GitLab application limits

Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: Self-managed

GitLab, like most large applications, enforces limits in certain features to maintain a minimum quality of performance. Allowing some features to be limitless could affect security, performance, data, or could even exhaust the allocated resources for the application.

Instance configuration

In the instance configuration page, you can find information about some of the settings that are used in your current GitLab instance.

Depending on which limits you have configured, you can see:

  • SSH host keys information
  • CI/CD limits
  • GitLab Pages limits
  • Package registry limits
  • Rate limits
  • Size limits

Because this page is visible to everybody, unauthenticated users only see the information that is relevant to them.

To visit the instance configuration page:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Help () > Help.
  2. On the Help page, select Check the current instance configuration.

The direct URL is <gitlab_url>/help/instance_configuration. For GitLab.com, you can visit https://gitlab.com/help/instance_configuration.

Rate limits

Rate limits can be used to improve the security and durability of GitLab.

Read more about configuring rate limits.

Issue creation

This setting limits the request rate to the issue creation endpoint.

Read more about issue creation rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled by default.

By User or IP

This setting limits the request rate per user or IP.

Read more about User and IP rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled by default.

By raw endpoint

This setting limits the request rate per endpoint.

Read more about raw endpoint rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: 300 requests per project, per commit and per file path.

By protected path

This setting limits the request rate on specific paths.

GitLab rate limits the following paths by default: 

'/users/password',
'/users/sign_in',
'/api/#{API::API.version}/session.json',
'/api/#{API::API.version}/session',
'/users',
'/users/confirmation',
'/unsubscribes/',
'/import/github/personal_access_token',
'/admin/session'

Read more about protected path rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: After 10 requests, the client must wait 60 seconds before trying again.

Package registry

This setting limits the request rate on the Packages API per user or IP. For more information, see package registry rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled by default.

Git LFS

This setting limits the request rate on the Git LFS requests per user. For more information, read GitLab Git Large File Storage (LFS) Administration.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled by default.

Files API

This setting limits the request rate on the Packages API per user or IP address. For more information, read Files API rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled by default.

Deprecated API endpoints

This setting limits the request rate on deprecated API endpoints per user or IP address. For more information, read Deprecated API rate limits.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled by default.

Import/Export

This setting limits the import/export actions for groups and projects.

Limit Default (per minute per user)
Project Import 6
Project Export 6
Project Export Download 1
Group Import 6
Group Export 6
Group Export Download 1

Read more about import/export rate limits.

Member Invitations

Limit the maximum daily member invitations allowed per group hierarchy.

  • GitLab.com: Free members may invite 20 members per day, Premium trial and Ultimate trial members may invite 50 members per day.
  • Self-managed: Invites are not limited.

Webhook rate limit

History
  • Limit changed from per-hook to per-top-level namespace in GitLab 15.1.

Limit the number of times a webhook can be called per minute, per top-level namespace. This only applies to project and group webhooks.

Calls over the rate limit are logged into auth.log.

To set this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(web_hook_calls: 10)

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled (unlimited).

Search rate limit

History
  • Changed in GitLab 15.9 to include issue, merge request, and epic searches in the rate limit.
  • Changed in GitLab 16.0 to apply rate limits to search scopes for authenticated requests.

This setting limits search requests as follows:

Limit Default (requests per minute)
Authenticated user 30
Unauthenticated user 10

Search requests that exceed the search rate limit per minute return the following error: 

This endpoint has been requested too many times. Try again later.

Pipeline creation rate limit

History

This setting limits the request rate to the pipeline creation endpoints.

Read more about pipeline creation rate limits.

Gitaly concurrency limit

Clone traffic can put a large strain on your Gitaly service. To prevent such workloads from overwhelming your Gitaly server, you can set concurrency limits in the Gitaly configuration file.

Read more about Gitaly concurrency limits.

  • Default rate limit: Disabled.

