Repositories API (FREE)
List repository tree
Get a list of repository files and directories in a project. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.
This command provides essentially the same functionality as the git ls-tree
command. For more information, see the section Tree Objects in the Git internals documentation.
WARNING:
This endpoint is changing to keyset-based pagination. Iterating pages of results
with a number (?page=2
) is deprecated.
Support for iterating with a number became supported in GitLab 15.0. Use
the new keyset pagination system instead.
GET /projects/:id/repository/tree
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user. |
path |
string | no | The path inside repository. Used to get content of subdirectories. |
ref |
string | no | The name of a repository branch or tag or if not given the default branch. |
recursive |
boolean | no | Boolean value used to get a recursive tree (false by default). |
per_page |
integer | no | Number of results to show per page. If not specified, defaults to 20 . Learn more on pagination. |
pagination |
string | no | If set to keyset , use the new keyset pagination method. |
page_token |
string | no | The tree record ID at which to fetch the next page. Used only with keyset pagination. |
[
{
"id": "a1e8f8d745cc87e3a9248358d9352bb7f9a0aeba",
"name": "html",
"type": "tree",
"path": "files/html",
"mode": "040000"
},
{
"id": "4535904260b1082e14f867f7a24fd8c21495bde3",
"name": "images",
"type": "tree",
"path": "files/images",
"mode": "040000"
},
{
"id": "31405c5ddef582c5a9b7a85230413ff90e2fe720",
"name": "js",
"type": "tree",
"path": "files/js",
"mode": "040000"
},
{
"id": "cc71111cfad871212dc99572599a568bfe1e7e00",
"name": "lfs",
"type": "tree",
"path": "files/lfs",
"mode": "040000"
},
{
"id": "fd581c619bf59cfdfa9c8282377bb09c2f897520",
"name": "markdown",
"type": "tree",
"path": "files/markdown",
"mode": "040000"
},
{
"id": "23ea4d11a4bdd960ee5320c5cb65b5b3fdbc60db",
"name": "ruby",
"type": "tree",
"path": "files/ruby",
"mode": "040000"
},
{
"id": "7d70e02340bac451f281cecf0a980907974bd8be",
"name": "whitespace",
"type": "blob",
"path": "files/whitespace",
"mode": "100644"
}
]
Get a blob from repository
Allows you to receive information about blob in repository like size and content. Blob content is Base64 encoded. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.
GET /projects/:id/repository/blobs/:sha
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user. |
sha |
string | yes | The blob SHA. |
Raw blob content
Get the raw file contents for a blob by blob SHA. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.
GET /projects/:id/repository/blobs/:sha/raw
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user. |
sha |
string | yes | The blob SHA. |
Get file archive
Support for including Git LFS blobs was introduced in GitLab 13.5. Support for downloading a subfolder was introduced in GitLab 14.4.
Get an archive of the repository. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.
This endpoint has a rate limit threshold of 5 requests per minute for GitLab.com users.
GET /projects/:id/repository/archive[.format]
format
is an optional suffix for the archive format. Default is
tar.gz
. Options are tar.gz
, tar.bz2
, tbz
, tbz2
, tb2
,
bz2
, tar
, and zip
. For example, specifying archive.zip
would send an archive in ZIP format.
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user. |
sha |
string | no | The commit SHA to download. A tag, branch reference, or SHA can be used. This defaults to the tip of the default branch if not specified. |
path |
string | no | The subpath of the repository to download. This defaults to the whole repository (empty string). |
Example request:
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/<project_id>/repository/archive?sha=<commit_sha>&path=<path>"
Compare branches, tags or commits
This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible. Diffs can have an empty diff string if diff limits are reached.
