Container Registry API

The use of CI_JOB_TOKEN scoped to the current project was introduced in GitLab 13.12.

This is the API documentation of the GitLab Container Registry.

When the ci_job_token_scope feature flag is enabled (it is disabled by default), you can use the below endpoints from a CI/CD job, by passing the $CI_JOB_TOKEN variable as the JOB-TOKEN header. The job token only has access to its own project.

GitLab administrators with access to the GitLab Rails console can opt to enable it.

To enable it:

Feature.enable(:ci_job_token_scope)

To disable it:

Feature.disable(:ci_job_token_scope)

Change the visibility of the Container Registry

Introduced in GitLab 14.2.

This controls who can view the Container Registry.

PUT /projects/:id/
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project accessible by the authenticated user.
container_registry_access_levelstringnoThe desired visibility of the Container Registry. One of enabled (default), private, or disabled.

Descriptions of the possible values for container_registry_access_level:

  • enabled (Default): The Container Registry is visible to everyone with access to the project. If the project is public, the Container Registry is also public. If the project is internal or private, the Container Registry is also internal or private.

  • private: The Container Registry is visible only to project members with Reporter role or higher. This is similar to the behavior of a private project with Container Registry visibility set to enabled.

  • disabled: The Container Registry is disabled.

See the Container Registry visibility permissions for more details about the permissions that this setting grants to users.

curl --request PUT "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/" \
     --header 'PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>' \
     --header 'Accept: application/json' \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --data-raw '{
         "container_registry_access_level": "private"
     }'

Example response:

{
  "id": 5,
  "name": "Project 5",
  "container_registry_access_level": "private",
  ...
}

Container Registry pagination

By default, GET requests return 20 results at a time because the API results are paginated.

List registry repositories

Within a project

Get a list of registry repositories in a project.

GET /projects/:id/registry/repositories
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project accessible by the authenticated user.
tagsbooleannoIf the parameter is included as true, each repository includes an array of "tags" in the response.
tags_countbooleannoIf the parameter is included as true, each repository includes "tags_count" in the response (Introduced in GitLab 13.1).
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories"

Example response:

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "name": "",
    "path": "group/project",
    "project_id": 9,
    "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project",
    "created_at": "2019-01-10T13:38:57.391Z",
    "cleanup_policy_started_at": "2020-01-10T15:40:57.391Z"
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "name": "releases",
    "path": "group/project/releases",
    "project_id": 9,
    "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project/releases",
    "created_at": "2019-01-10T13:39:08.229Z",
    "cleanup_policy_started_at": "2020-08-17T03:12:35.489Z"
  }
]

Within a group

Removed the tags and tag_count attributes in GitLab 15.0.

Get a list of registry repositories in a group.

GET /groups/:id/registry/repositories
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the group accessible by the authenticated user.
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/groups/2/registry/repositories"

Example response:

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "name": "",
    "path": "group/project",
    "project_id": 9,
    "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project",
    "created_at": "2019-01-10T13:38:57.391Z",
    "cleanup_policy_started_at": "2020-08-17T03:12:35.489Z",
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "name": "",
    "path": "group/other_project",
    "project_id": 11,
    "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/other_project",
    "created_at": "2019-01-10T13:39:08.229Z",
    "cleanup_policy_started_at": "2020-01-10T15:40:57.391Z",
  }
]

Get details of a single repository

Introduced in GitLab 13.6.

Get details of a registry repository.

GET /registry/repositories/:id
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID of the registry repository accessible by the authenticated user.
tagsbooleannoIf the parameter is included as true, the response includes an array of "tags".
tags_countbooleannoIf the parameter is included as true, the response includes "tags_count".
sizebooleannoIf the parameter is included as true, the response includes "size". This is the deduplicated size of all images within the repository. Deduplication eliminates extra copies of identical data. For example, if you upload the same image twice, the Container Registry stores only one copy. This field is only available on GitLab.com for repositories created after 2021-11-04.
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/registry/repositories/2?tags=true&tags_count=true&size=true"

Example response:

{
  "id": 2,
  "name": "",
  "path": "group/project",
  "project_id": 9,
  "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project",
  "created_at": "2019-01-10T13:38:57.391Z",
  "cleanup_policy_started_at": "2020-08-17T03:12:35.489Z",
  "tags_count": 1,
  "tags": [
    {
      "name": "0.0.1",
      "path": "group/project:0.0.1",
      "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project:0.0.1"
    }
  ],
  "size": 2818413
}

Delete registry repository

Delete a repository in registry.

This operation is executed asynchronously and might take some time to get executed.

DELETE /projects/:id/registry/repositories/:repository_id
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user.
repository_idintegeryesThe ID of registry repository.
curl --request DELETE --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2"

List registry repository tags

Within a project

Get a list of tags for given registry repository.

GET /projects/:id/registry/repositories/:repository_id/tags
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project accessible by the authenticated user.
repository_idintegeryesThe ID of registry repository.
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags"

Example response:

[
  {
    "name": "A",
    "path": "group/project:A",
    "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project:A"
  },
  {
    "name": "latest",
    "path": "group/project:latest",
    "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project:latest"
  }
]

Get details of a registry repository tag

Get details of a registry repository tag.

