Repositories API

Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

Use this API to manage your GitLab repository.

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 features as the git ls-tree command. For more information, refer to the section Tree Objects in the Git internals documentation.

GitLab version 17.7 changes the error handling behavior when a requested path is not found. The endpoint now returns a status code 404 Not Found. Previously, the status code was 200 OK.

If your implementation relies on receiving a 200 status code with an empty array for missing paths, you must update your error handling to handle the new 404 responses.

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.
`page_token`	string	no	The tree record ID at which to fetch the next page. Used only with keyset pagination.
`pagination`	string	no	If `keyset`, use the keyset-based pagination method.
`path`	string	no	The path inside the repository. Used to get content of subdirectories.
`per_page`	integer	no	Number of results to show per page. If not specified, defaults to `20`. For more information, see Pagination.
`recursive`	boolean	no	Boolean value used to get a recursive tree. Default is `false`.
`ref`	string	no	The name of a repository branch or tag or, if not given, the default branch.

[
  {
    "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, such as size and content, about blobs in a repository. Blob content is Base64 encoded. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication, if the repository is publicly accessible.

For blobs larger than 10 MB, this endpoint has a rate limit of 5 requests per minute.

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.
`sha`	string	yes	The blob SHA.

Get 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.
`sha`	string	yes	The blob SHA.

Get file archive

Get an archive of the repository. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.

For GitLab.com users, this endpoint has a rate limit threshold of 5 requests per minute.

GET /projects/:id/repository/archive[.format]

format is an optional suffix for the archive format, and defaults to tar.gz. For example, specifying archive.zip sends an archive in ZIP format. Available options are:

bz2
tar
tar.bz2
tar.gz
tb2
tbz
tbz2
zip

Supported attributes:

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`id`	integer or string	yes	The ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`path`	string	no	The subpath of the repository to download. If an empty string, defaults to the whole repository.
`sha`	string	no	The commit SHA to download. A tag, branch reference, or SHA can be used. If not specified, defaults to the tip of the default branch.
`include_lfs_blobs`	boolean	no	Determines whether LFS objects are included in the archive. Default is `true`. When set to `false`, LFS objects are excluded.
`exclude_paths`	string	no	Comma-separated list of paths to exclude from the archive.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/<project_id>/repository/archive?sha=<commit_sha>&path=<path>&exclude_paths=<path1,path2>"

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.
`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`.
`unidiff`	boolean	No	Present diffs in the unified diff format. Default is false. Introduced in GitLab 16.5.

GET /projects/:id/repository/compare?from=main&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": "@@ -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/janedoe/gitlab-foss/-/compare/ae73cb07c9eeaf35924a10f713b364d32b2dd34f...0b4bc9a49b562e85de7cc9e834518ea6828729b9"
}

Get contributor list

Get repository contributors list. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.

The commit count returned does not include merge commits.

GET /projects/:id/repository/contributors

Supported attributes:

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`id`	integer or string	yes	The ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`ref`	string	no	The name of a repository branch or tag. If not given, the default branch.
`order_by`	string	no	Order contributors by `name`, `email`, or `commits` (number of commits). If not specified, contributors are ordered by commit date.
`sort`	string	no	Return contributors sorted in `asc` or `desc` order. Default is `asc`.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/7/repository/contributors"

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
}]

Get merge base

Get the common ancestor for 2 or more refs, such as 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. Accepts multiple refs.

Example request, with the refs truncated for readability:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/repository/merge_base?refs[]=304d257d&refs[]=0031876f"

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

Generate changelog data based on commits in a repository.

Given a semantic version and a range of commits, GitLab generates a changelog for all commits that use a particular Git trailer. GitLab adds a new Markdown-formatted section to a changelog file in the Git repository of the project. The output format can be customized.

For performance and security reasons, parsing the changelog configuration is limited to 2 seconds. This limitation helps prevent potential DoS attacks from malformed changelog templates. If the request times out, consider reducing the size of your changelog_config.yml file.

For user-facing documentation, see Changelogs.