Number of comments per issue, merge request, or commit

There’s a limit to the number of comments that can be submitted on an issue, merge request, or commit. When the limit is reached, system notes can still be added so that the history of events is not lost, but the user-submitted comment fails.

  • Max limit: 5,000 comments.

Size of comments and descriptions of issues, merge requests, and epics

There is a limit to the size of comments and descriptions of issues, merge requests, and epics. Attempting to add a body of text larger than the limit, results in an error, and the item is also not created.

It’s possible that this limit changes to a lower number in the future.

  • Max size: ~1 million characters / ~1 MB.

Size of commit titles and descriptions

Commits with arbitrarily large messages may be pushed to GitLab, but the following display limits apply:

  • Title - The first line of the commit message. Limited to 1 KiB.
  • Description - The rest of the commit message. Limited to 1 MiB.

When a commit is pushed, GitLab processes the title and description to replace references to issues (#123) and merge requests (!123) with links to the issues and merge requests.

When a branch with a large number of commits is pushed, only the last 100 commits are processed.

Number of issues in the milestone overview

The maximum number of issues loaded on the milestone overview page is 500. When the number exceeds the limit the page displays an alert and links to a paginated issue list of all issues in the milestone.

  • Limit: 500 issues.

Number of pipelines per Git push

When pushing multiple changes with a single Git push, like multiple tags or branches, only four tag or branch pipelines can be triggered. This limit prevents the accidental creation of a large number of pipelines when using git push --all or git push --mirror.

Merge request pipelines are not limited. If the Git push updates multiple merge requests at the same time, a merge request pipeline can trigger for every updated merge request.

To remove the limit so that any number of pipelines can trigger for a single Git push event, administrators can enable the git_push_create_all_pipelines feature flag. Enabling this feature flag is not recommended, as it can cause excessive load on the GitLab instance if too many changes are pushed at once and a flood of pipelines are created accidentally.

Retention of activity history

Activity history for projects and individuals’ profiles is limited to three years.

Number of embedded metrics

There is a limit when embedding metrics in GitLab Flavored Markdown (GLFM) for performance reasons.

  • Max limit: 100 embeds.

Webhook limits

Also see Webhook rate limits.

Number of webhooks

To set the maximum number of group or project webhooks for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

# For project webhooks
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(project_hooks: 200)

# For group webhooks
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(group_hooks: 100)

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

The default maximum number of webhooks is 100 per project and 50 per group. Webhooks in a subgroup do not count towards the webhook limit of their parent group.

For GitLab.com, see the webhook limits for GitLab.com.

Webhook payload size

The maximum webhook payload size is 25 MB.

Webhook timeout

The number of seconds GitLab waits for an HTTP response after sending a webhook.

To change the webhook timeout value:

  1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb on all GitLab nodes that are running Sidekiq: 

    gitlab_rails['webhook_timeout'] = 60
  2. Save the file.

  3. Reconfigure and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect: 

    gitlab-ctl reconfigure
gitlab-ctl restart

See also webhook limits for GitLab.com.

Recursive webhooks

GitLab detects and blocks webhooks that are recursive or that exceed the limit of webhooks that can be triggered from other webhooks. This enables GitLab to continue to support workflows that use webhooks to call the API non-recursively, or that do not trigger an unreasonable number of other webhooks.

Recursion can happen when a webhook is configured to make a call to its own GitLab instance (for example, the API). The call then triggers the same webhook and creates an infinite loop.

The maximum number of requests to an instance made by a series of webhooks that trigger other webhooks is 100. When the limit is reached, GitLab blocks any further webhooks that would be triggered by the series.

Blocked recursive webhook calls are logged in auth.log with the message "Recursive webhook blocked from executing".

Import placeholder user limits

History

The number of placeholder users created during an import can be limited per top-level namespace.

The default limit for GitLab self-managed is 0 (unlimited).

To change this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(import_placeholder_user_limit_tier_1: 200)

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

Pull mirroring interval

The minimum wait time between pull refreshes defaults to 300 seconds (5 minutes). For example, a pull refresh only runs once in a given 300 second period, regardless of how many times you trigger it.

