GitLab

Connect & Ingest data from GitLab

GitLab is a DevOps platform that provides version control, CI/CD, and project management. The Sling GitLab connector extracts data from the GitLab REST API v4, supporting projects, groups, issues, merge requests, commits, pipelines, and more. It works with both GitLab.com (SaaS) and self-hosted instances.

CLI Pro Required: APIs require a CLI Pro token or Platform Plan.

Setup

The following credentials and inputs are accepted:

Secrets:

• personal_access_token (required) -> Your GitLab Personal Access Token

Inputs (optional):

• base_url (optional) -> GitLab API base URL (default: https://gitlab.com/api/v4). Set this for self-hosted instances.

• anchor_date (optional) -> The starting date for historical data extraction (default: 1 year ago). Format: YYYY-MM-DD

Getting Your Personal Access Token

1. Log in to your GitLab instance

2. Navigate to User Settings > Access Tokens (or go to /-/user_settings/personal_access_tokens)

3. Enter a token name (e.g., "Sling Integration")

4. Set an expiration date

5. Select the read_api scope (minimum required)

6. Click Create personal access token

7. Copy the generated token immediately — it won't be shown again

Using sling conns

Here are examples of setting a connection named GITLAB. We must provide the type=api property:

sling conns set GITLAB type=api spec=gitlab secrets='{ personal_access_token: glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx }'

Environment Variable

See here to learn more about the .env.sling file.

export GITLAB='{ type: api, spec: gitlab, secrets: { personal_access_token: "glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" } }'

Sling Env File YAML

See here to learn more about the sling env.yaml file.

connections:
  GITLAB:
    type: api
    spec: gitlab
    secrets:
      personal_access_token: "glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"

For self-hosted GitLab instances:

connections:
  GITLAB:
    type: api
    spec: gitlab
    secrets:
      personal_access_token: "glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
    inputs:
      base_url: "https://gitlab.mycompany.com/api/v4"

With anchor date for historical data:

connections:
  GITLAB:
    type: api
    spec: gitlab
    secrets:
      personal_access_token: "glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
    inputs:
      anchor_date: "2020-01-01"

Replication

Here's an example replication configuration to sync GitLab data to a PostgreSQL database:

source: GITLAB
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: full-refresh
  object: gitlab.{stream_name}

streams:
  # sync all endpoints
  '*':

  # exclude specific endpoints if not needed
  project_jobs:
    disabled: true

Incremental sync example:

source: GITLAB
target: MY_POSTGRES

defaults:
  mode: incremental
  object: gitlab.{stream_name}

streams:
  projects:
  project_issues:
  project_merge_requests:
  project_commits:
  project_pipelines:
  deployments:

Endpoints

Endpoint	Description	Incremental
projects	Projects accessible by the authenticated user	Yes
groups	Groups accessible by the authenticated user	No
project_issues	Issues for each project	Yes
project_merge_requests	Merge requests for each project	Yes
project_commits	Repository commits for each project	Yes
project_pipelines	CI/CD pipelines for each project	Yes
deployments	Deployments for each project	Yes
project_jobs	CI/CD jobs for each project	No
branches	Repository branches for each project	No
tags	Repository tags for each project	No
project_milestones	Milestones for each project	No
project_members	Members of each project	No
releases	Releases for each project	No
project_labels	Labels for each project	No
environments	Environments for each project	No
group_milestones	Milestones for each group	No
group_labels	Labels for each group	No
group_members	Members of each group	No

To discover available endpoints:

sling conns discover GITLAB

Notes

• The connector only extracts projects where the authenticated user has membership.

• Rate limiting is set to 5 requests/second with concurrency of 3 to respect GitLab's API limits.

• The connector automatically retries on 429 (rate limit) and 5xx (server error) responses.

• For self-hosted instances, ensure the API v4 is enabled and accessible.

If you are facing issues connecting, please reach out to us at [email protected], on discord or open a Github Issue here.