POST /projects/:id/repository/changelog

Supported attributes

Changelogs support these attributes:

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`version`	string	yes	The version to generate the changelog for. The format must follow semantic versioning.
`branch`	string	no	The branch to commit the changelog changes to. Defaults to the project’s default branch.
`config_file`	string	no	Path to the changelog configuration file in the project’s Git repository. Defaults to `.gitlab/changelog_config.yml`.
`config_file_ref`	string	no	The Git reference (for example, branch) where the changelog configuration file is defined. Defaults to the default repository branch.
`date`	datetime	no	The date and time of the release. Defaults to the current time.
`file`	string	no	The file to commit the changes to. Defaults to `CHANGELOG.md`.
`from`	string	no	The SHA of the commit that marks the beginning of the range of commits to include in the changelog. This commit isn’t included in the changelog.
`message`	string	no	The commit message to use when committing the changes. Defaults to `Add changelog for version X`, where `X` is the value of the `version` argument.
`to`	string	no	The SHA of the commit that marks the end of the range of commits to include in the changelog. This commit is included in the changelog. Defaults to the branch specified in the `branch` attribute. Limited to 15000 commits.
`trailer`	string	no	The Git trailer to use for including commits. Defaults to `Changelog`. Case-sensitive: `Example` does not match `example` or `eXaMpLE`.

Requirements for `from` attribute

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. For GitLab to extract version numbers from tag names, Git tag names must follow a specific format. 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.

The version attribute can start with v. For example: v1.0.0. The response is the same as for version value 1.0.0. Introduced in GitLab 17.0.

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.

Migrating from a manually-managed changelog file to Git trailers

When you migrate from an existing manually-managed changelog file to one that uses Git trailers, make sure that the changelog file matches the expected format. Otherwise, new changelog entries added by the API might be inserted in an unexpected position. For example, if the version values in the manually-managed changelog file are specified as vX.Y.Z instead of X.Y.Z, then new changelog entries added using Git trailers are appended to the end of the changelog file.

Issue 444183 proposes customizing the version header format in changelog files. However, until that issue has been completed, the expected version header format in changelog files is X.Y.Z.

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" \
  --url "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" \
  --url "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" \
  --url "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" \
  --url "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"

To specify a branch as a parameter, use the to attribute:

curl --request GET \
  --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --url "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog?version=1.0.0&to=release/x.x.x"

Generate changelog data

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.
`config_file`	string	no	The path of changelog configuration file in the project’s Git repository. Defaults to `.gitlab/changelog_config.yml`.
`config_file_ref`	string	no	The Git reference (for example, branch) where the changelog configuration file is defined. Defaults to the default repository branch.
`date`	datetime	no	The date and time of the release. Uses ISO 8601 format. Example: `2016-03-11T03:45:40Z`. Defaults to the current time.
`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 HEAD of the default project branch.
`trailer`	string	no	The Git trailer to use for including commits. Defaults to `Changelog`.

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --url "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog?version=1.0.0"

Example response, with line breaks added for readability:

{
  "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"
}

Health

Get statistics related to the health of a project repository. This endpoint is rate-limited to 5 requests/hour per project.

GET /projects/:id/repository/health

Supported attributes:

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`generate`	boolean	no	Whether a new health report should be generated. Set this if the endpoint returns 404.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --url "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/health"

Example response:

{
  "size": 2619748827,
  "references": {
    "loose_count": 13,
    "packed_size": 333978,
    "reference_backend": "REFERENCE_BACKEND_FILES"
  },
  "objects": {
    "size": 2180475409,
    "recent_size": 2180453999,
    "stale_size": 21410,
    "keep_size": 0,
    "packfile_count": 1,
    "reverse_index_count": 1,
    "cruft_count": 0,
    "keep_count": 0,
    "loose_objects_count": 36,
    "stale_loose_objects_count": 36,
    "loose_objects_garbage_count": 0
  },
  "commit_graph": {
    "commit_graph_chain_length": 1,
    "has_bloom_filters": true,
    "has_generation_data": true,
    "has_generation_data_overflow": false
  },
  "bitmap": null,
  "multi_pack_index": {
    "packfile_count": 1,
    "version": 1
  },
  "multi_pack_index_bitmap": {
    "has_hash_cache": true,
    "has_lookup_table": true,
    "version": 1
  },
  "alternates": null,
  "is_object_pool": false,
  "last_full_repack": {
    "seconds": 1745892013,
    "nanos": 0
  },
  "updated_at": "2025-05-14T02:31:08.022Z"
}

For a description of each field in the response, see the RepositoryInfoResponse protobuf message.

User documentation for changelogs

Repositories API

List repository tree

Get a blob from repository

Get raw blob content

Get file archive

Compare branches, tags or commits

Get contributor list

Get merge base

Add changelog data to a changelog file

Supported attributes

Requirements for from attribute

Migrating from a manually-managed changelog file to Git trailers

Examples

Generate changelog data

Health

Related topics

Requirements for `from` attribute