This setting applies in the context of pull refreshes invoked by using the projects API, or when forcing an update by selecting Update now () in Settings > Repository > Mirroring repositories. This setting has no effect on the automatic 30 minute interval schedule used by Sidekiq for pull mirroring.

To change this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(pull_mirror_interval_seconds: 200)

Incoming emails from auto-responders

GitLab ignores all incoming emails sent from auto-responders by looking for the X-Autoreply header. Such emails don’t create comments on issues or merge requests.

Amount of data sent from Sentry through Error Tracking

History

Sentry payloads sent to GitLab have a 1 MB maximum limit, both for security reasons and to limit memory consumption.

Max offset allowed by the REST API for offset-based pagination

When using offset-based pagination in the REST API, there is a limit to the maximum requested offset into the set of results. This limit is only applied to endpoints that also support keyset-based pagination. More information about pagination options can be found in the API documentation section on pagination.

To set this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(offset_pagination_limit: 10000)
  • Default offset pagination limit: 50000.

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

CI/CD limits

Number of jobs in active pipelines

The total number of jobs in active pipelines can be limited per project. This limit is checked each time a new pipeline is created. An active pipeline is any pipeline in one of the following states:

  • created
  • pending
  • running

If a new pipeline would cause the total number of jobs to exceed the limit, the pipeline fails with a job_activity_limit_exceeded error.

  • GitLab SaaS subscribers have different limits defined per plan, and they affect all projects under that plan.
  • On GitLab Premium self-managed or higher installations, this limit is defined under a default plan that affects all projects. This limit is disabled (0) by default.

To set this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_active_jobs: 500)

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

Maximum time jobs can run

The default maximum time that jobs can run for is 60 minutes. Jobs that run for more than 60 minutes time out.

You can change the maximum time a job can run before it times out:

  • At the project-level in the project’s CI/CD settings for a given project. This limit must be between 10 minutes and 1 month.
  • At the runner level. This limit must be 10 minutes or longer.

Maximum number of deployment jobs in a pipeline

You can limit the maximum number of deployment jobs in a pipeline. A deployment is any job with an environment specified. The number of deployments in a pipeline is checked at pipeline creation. Pipelines that have too many deployments fail with a deployments_limit_exceeded error.

The default limit is 500 for all GitLab self-managed and SaaS plans.

To change the limit for a self-managed installation, change the default plan’s limit with the following GitLab Rails console command: 

# If limits don't exist for the default plan, you can create one with:
# Plan.default.create_limits!

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_pipeline_deployments: 500)

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

Number of CI/CD subscriptions to a project

The total number of subscriptions can be limited per project. This limit is checked each time a new subscription is created.

If a new subscription would cause the total number of subscription to exceed the limit, the subscription is considered invalid.

  • On GitLab SaaS: Limits are defined per plan, and they affect all projects under that plan.
  • On self-managed: On GitLab Premium or Ultimate, this limit is defined under a default plan that affects all projects. By default, there is a limit of 2 subscriptions.

To set this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_project_subscriptions: 500)

Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

Limit the number of pipeline triggers

You can set a limit on the maximum number of pipeline triggers per project. This limit is checked every time a new trigger is created.

If a new trigger would cause the total number of pipeline triggers to exceed the limit, the trigger is considered invalid.

Set the limit to 0 to disable it. Defaults to 25000 on self-managed instances.

To set this limit to 100 on a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(pipeline_triggers: 100)

This limit is enabled on GitLab.com.

Number of pipeline schedules

The total number of pipeline schedules can be limited per project. This limit is checked each time a new pipeline schedule is created. If a new pipeline schedule would cause the total number of pipeline schedules to exceed the limit, the pipeline schedule is not created.

GitLab SaaS subscribers have different limits defined per plan, and they affect all projects under that plan.