GET /projects/:id/repository/compare
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user. |
from |
string | yes | The commit SHA or branch name. |
to |
string | yes | The commit SHA or branch name. |
from_project_id |
integer | no | The ID to compare from |
straight |
boolean | no | Comparison method, true for direct comparison between from and to (from ..to ), false to compare using merge base (from ...to )'. Default is false . |
GET /projects/:id/repository/compare?from=master&to=feature
Example response:
{
"commit": {
"id": "12d65c8dd2b2676fa3ac47d955accc085a37a9c1",
"short_id": "12d65c8dd2b",
"title": "JS fix",
"author_name": "Example User",
"author_email": "user@example.com",
"created_at": "2014-02-27T10:27:00+02:00"
},
"commits": [{
"id": "12d65c8dd2b2676fa3ac47d955accc085a37a9c1",
"short_id": "12d65c8dd2b",
"title": "JS fix",
"author_name": "Example User",
"author_email": "user@example.com",
"created_at": "2014-02-27T10:27:00+02:00"
}],
"diffs": [{
"old_path": "files/js/application.js",
"new_path": "files/js/application.js",
"a_mode": null,
"b_mode": "100644",
"diff": "--- a/files/js/application.js\n+++ b/files/js/application.js\n@@ -24,8 +24,10 @@\n //= require g.raphael-min\n //= require g.bar-min\n //= require branch-graph\n-//= require highlightjs.min\n-//= require ace/ace\n //= require_tree .\n //= require d3\n //= require underscore\n+\n+function fix() { \n+ alert(\"Fixed\")\n+}",
"new_file": false,
"renamed_file": false,
"deleted_file": false
}],
"compare_timeout": false,
"compare_same_ref": false,
"web_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/thedude/gitlab-foss/-/compare/ae73cb07c9eeaf35924a10f713b364d32b2dd34f...0b4bc9a49b562e85de7cc9e834518ea6828729b9"
}
Contributors
Get repository contributors list. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.
GET /projects/:id/repository/contributors
WARNING:
The additions
and deletions
attributes are deprecated as of GitLab 13.4, because they always return 0
.
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user. |
order_by |
string | no | Return contributors ordered by name , email , or commits (orders by commit date) fields. Default is commits . |
sort |
string | no | Return contributors sorted in asc or desc order. Default is asc . |
Example response:
[{
"name": "Example User",
"email": "example@example.com",
"commits": 117,
"additions": 0,
"deletions": 0
}, {
"name": "Sample User",
"email": "sample@example.com",
"commits": 33,
"additions": 0,
"deletions": 0
}]
Merge Base
Get the common ancestor for 2 or more refs (commit SHAs, branch names or tags).
GET /projects/:id/repository/merge_base
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
id |
integer or string | yes | The ID or URL-encoded path of the project |
refs |
array | yes | The refs to find the common ancestor of, multiple refs can be passed |
Example request:
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/repository/merge_base?refs[]=304d257dcb821665ab5110318fc58a007bd104ed&refs[]=0031876facac3f2b2702a0e53a26e89939a42209"
Example response:
{
"id": "1a0b36b3cdad1d2ee32457c102a8c0b7056fa863",
"short_id": "1a0b36b3",
"title": "Initial commit",
"created_at": "2014-02-27T08:03:18.000Z",
"parent_ids": [],
"message": "Initial commit\n",
"author_name": "Example User",
"author_email": "user@example.com",
"authored_date": "2014-02-27T08:03:18.000Z",
"committer_name": "Example User",
"committer_email": "user@example.com",
"committed_date": "2014-02-27T08:03:18.000Z"
}
Add changelog data to a changelog file
Introduced in GitLab 13.9.
Generate changelog data based on commits in a repository.
Given a version (using semantic versioning) and a range of commits, GitLab generates a changelog for all commits that use a particular Git trailer.
The output of this process is a new section in a changelog file in the Git repository of the given project. The output format is in Markdown, and can be customized.
POST /projects/:id/repository/changelog
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
version |
string | yes | The version to generate the changelog for. The format must follow semantic versioning. |
from |
string | no | The start of the range of commits (as a SHA) to use for generating the changelog. This commit itself isn't included in the list. |
to |
string | no | The end of the range of commits (as a SHA) to use for the changelog. This commit is included in the list. Defaults to the branch specified in the branch attribute. |
date |
datetime | no | The date and time of the release, defaults to the current time. |
branch |
string | no | The branch to commit the changelog changes to, defaults to the project's default branch. |
trailer |
string | no | The Git trailer to use for including commits, defaults to Changelog . |
config_file |
string | no | The path of changelog configuration file in the project's Git repository, defaults to .gitlab/changelog_config.yml . |
file |
string | no | The file to commit the changes to, defaults to CHANGELOG.md . |
message |
string | no | The commit message to produce when committing the changes, defaults to Add changelog for version X where X is the value of the version argument. |
WARNING:
GitLab treats trailers case-sensitively. If you set the trailer
field to
Example
, GitLab won't include commits that use the trailer example
,
eXaMpLE
, or anything else that isn't exactly Example
.
