Gitlab

Overview

The GitLab API exposes projects, repositories, issues, MRs, CI/CD pipelines, users, groups, and more — on GitLab.com or any self-hosted GitLab instance. Public data is readable anonymously (verified live on gitlab.com); personal/project tokens or OAuth unlock everything else.

Quick Start

Public projects — no auth needed (verified live):

curl "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects?per_page=5"

A project’s details:

curl "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/gitlab-org%2Fgitlab"

Project issues:

curl "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/gitlab-org%2Fgitlab/issues?per_page=5"

User profile:

curl "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/users?username=octocat"

With a personal access token:

curl "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects?private_token=YOUR_TOKEN"

Authentication

• Anonymous: public reads work keyless (verified).
• Personal access token (GitLab → Preferences → Access Tokens): higher limits, private data.
• OAuth: for acting on behalf of users — the listing’s OAuth flag refers to this.
• Self-hosted instances expose the same API at https://your-instance/api/v4.

Rate Limits & Notes

• Anonymous limits are modest (~few hundred req/hour on gitlab.com); tokens raise them.
• Project paths need URL-encoding (gitlab-org%2Fgitlab).
• Pagination via page/per_page (max 100) and X-Next-Page headers.
• GraphQL API available at /api/graphql for complex queries.

FAQ

Is GitLab API free? Yes — public data is readable anonymously; tokens raise limits.

Do I need OAuth? Only for user-scoped actions — reads work anonymously or with a token.

Does it work on self-hosted GitLab? Yes — same /api/v4 endpoints on any instance.