On GitLab Premium self-managed or higher installations, this limit is defined under a default plan that affects all projects. By default, there is a limit of 10 pipeline schedules.

To set this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_pipeline_schedules: 100)

Limit the number of pipelines created by a pipeline schedule per day

You can limit the number of pipelines that pipeline schedules can trigger per day.

Schedules that try to run pipelines more frequently than the limit are slowed to a maximum frequency. The frequency is calculated by dividing 1440 (the number minutes in a day) by the limit value. For example, for a maximum frequency of:

  • Once per minute, the limit must be 1440.
  • Once per 10 minutes, the limit must be 144.
  • Once per 60 minutes, the limit must be 24

The minimum value is 24, or one pipeline per 60 minutes. There is no maximum value.

To set this limit to 1440 on a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_daily_pipeline_schedule_triggers: 1440)

This limit is enabled on GitLab.com.

Limit the number of schedule rules defined for security policy project

History

You can limit the total number of schedule rules per security policy project. This limit is checked each time policies with schedule rules are updated. If a new schedule rule would cause the total number of schedule rules to exceed the limit, the new schedule rule is not processed.

By default, self-managed instances do not limit the number of processable schedule rules.

To set this limit for a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(security_policy_scan_execution_schedules: 100)

This limit is enabled on GitLab.com.

CI/CD variable limits

History
  • Group and project variable limits introduced in GitLab 15.7.

The number of CI/CD variables that can be defined in project, group, and instance settings are all limited for the entire instance. These limits are checked each time a new variable is created. If a new variable would cause the total number of variables to exceed the respective limit, the new variable is not created.

To update the default plan of one of these limits on a self-managed installation, in the GitLab Rails console run the following command:

Maximum file size per type of artifact

History
  • ci_max_artifact_size_annotations limit introduced in GitLab 16.3.
  • ci_max_artifact_size_lsif limit increased in GitLab 17.8.

Job artifacts defined with artifacts:reports that are uploaded by the runner are rejected if the file size exceeds the maximum file size limit. The limit is determined by comparing the project’s maximum artifact size setting with the instance limit for the given artifact type, and choosing the smaller value.

Limits are set in megabytes, so the smallest possible value that can be defined is 1 MB.

Each type of artifact has a size limit that can be set. A default of 0 means there is no limit for that specific artifact type, and the project’s maximum artifact size setting is used:

Artifact limit name Default value
ci_max_artifact_size_accessibility 0
ci_max_artifact_size_annotations 0
ci_max_artifact_size_api_fuzzing 0
ci_max_artifact_size_archive 0
ci_max_artifact_size_browser_performance 0
ci_max_artifact_size_cluster_applications 0
ci_max_artifact_size_cobertura 0
ci_max_artifact_size_codequality 0
ci_max_artifact_size_container_scanning 0
ci_max_artifact_size_coverage_fuzzing 0
ci_max_artifact_size_dast 0
ci_max_artifact_size_dependency_scanning 0
ci_max_artifact_size_dotenv 0
ci_max_artifact_size_junit 0
ci_max_artifact_size_license_management 0
ci_max_artifact_size_license_scanning 0
ci_max_artifact_size_load_performance 0
ci_max_artifact_size_lsif 200 MB
ci_max_artifact_size_metadata 0
ci_max_artifact_size_metrics_referee 0
ci_max_artifact_size_metrics 0
ci_max_artifact_size_network_referee 0
ci_max_artifact_size_performance 0
ci_max_artifact_size_requirements 0
ci_max_artifact_size_requirements_v2 0
ci_max_artifact_size_sast 0
ci_max_artifact_size_secret_detection 0
ci_max_artifact_size_terraform 5 MB
ci_max_artifact_size_trace 0
ci_max_artifact_size_cyclonedx 5 MB

For example, to set the ci_max_artifact_size_junit limit to 10 MB on a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_max_artifact_size_junit: 10)

Number of files per GitLab Pages website

The total number of file entries (including directories and symlinks) is limited to 200,000 per GitLab Pages website.