WARNING:
The allowed commits range between from
and to
is limited to 15000 commits. To disable
this restriction, turn off the feature flag
changelog_commits_limitation
.
If the from
attribute is unspecified, GitLab uses the Git tag of the last
stable version that came before the version specified in the version
attribute. This requires that Git tag names follow a specific format, allowing
GitLab to extract a version from the tag names. By default, GitLab considers
tags using these formats:
vX.Y.Z
X.Y.Z
Where X.Y.Z
is a version that follows semantic
versioning. For example, consider a project with the
following tags:
- v1.0.0-pre1
- v1.0.0
- v1.1.0
- v2.0.0
If the version
attribute is 2.1.0
, GitLab uses tag v2.0.0. And when the
version is 1.1.1
, or 1.2.0
, GitLab uses tag v1.1.0. The tag v1.0.0-pre1
is
never used, because pre-release tags are ignored.
If from
is unspecified and no tag to use is found, the API produces an error.
To solve such an error, you must explicitly specify a value for the from
attribute.
Examples
These examples use cURL to perform HTTP requests. The example commands use these values:
- Project ID: 42
- Location: hosted on GitLab.com
-
Example API token:
token
This command generates a changelog for version 1.0.0
.
The commit range:
- Starts with the tag of the last release.
- Ends with the last commit on the target branch. The default target branch is the project's default branch.
If the last tag is v0.9.0
and the default branch is main
, the range of commits
included in this example is v0.9.0..main
:
curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" --data "version=1.0.0" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"
To generate the data on a different branch, specify the branch
parameter. This
command generates data from the foo
branch:
curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" --data "version=1.0.0&branch=foo" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"
To use a different trailer, use the trailer
parameter:
curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" --data "version=1.0.0&trailer=Type" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"
To store the results in a different file, use the file
parameter:
curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" --data "version=1.0.0&file=NEWS" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"
How it works
Changelogs are generated based on commit titles. Commits are only included if they contain a specific Git trailer. GitLab uses the value of this trailer to categorize the changes.
GitLab uses Git trailers, because Git trailers are supported by Git out of the box. We use commits as input, as this is the only source of data every project uses. In addition, commits can be retrieved when operating on a mirror. This is important for GitLab itself, because during a security release we might need to include changes from both public projects and private security mirrors.
Changelogs are generated by taking the title of the commits to include and using these as the changelog entries. You can enrich entries with additional data, such as a link to the merge request or details about the commit author. You can customize the format of a changelog section with a template.
Trailers can be manually added while editing a commit message. To include a commit
using the default trailer of Changelog
and categorize it as a feature, the
trailer could be added to a commit message like so:
<Commit message subject>
<Commit message description>
Changelog: feature
Reverted commits
Introduced in GitLab 13.10.
When generating a changelog for a range, GitLab ignores commits both added and reverted in that range. Revert commits themselves are included if they use the Git trailer used for generating changelogs.
Imagine the following scenario: you have three commits: A, B, and C. To generate
changelogs, you use the default trailer Changelog
. Both A and B use this
trailer. Commit C is a commit that reverts commit B. When generating a changelog
for this range, GitLab only includes commit A.
Revert commits are detected by looking for commits where the message contains
the pattern This reverts commit SHA
, where SHA
is the SHA of the commit that
is reverted.
If a revert commit includes the trailer used for generating changelogs
(Changelog
in the above example), the revert commit itself is included.
Customize the changelog output
The output is customized using a YAML configuration file stored in your
project's Git repository. This default configuration file path is
.gitlab/changelog_config.yml
.
