Customize the Help page message

  • Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
  • Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

In large organizations, it is useful to have information about who to contact or where to go for help. You can customize and display this information on the GitLab /help page.

Prerequisites

You must have administrator access.

Add a help message to the Help page

You can add a help message, which is shown at the top of the GitLab /help page (for example, https://gitlab.com/help):

  1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
  2. Select Settings > Preferences.
  3. Expand Help page.
  4. In Additional text to show on the Help page, enter the information you want to display on /help.
  5. Select Save changes.

You can now see the message on /help.

By default, /help is visible to unauthenticated users. However, if the Public visibility level is restricted, /help is visible only to authenticated users.

Add a help message to the sign-in page

To add a help message to the sign-in page, customize your sign-in and register pages.

Hide marketing-related entries from the Help page

GitLab marketing-related entries are occasionally shown on the Help page. To hide these entries:

  1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
  2. Select Settings > Preferences.
  3. Expand Help page.
  4. Select the Hide marketing-related entries from the Help page checkbox.
  5. Select Save changes.

Set a custom Support page URL

You can specify a custom URL to which users are directed when they:

  • Select Help > Support.
  • Select See our website for help on the Help page.
  1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
  2. Select Settings > Preferences.
  3. Expand Help page.
  4. In the Support page URL text box, enter the URL.
  5. Select Save changes.

Redirect /help pages

You can redirect all /help links to a destination that meets the necessary requirements.

  1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
  2. Select Settings > Preferences.
  3. Expand Help page.
  4. In the Documentation pages URL text box, enter the URL.
  5. Select Save changes.

If the Documentation pages URL text box is empty, the GitLab instance displays a basic version of the documentation sourced from the doc directory of GitLab.

Destination requirements

When redirecting /help, GitLab:

  • Uses the specified URL as the base URL for the redirect.
  • Constructs the full URL by:
    • Adding the version number (${VERSION}).
    • Adding the documentation path.
    • Removing any .md file extensions.

For example, if the URL is set to https://docs.gitlab.com, requests for /help/administration/settings/help_page.md redirect to: https://docs.gitlab.com/${VERSION}/administration/settings/help_page.