This is the default limit for all GitLab self-managed and SaaS plans.

You can update the limit in your self-managed instance using the GitLab Rails console. For example, to change the limit to 100: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(pages_file_entries: 100)

Number of custom domains per GitLab Pages website

The total number of custom domains per GitLab Pages website is limited to 150 for GitLab SaaS.

The default limit for GitLab self-managed is 0 (unlimited). To set a limit on your self-managed instance, use the Admin area.

Number of parallel Pages deployments

When using parallel Pages deployments, the total number of parallel Pages deployments permitted for a top-level namespace is 1000.

Number of registered runners per scope

History
  • Runner stale timeout changed from 3 months to 7 days in GitLab 17.1.

The total number of registered runners is limited for groups and projects. Each time a new runner is registered, GitLab checks these limits against runners created or active in the last 7 days. A runner’s registration fails if it exceeds the limit for the scope determined by the runner registration token. If the limit value is set to zero, the limit is disabled.

GitLab SaaS subscribers have different limits defined per plan, affecting all projects using that plan.

Self-managed GitLab Premium and Ultimate limits are defined by a default plan that affects all projects:

Runner scope Default value
ci_registered_group_runners 1000
ci_registered_project_runners 1000

To update these limits, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# Use ci_registered_group_runners or ci_registered_project_runners
# depending on desired scope
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_registered_project_runners: 100)

Maximum file size for job logs

The job log file size limit in GitLab is 100 megabytes by default. Any job that exceeds the limit is marked as failed, and dropped by the runner.

You can change the limit in the GitLab Rails console. Update ci_jobs_trace_size_limit with the new value in megabytes: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_jobs_trace_size_limit: 125)

GitLab Runner also has an output_limit setting that configures the maximum log size in a runner. Jobs that exceed the runner limit continue to run, but the log is truncated when it hits the limit.

Maximum number of active DAST profile schedules per project

Limit the number of active DAST profile schedules per project. A DAST profile schedule can be active or inactive.

You can change the limit in the GitLab Rails console. Update dast_profile_schedules with the new value: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(dast_profile_schedules: 50)

Maximum size of the CI artifacts archive

The default maximum size of the CI artifacts archive is 5 megabytes.

You can change this limit by using the GitLab Rails console. To update the maximum size of the CI artifacts archive, update max_artifacts_content_include_size with the new value. For example, to set it to 20 MB: 

ApplicationSetting.update(max_artifacts_content_include_size: 20.megabytes)

Maximum size and depth of CI/CD configuration YAML files

The default maximum size of a single CI/CD configuration YAML file is 1 megabyte and the default depth is 100.

You can change these limits in the GitLab Rails console:

  • To update the maximum YAML size, update max_yaml_size_bytes with the new value in megabytes: 

    ApplicationSetting.update(max_yaml_size_bytes: 2.megabytes)

    The max_yaml_size_bytes value is not directly tied to the size of the YAML file, but rather the memory allocated for the relevant objects.

  • To update the maximum YAML depth, update max_yaml_depth with the new value in number of lines: 

    ApplicationSetting.update(max_yaml_depth: 125)

Maximum size of the entire CI/CD configuration

The maximum amount of memory, in bytes, that can be allocated for the full pipeline configuration, with all included YAML configuration files.

For new self-managed instances, the default is 157286400 bytes (150 MB).

For existing self-managed instances that upgrade to GitLab 16.3 or later, the default is calculated by multiplying max_yaml_size_bytes (default 1 MB) with ci_max_includes (default 150). If both limits are unmodified, the default is set to 1 MB x 150 = 157286400 bytes (150 MB).

You can change this limit by using the GitLab Rails console. To update the maximum memory that can be allocated for the CI/CD configuration, update ci_max_total_yaml_size_bytes with the new value. For example, to set it to 20 MB: 

ApplicationSetting.update(ci_max_total_yaml_size_bytes: 20.megabytes)

Limit dotenv variables

You can set a limit on the maximum number of variables inside of a dotenv artifact. This limit is checked every time a dotenv file is exported as an artifact.

