly or under the right conditions. Always run commands in a test environment first and have a backup instance ready to restore.
project = Project.find_by_full_path('<project_path>')
user = User.find_by_username('<username>')
ProjectDestroyWorker.new.perform(project.id, user.id, {})

If this fails, display why it doesn’t work with: 

project = Project.find_by_full_path('<project_path>')
project.delete_error

Toggle a feature for all projects within a group

While toggling a feature in a project can be done through the projects API, you may need to do this for a large number of projects.

To toggle a specific feature, you can start a Rails console session and run the following function:

caution
Commands that change data can cause damage if not run correctly or under the right conditions. Always run commands in a test environment first and have a backup instance ready to restore.
projects = Group.find_by_name('_group_name').projects
projects.each do |p|
  ## replace <feature-name> with the appropriate feature name in all instances
  state = p.<feature-name>

  if state != 0
    puts "#{p.name} has <feature-name> already enabled. Skipping..."
  else
    puts "#{p.name} didn't have <feature-name> enabled. Enabling..."
    p.project_feature.update!(<feature-name>: ProjectFeature::PRIVATE)
  end
end

To find features that can be toggled, run pp p.project_feature. Available permission levels are listed in concerns/featurable.rb.