Connect to your GitLab instance

By default, glab connects to GitLab.com. To use a GitLab Self-Managed or GitLab Dedicated instance instead, change your configuration. You can also configure glab for instances that present a client or self-signed certificate.

Set a default instance

When outside a Git repository, glab uses gitlab.com by default. For glab to default to your GitLab Self-Managed or GitLab Dedicated instance when you are not in a Git repository, change the host configuration settings. Use this command, changing gitlab.example.com to the domain name of your instance:

glab config set -g host gitlab.example.com

Setting this configuration enables you to perform commands outside a Git repository while using your GitLab Self-Managed or GitLab Dedicated instance. For example:

• glab repo clone group/project
• glab issue list -R group/project

If you don’t set a default domain name, you can declare one for the current command with the GITLAB_HOST environment variable, like this:

• GITLAB_HOST=gitlab.example.com glab repo clone group/project
• GITLAB_HOST=gitlab.example.com glab issue list -R group/project

When inside a Git repository, glab uses that repository’s GitLab host by default. For example, glab issue list lists all issues of the current directory’s Git repository.

Use mTLS certificates

To use a mutual TLS (Mutual Transport Layer Security) certificate with glab, edit your global configuration file (~/.config/glab-cli/config.yml) to provide connection information:

hosts:
    git.your-domain.com:
        api_protocol: https
        api_host: git.your-domain.com
        token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
        client_cert: /path/to/client.crt
        client_key: /path/to/client.key
        ca_cert: /path/to/ca-chain.pem

• ca_cert is optional for mTLS support if you use a publicly signed server certificate.
• token is not required if you use a different authentication method.

Use self-signed certificates

To configure the GitLab CLI to support GitLab Self-Managed and GitLab Dedicated instances with self-signed certificates, either:

• Disable TLS verification with:

  glab config set skip_tls_verify true --host gitlab.example.com

• Add the path to the self signed CA:

  glab config set ca_cert /path/to/server.pem --host gitlab.example.com