Set the limit to 0 to disable it. Defaults to 20 on self-managed instances.

To set this limit to 100 on a self-managed instance, run the following command in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(dotenv_variables: 100)

This limit is enabled on GitLab.com.

Limit dotenv file size

You can set a limit on the maximum size of a dotenv artifact. This limit is checked every time a dotenv file is exported as an artifact.

Set the limit to 0 to disable it. Defaults to 5 KB.

To set this limit to 5 KB on a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(dotenv_size: 5.kilobytes)

Limit CI/CD job annotations

History

You can set a limit on the maximum number of annotations per CI/CD job.

Set the limit to 0 to disable it. Defaults to 20 on self-managed instances.

To set this limit to 100 on a self-managed instance, run the following command in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_job_annotations_num: 100)

Limit CI/CD job annotations file size

History

You can set a limit on the maximum size of a CI/CD job annotation.

Set the limit to 0 to disable it. Defaults to 80 KB.

To set this limit to 100 KB on a self-managed installation, run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(ci_job_annotations_size: 100.kilobytes)

Instance monitoring and metrics

Limit inbound incident management alerts

This setting limits the number of inbound alert payloads over a period of time.

Read more about incident management rate limits.

Prometheus Alert JSON payloads

Prometheus alert payloads sent to the notify.json endpoint are limited to 1 MB in size.

Generic Alert JSON payloads

Alert payloads sent to the notify.json endpoint are limited to 1 MB in size.

Metrics dashboard YAML files

The memory occupied by a parsed metrics dashboard YAML file cannot exceed 1 MB.

The maximum depth of each YAML file is limited to 100. The maximum depth of a YAML file is the amount of nesting of its most nested key. Each hash and array on the path of the most nested key counts towards its depth. For example, the depth of the most nested key in the following YAML is 7: 

dashboard: 'Test dashboard'
links:
- title: Link 1
  url: https://gitlab.com
panel_groups:
- group: Group A
  priority: 1
  panels:
  - title: "Super Chart A1"
    type: "area-chart"
    y_label: "y_label"
    weight: 1
    max_value: 1
    metrics:
    - id: metric_a1
      query_range: 'query'
      unit: unit
      label: Legend Label

Environment Dashboard limits

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

See Environment Dashboard for the maximum number of displayed projects.

Environment data on deploy boards

Deploy boards load information from Kubernetes about Pods and Deployments. However, data over 10 MB for a certain environment read from Kubernetes aren’t shown.

Merge requests

Diff limits

GitLab has limits around:

An upper and lower limit applies to each of these:

  • The number of changed files.
  • The number of changed lines.
  • The cumulative size of the changes displayed.

The lower limits result in additional diffs being collapsed. The higher limits prevent any more changes from rendering. For more information about these limits, read the development documentation.

Merge request reports size limit

Reports that go over the 20 MB limit aren’t loaded. Affected reports:

Advanced search limits

Maximum file size indexed

You can set a limit on the content of repository files that are indexed in Elasticsearch. Any files larger than this limit only index the filename. The file content is neither indexed nor searchable.

Setting a limit helps reduce the memory usage of the indexing processes and the overall index size. This value defaults to 1024 KiB (1 MiB) as any text files larger than this likely aren’t meant to be read by humans.

You must set a limit, as unlimited file sizes aren’t supported. Setting this value to be greater than the amount of memory on GitLab Sidekiq nodes causes the GitLab Sidekiq nodes to run out of memory, as this amount of memory is pre-allocated during indexing.

Maximum field length

You can set a limit on the content of text fields indexed for advanced search. Setting a maximum helps to reduce the load of the indexing processes. If any text field exceeds this limit, then the text is truncated to this number of characters. The rest of the text is not indexed, and not searchable. This applies to all indexed data except repository files that get indexed, which have a separate limit. For more information, read Maximum file size indexed.