You can set the following variables in this file:
-
date_format
: the date format to use in the title of the newly added changelog data. This uses regularstrftime
formatting. -
template
: a custom template to use for generating the changelog data. -
categories
: a hash that maps raw category names to the names to use in the changelog. -
include_groups
: a list of group full paths containing users whose contributions should be credited regardless of project membership. The user generating the changelog must have access to each group or the members will not be credited.
Using the default settings, generating a changelog results in a section along the lines of the following:
## 1.0.0 (2021-01-05)
### Features (4 changes)
- [Feature 1](gitlab-org/gitlab@123abc) by @alice ([merge request](gitlab-org/gitlab!123))
- [Feature 2](gitlab-org/gitlab@456abc) ([merge request](gitlab-org/gitlab!456))
- [Feature 3](gitlab-org/gitlab@234abc) by @steve
- [Feature 4](gitlab-org/gitlab@456)
Each section starts with a title that contains the version and release date. While the format of the date can be customized, the rest of the title can't be changed. When adding a new section, GitLab parses these titles to determine where in the file the new section should be placed. GitLab sorts sections according to their versions, not their dates.
Each section can have categories, each with their corresponding changes. In the above example, "Features" is one such category. You can customize the format of these sections.
The section names are derived from the values of the Git trailer used to include or exclude commits.
For example, if the trailer to use is called Changelog
,
and its value is feature
, then the commit is grouped in the feature
category. The names of these raw values might differ from what you want to
show in a changelog, you can remap them. Let's say we use the Changelog
trailer and developers use the following values: feature
, bug
, and
performance
.
You can remap these using the following YAML configuration file:
---
categories:
feature: Features
bug: Bug fixes
performance: Performance improvements
When generating the changelog data, the category titles are then ### Features
,
### Bug fixes
, and ### Performance improvements
.
Custom templates
The category sections are generated using a template. The default template is as follows:
{% if categories %}
{% each categories %}
### {{ title }} ({% if single_change %}1 change{% else %}{{ count }} changes{% end %})
{% each entries %}
- [{{ title }}]({{ commit.reference }})\
{% if author.credit %} by {{ author.reference }}{% end %}\
{% if merge_request %} ([merge request]({{ merge_request.reference }})){% end %}
{% end %}
{% end %}
{% else %}
No changes.
{% end %}
The {% ... %}
tags are for statements, and {{ ... }}
is used for printing
data. Statements must be terminated using a {% end %}
tag. Both the if
and
each
statements require a single argument.
For example, if we have a variable valid
, and we want to display "yes"
when this value is true, and display "nope" otherwise. We can do so as follows:
{% if valid %}
yes
{% else %}
nope
{% end %}
The use of else
is optional. A value is considered true when it's a non-empty
value or boolean true
. Empty arrays and hashes are considered false.
Looping is done using each
, and variables inside a loop are scoped to it.
Referring to the current value in a loop is done using the variable tag {{ it }}
. Other variables read their value from the current loop value. Take
this template for example:
{% each users %}
{{name}}
{% end %}
Assuming users
is an array of objects, each with a name
field, this would
then print the name of every user.
Using variable tags, you can access nested objects. For example, {{ users.0.name }}
prints the name of the first user in the users
variable.
If a line ends in a backslash, the next newline is ignored. This allows you to wrap code across multiple lines, without introducing unnecessary newlines in the Markdown output.
Tags that use {%
and %}
(known as expression tags) consume the newline that
directly follows them, if any. This means that this:
---
{% if foo %}
bar
{% end %}
---
Compiles into this:
---
bar
---
Instead of this:
---
bar
---
You can specify a custom template in your configuration like so:
---
template: |
{% if categories %}
{% each categories %}
### {{ title }}
{% each entries %}
- [{{ title }}]({{ commit.reference }})\
{% if author.credit %} by {{ author.reference }}{% end %}
{% end %}
{% end %}
{% else %}
No changes.
{% end %}
When specifying the template you should use template: |
and not
template: >
, as the latter doesn't preserve newlines in the template.
Template data
At the top level, the following variable is available:
-
categories
: an array of objects, one for every changelog category.
In a category, the following variables are available:
-
title
: the title of the category (after it has been remapped). -
count
: the number of entries in this category. -
single_change
: a boolean that indicates if there is only one change (true
), or multiple changes (false
). -
entries
: the entries that belong to this category.
