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	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`page_token`	string	No	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	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	If `true`, get a recursive tree. Default is `false`.
`ref`	string	No	Name of a repository branch or tag. If not specified, uses the default branch.

If successful, returns 200 OK and an array of tree objects.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/13083/repository/tree"

Example response:

[
  {
    "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	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`sha`	string	Yes	Blob SHA.

If successful, returns 200 OK and the following response attributes:

Attribute	Type	Description
`content`	string	Base64 encoded blob content.
`encoding`	string	Encoding used for the blob content.
`sha`	string	Blob SHA.
`size`	integer	Size of the blob in bytes.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/13083/repository/blobs/79f7bbd25901e8334750839545a9bd021f0e4c83"

Example response:

{
  "size": 1476,
  "encoding": "base64",
  "content": "VGhpcyBpcyBhIGJpbmFyeSBmaWxl",
  "sha": "79f7bbd25901e8334750839545a9bd021f0e4c83"
}

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	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`sha`	string	Yes	Blob SHA.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/13083/repository/blobs/79f7bbd25901e8334750839545a9bd021f0e4c83/raw"

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	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`exclude_paths`	string	No	Comma-separated list of paths to exclude from the archive.
`include_lfs_blobs`	boolean	No	If `true`, LFS objects are included in the archive. When set to `false`, LFS objects are excluded. Default is `true`.
`path`	string	No	Subpath of the repository to download. If an empty string, defaults to the whole repository.
`sha`	string	No	Commit SHA to download. Accepts a tag, branch reference, or SHA. If not specified, defaults to the tip of the default branch.

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
`from`	string	Yes	Commit SHA or branch name.
`id`	integer or string	Yes	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`to`	string	Yes	Commit SHA or branch name.
`from_project_id`	integer	No	ID to compare from.
`straight`	boolean	No	If `true`, comparison method is direct comparison between `from` and `to` (`from`..`to`). If `false`, compare using merge base (`from`…`to`). Default is `false`.
`unidiff`	boolean	No	If `true`, present diffs in the unified diff format. Default is `false`. Introduced in GitLab 16.5.

If successful, returns 200 OK and the following response attributes:

Attribute	Type	Description
`commit`	object	Details of the latest commit in the comparison.
`commits`	object array	List of commits included in the comparison.
`commits[].author_email`	string	Commit author’s email address.
`commits[].author_name`	string	Commit author’s name.
`commits[].created_at`	datetime	Commit creation timestamp.
`commits[].id`	string	Full commit SHA.
`commits[].short_id`	string	Short commit SHA.
`commits[].title`	string	Commit title.
`compare_same_ref`	boolean	If `true`, comparison uses the same reference for both from and to.
`compare_timeout`	boolean	If `true`, comparison operation timed out.
`diffs`	object array	List of file differences.
`diffs[].a_mode`	string	Old file mode.
`diffs[].b_mode`	string	New file mode.
`diffs[].collapsed`	boolean	If `true`, file diffs are excluded but can be fetched on request.
`diffs[].deleted_file`	boolean	If `true`, file has been removed.
`diffs[].diff`	string	Diff content showing changes made to the file.
`diffs[].new_file`	boolean	If `true`, file has been added.
`diffs[].new_path`	string	New path of the file.
`diffs[].old_path`	string	Old path of the file.
`diffs[].renamed_file`	boolean	If `true`, file has been renamed.
`diffs[].too_large`	boolean	If `true`, file diffs are excluded and cannot be retrieved.
`web_url`	string	Web URL for viewing the comparison.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/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+}",
    "collapsed": false,
    "too_large": false,
    "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	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`order_by`	string	No	Order contributors by `name`, `email`, or `commits` (number of commits). If not specified, contributors are ordered by commit date.
`ref`	string	No	Name of a repository branch or tag. If not given, the default branch.
`sort`	string	No	Return contributors sorted in `asc` or `desc` order. Default is `asc`.

If successful, returns 200 OK and the following response attributes:

Attribute	Type	Description
`additions`	integer	Number of line additions by the contributor.
`commits`	integer	Number of commits by the contributor.
`deletions`	integer	Number of line deletions by the contributor.
`email`	string	Email address of the contributor.
`name`	string	Name of the contributor.

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

Supported attributes:

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`id`	integer or string	Yes	ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
`refs`	array	Yes	Refs to find the common ancestor of. Accepts multiple refs.

If successful, returns 200 OK and the following response attributes:

Attribute	Type	Description
`author_email`	string	Author’s email address.
`author_name`	string	Author’s name.
`authored_date`	datetime	Date when the commit was authored.
`committed_date`	datetime	Date when the commit was committed.
`committer_email`	string	Committer’s email address.
`committer_name`	string	Committer’s name.
`created_at`	datetime	Commit creation timestamp.
`extended_trailers`	object	Extended information about Git trailers.
`id`	string	Full commit SHA.
`message`	string	Full commit message.
`parent_ids`	array	List of parent commit SHAs.
`short_id`	string	Short commit SHA.
`title`	string	Commit title.
`trailers`	object	Git trailers parsed from the commit message.
`web_url`	string	URL to view the commit in the GitLab web interface.

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",
  "trailers": {},
  "extended_trailers": {},
  "web_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/example-group/example-project/-/commit/1a0b36b3cdad1d2ee32457c102a8c0b7056fa863"
}

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	Version to generate the changelog for. Format must follow semantic versioning.
`config_file`	string	No	Path of changelog configuration file in the project’s Git repository. Defaults to `.gitlab/changelog_config.yml`.
`config_file_ref`	string	No	Git reference (for example, branch) where the changelog configuration file is defined. Defaults to the default repository branch.
`date`	datetime	No	Date and time of the release. Uses ISO 8601 format. Example: `2016-03-11T03:45:40Z`. Defaults to the current time.
`from`	string	No	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	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	Git trailer to use for including commits. Defaults to `Changelog`.

If successful, returns 200 OK and the following response attributes:

Attribute	Type	Description
`notes`	string	Generated changelog data in Markdown format.

Example request:

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"
}

Add changelog data to file

Generate changelog data based on commits in a repository and commit them to a changelog file.

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

Changelogs support the following attributes:

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`version` ¹	string	Yes	Version to generate the changelog for. Format must follow semantic versioning.
`branch`	string	No	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	Git reference (for example, branch) where the changelog configuration file is defined. Defaults to the default repository branch.
`date`	datetime	No	Date and time of the release. Defaults to the current time.
`file`	string	No	File to commit the changes to. Defaults to `CHANGELOG.md`.
`from` ²	string	No	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	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	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	Git trailer to use for including commits. Defaults to `Changelog`. Case-sensitive: `Example` does not match `example` or `eXaMpLE`.

Footnotes:

The version attribute can include or omit the v prefix. Both 1.0.0 and v1.0.0 produce identical results. Introduced in GitLab 17.0.
When from is unspecified, GitLab automatically finds the last stable version tag that precedes your specified version. GitLab recognizes tags in X.Y.Z or vX.Y.Z format, following semantic versioning.
For example, if version is 2.1.0, GitLab uses tag v2.0.0. When version is 1.1.1 or 1.2.0, GitLab uses tag v1.1.0. Pre-release tags like v1.0.0-pre1 are ignored.
If no suitable tag is found, the API returns an error and you must explicitly specify 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" \
  --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"

Migrate from manual changelog files

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.

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	If `true`, a new health report should be generated. Set this if the endpoint returns `404`.

If successful, returns 200 OK and repository health statistics.

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

Generate changelog data

Add changelog data to file

Examples

Migrate from manual changelog files

Health

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