  • On GitLab.com, the field length limit is 20,000 characters.
  • For self-managed installations, the field length is unlimited by default.

You can configure this limit for self-managed installations when you enable Elasticsearch. Set the limit to 0 to disable it.

Math rendering limits

History
  • Introduced in GitLab 16.5.
  • Removed the 50-node limit from Wiki and repository files.
  • Added a group-level setting to allow disabling math rendering limits, and re-enabled by default the math limits for wiki and repository files in GitLab 16.9.

GitLab imposes default limits when rendering math in Markdown fields. These limits provide better security and performance.

The limits for issues, merge requests, epics, wikis, and repository files:

  • Maximum number of macro expansions: 1000.
  • Maximum user-specified size in em: 20.
  • Maximum number of nodes rendered: 50.
  • Maximum number of characters in a math block: 1000.
  • Maximum rendering time: 2000 ms.

You can disable these limits when running in a self-managed instance and you trust the user input.

Use the GitLab Rails console: 

ApplicationSetting.update(math_rendering_limits_enabled: false)

These limits can also be disabled per-group using the GraphQL or REST API.

If the limits are disabled, math is rendered with mostly no limits in issues, merge requests, epics, wikis, and repository files. This means a malicious actor could add math that would cause a DoS when viewing in the browser. You must ensure that only people you trust can add content.

Wiki limits

Snippets limits

See the documentation about Snippets settings.

Design Management limits

See the limits in the Add a design to an issue section.

Push Event Limits

Max push size

The maximum allowed push size.

Not set by default on self-managed instances. For GitLab.com, see Account and limit settings

Webhooks and Project Services

Total number of changes (branches or tags) in a single push. If changes are more than the specified limit, hooks are not executed.

For more information, see:

Activities

Total number of changes (branches or tags) in a single push to determine whether individual push events or a bulk push event are created.

More information can be found in the Push event activities limit and bulk push events documentation.

Package registry limits

File size limits

The default maximum file size for a package that’s uploaded to the GitLab package registry varies by format:

  • Conan: 3 GB
  • Generic: 5 GB
  • Helm: 5 MB
  • Maven: 3 GB
  • npm: 500 MB
  • NuGet: 500 MB
  • PyPI: 3 GB
  • Terraform: 1 GB

The maximum file sizes on GitLab.com might be different.

To set these limits for a self-managed installation, you can do it through the Admin area or run the following in the GitLab Rails console: 

# File size limit is stored in bytes

# For Conan Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(conan_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For npm Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(npm_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For NuGet Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(nuget_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For Maven Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(maven_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For PyPI Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(pypi_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For Debian Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(debian_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For Helm Charts
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(helm_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

# For Generic Packages
Plan.default.actual_limits.update!(generic_packages_max_file_size: 100.megabytes)

Set the limit to 0 to allow any file size.

Package versions returned

When asking for versions of a given NuGet package name, the GitLab package registry returns a maximum of 300 versions.

Dependency Proxy Limits

The maximum file size for an image cached in the Dependency Proxy varies by file type:

  • Image blob: 5 GB
  • Image manifest: 10 MB

Maximum number of assignees and reviewers

History

Issues and merge requests enforce these maximums:

  • Maximum assignees: 200
  • Maximum reviewers: 200

CDN-based limits on GitLab.com

In addition to application-based limits, GitLab.com is configured to use Cloudflare’s standard DDoS protection and Spectrum to protect Git over SSH. Cloudflare terminates client TLS connections but is not application aware and cannot be used for limits tied to users or groups. Cloudflare page rules and rate limits are configured with Terraform. These configurations are not public because they include security and abuse implementations that detect malicious activities and making them public would undermine those operations.

Container Repository tag deletion limit

Container repository tags are in the container registry and, as such, each tag deletion triggers network requests to the container registry. Because of this, we limit the number of tags that a single API call can delete to 20.