In an entry, the following variables are available (here foo.bar
means that
bar
is a sub-field of foo
):
-
title
: the title of the changelog entry (this is the commit title). -
commit.reference
: a reference to the commit, for example,gitlab-org/gitlab@0a4cdd86ab31748ba6dac0f69a8653f206e5cfc7
. -
commit.trailers
: an object containing all the Git trailers that were present in the commit body. -
author.reference
: a reference to the commit author (for example,@alice
). -
author.contributor
: a boolean set totrue
when the author is not a project member, otherwisefalse
. -
author.credit
: a boolean set totrue
whenauthor.contributor
istrue
or wheninclude_groups
is configured, and the author is a member of one of the groups. -
merge_request.reference
: a reference to the merge request that first introduced the change (for example,gitlab-org/gitlab!50063
).
The author
and merge_request
objects might not be present if the data
couldn't be determined. For example, when a commit is created without a
corresponding merge request, no merge request is displayed.
Customize the tag format when extracting versions
Introduced in GitLab 13.11.
GitLab uses a regular expression (using the re2 engine and syntax) to extract a semantic version from tag names. The default regular expression is:
^v?(?P<major>0|[1-9]\d*)\.(?P<minor>0|[1-9]\d*)\.(?P<patch>0|[1-9]\d*)(?:-(?P<pre>(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*)(?:\.(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*))*))?(?:\+(?P<meta>[0-9a-zA-Z-]+(?:\.[0-9a-zA-Z-]+)*))?$
This regular expression is based on the official
semantic versioning regular expression, and also includes
support for tag names that start with the letter v
.
If your project uses a different format for tags, you can specify a different regular expression. The regular expression used must produce the following capture groups. If any of these capture groups are missing, the tag is ignored:
major
minor
patch
The following capture groups are optional:
-
pre
: If set, the tag is ignored. Ignoringpre
tags ensures release candidate tags and other pre-release tags are not considered when determining the range of commits to generate a changelog for. -
meta
: Optional. Specifies build metadata.
Using this information, GitLab builds a map of Git tags and their release versions. It then determines what the latest tag is, based on the version extracted from each tag.
To specify a custom regular expression, use the tag_regex
setting in your
changelog configuration YAML file. For example, this pattern matches tag names
such as version-1.2.3
but not version-1.2
.
---
tag_regex: '^version-(?P<major>\d+)\.(?P<minor>\d+)\.(?P<patch>\d+)$'
To test if your regular expression is working, you can use websites such as regex101. If the regular expression syntax is invalid, an error is produced when generating a changelog.
Generate changelog data
Introduced in GitLab 14.6.
Generate changelog data based on commits in a repository, without committing them to a changelog file.
Works exactly like POST /projects/:id/repository/changelog
, except the changelog
data isn't committed to any changelog file.
GET /projects/:id/repository/changelog
Supported attributes:
Attribute | Type | Required | Description |
---|---|---|---|
version |
string | yes | The version to generate the changelog for. The format must follow semantic versioning. |
from |
string | no | The start of the range of commits (as a SHA) to use for generating the changelog. This commit itself isn't included in the list. |
to |
string | no | The end of the range of commits (as a SHA) to use for the changelog. This commit is included in the list. Defaults to the branch specified in the branch attribute. |
date |
datetime | no | The date and time of the release, ISO 8601 formatted. Example: 2016-03-11T03:45:40Z . Defaults to the current time. |
trailer |
string | no | The Git trailer to use for including commits, defaults to Changelog . |
config_file |
string | no | The path of changelog configuration file in the project's Git repository, defaults to .gitlab/changelog_config.yml . |
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog?version=1.0.0"
Example Response:
{
"notes": "## 1.0.0 (2021-11-17)\n\n### feature (2 changes)\n\n- [Title 2](namespace13/project13@ad608eb642124f5b3944ac0ac772fecaf570a6bf) ([merge request](namespace13/project13!2))\n- [Title 1](namespace13/project13@3c6b80ff7034fa0d585314e1571cc780596ce3c8) ([merge request](namespace13/project13!1))\n"
}