Project-level Secure Files API limits

The secure files API enforces the following limits:

  • Files must be smaller than 5 MB.
  • Projects cannot have more than 100 secure files.

Changelog API limits

History

The changelog API enforces the following limits:

  • The commit range between from and to cannot exceed 15000 commits.

Value Stream Analytics limits

  • Each namespace (such as a group or a project) can have a maximum of 50 value streams.
  • Each value stream can have a maximum of 15 stages.

Audit events streaming destination limits

Custom HTTP Endpoint

  • Each top-level group can have a maximum of 5 custom HTTP streaming destinations.

Google Cloud Logging

  • Each top-level group can have a maximum of 5 Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations.

Amazon S3

  • Each top-level group can have a maximum of 5 Amazon S3 streaming destinations.

List all instance limits

To list all instance limit values, run the following from the GitLab Rails console: 

Plan.default.actual_limits

Sample output: 

id: 1,
plan_id: 1,
ci_pipeline_size: 0,
ci_active_jobs: 0,
project_hooks: 100,
group_hooks: 50,
ci_project_subscriptions: 3,
ci_pipeline_schedules: 10,
offset_pagination_limit: 50000,
ci_instance_level_variables: "[FILTERED]",
storage_size_limit: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_lsif: 200,
ci_max_artifact_size_archive: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_metadata: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_trace: "[FILTERED]",
ci_max_artifact_size_junit: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_sast: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_dependency_scanning: 350,
ci_max_artifact_size_container_scanning: 150,
ci_max_artifact_size_dast: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_codequality: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_license_management: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_license_scanning: 100,
ci_max_artifact_size_performance: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_metrics: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_metrics_referee: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_network_referee: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_dotenv: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_cobertura: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_terraform: 5,
ci_max_artifact_size_accessibility: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_cluster_applications: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_secret_detection: "[FILTERED]",
ci_max_artifact_size_requirements: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_coverage_fuzzing: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_browser_performance: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_load_performance: 0,
ci_needs_size_limit: 2,
conan_max_file_size: 3221225472,
maven_max_file_size: 3221225472,
npm_max_file_size: 524288000,
nuget_max_file_size: 524288000,
pypi_max_file_size: 3221225472,
generic_packages_max_file_size: 5368709120,
golang_max_file_size: 104857600,
debian_max_file_size: 3221225472,
project_feature_flags: 200,
ci_max_artifact_size_api_fuzzing: 0,
ci_pipeline_deployments: 500,
pull_mirror_interval_seconds: 300,
daily_invites: 0,
rubygems_max_file_size: 3221225472,
terraform_module_max_file_size: 1073741824,
helm_max_file_size: 5242880,
ci_registered_group_runners: 1000,
ci_registered_project_runners: 1000,
ci_daily_pipeline_schedule_triggers: 0,
ci_max_artifact_size_cluster_image_scanning: 0,
ci_jobs_trace_size_limit: "[FILTERED]",
pages_file_entries: 200000,
dast_profile_schedules: 1,
external_audit_event_destinations: 5,
dotenv_variables: "[FILTERED]",
dotenv_size: 5120,
pipeline_triggers: 25000,
project_ci_secure_files: 100,
repository_size: 0,
security_policy_scan_execution_schedules: 0,
web_hook_calls_mid: 0,
web_hook_calls_low: 0,
project_ci_variables: "[FILTERED]",
group_ci_variables: "[FILTERED]",
ci_max_artifact_size_cyclonedx: 1,
rpm_max_file_size: 5368709120,
pipeline_hierarchy_size: 1000,
ci_max_artifact_size_requirements_v2: 0,
enforcement_limit: 0,
notification_limit: 0,
dashboard_limit_enabled_at: nil,
web_hook_calls: 0,
project_access_token_limit: 0,
google_cloud_logging_configurations: 5,
ml_model_max_file_size: 10737418240,
limits_history: {},
audit_events_amazon_s3_configurations: 5

Some limit values display as [FILTERED] in the list due to filtering in the Rails console.