GET /projects/:id/registry/repositories/:repository_id/tags/:tag_name
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project accessible by the authenticated user.
repository_idintegeryesThe ID of registry repository.
tag_namestringyesThe name of tag.
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags/v10.0.0"

Example response:

{
  "name": "v10.0.0",
  "path": "group/project:latest",
  "location": "gitlab.example.com:5000/group/project:latest",
  "revision": "e9ed9d87c881d8c2fd3a31b41904d01ba0b836e7fd15240d774d811a1c248181",
  "short_revision": "e9ed9d87c",
  "digest": "sha256:c3490dcf10ffb6530c1303522a1405dfaf7daecd8f38d3e6a1ba19ea1f8a1751",
  "created_at": "2019-01-06T16:49:51.272+00:00",
  "total_size": 350224384
}

Delete a registry repository tag

Delete a registry repository tag.

DELETE /projects/:id/registry/repositories/:repository_id/tags/:tag_name
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user.
repository_idintegeryesThe ID of registry repository.
tag_namestringyesThe name of tag.
curl --request DELETE --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags/v10.0.0"

This action doesn’t delete blobs. To delete them and recycle disk space, run the garbage collection.

Delete registry repository tags in bulk

Delete registry repository tags in bulk based on given criteria.

For an overview, see Use the Container Registry API to delete all tags except *.

DELETE /projects/:id/registry/repositories/:repository_id/tags
AttributeTypeRequiredDescription
idinteger/stringyesThe ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user.
repository_idintegeryesThe ID of registry repository.
name_regexstringnoThe re2 regex of the name to delete. To delete all tags specify .*. Note: name_regex is deprecated in favor of name_regex_delete. This field is validated.
name_regex_deletestringyesThe re2 regex of the name to delete. To delete all tags specify .*. This field is validated.
name_regex_keepstringnoThe re2 regex of the name to keep. This value overrides any matches from name_regex_delete. This field is validated. Note: setting to .* results in a no-op.
keep_nintegernoThe amount of latest tags of given name to keep.
older_thanstringnoTags to delete that are older than the given time, written in human readable form 1h, 1d, 1month.

This API returns HTTP response status code 202 if successful, and performs the following operations:

  • It orders all tags by creation date. The creation date is the time of the manifest creation, not the time of tag push.
  • It removes only the tags matching the given name_regex_delete (or deprecated name_regex), keeping any that match name_regex_keep.
  • It never removes the tag named latest.
  • It keeps N latest matching tags (if keep_n is specified).
  • It only removes tags that are older than X amount of time (if older_than is specified).
  • It schedules the asynchronous job to be executed in the background.

These operations are executed asynchronously and can take time to get executed. You can run this at most once an hour for a given container repository. This action doesn’t delete blobs. To delete them and recycle disk space, run the garbage collection.

caution
The number of tags deleted by this API is limited on GitLab.com because of the scale of the Container Registry there. If your Container Registry has a large number of tags to delete, only some of them are deleted, and you might need to call this API multiple times. To schedule tags for automatic deletion, use a cleanup policy instead.

Examples:

  1. Remove tag names that are matching the regex (Git SHA), keep always at least 5, and remove ones that are older than 2 days:

    curl --request DELETE --data 'name_regex_delete=[0-9a-z]{40}' --data 'keep_n=5' --data 'older_than=2d' \
     --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags"

  2. Remove all tags, but keep always the latest 5:

    curl --request DELETE --data 'name_regex_delete=.*' --data 'keep_n=5' \
     --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags"

  3. Remove all tags, but keep always tags beginning with stable:

    curl --request DELETE --data 'name_regex_delete=.*' --data 'name_regex_keep=stable.*' \
     --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags"

  4. Remove all tags that are older than 1 month:

    curl --request DELETE --data 'name_regex_delete=.*' --data 'older_than=1month' \
     --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/registry/repositories/2/tags"

Instance-wide endpoints

Beside the group- and project-specific GitLab APIs explained above, the Container Registry has its own endpoints. To query those, follow the Registry’s built-in mechanism to obtain and use an authentication token.

note
These are different from project or personal access tokens in the GitLab application.

Obtain token from GitLab 

GET ${CI_SERVER_URL}/jwt/auth?service=container_registry&scope=*

You must specify the correct scopes and actions to retrieve a valid token:

$ SCOPE="repository:${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}:delete" #or push,pull

$ curl  --request GET --user "${CI_REGISTRY_USER}:${CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD}" \
        "https://gitlab.example.com/jwt/auth?service=container_registry&scope=${SCOPE}"
{"token":" ... "}

Delete image tags by reference 

DELETE http(s)://${CI_REGISTRY}/v2/${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}/tags/reference/${CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA}

You can use the token retrieved with the predefined CI_REGISTRY_USER and CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD variables to delete container image tags by reference on your GitLab instance. The tag_delete Container-Registry-Feature must be enabled.

$ curl  --request DELETE --header "Authorization: Bearer <token_from_above>" \
        --header "Accept: application/vnd.docker.distribution.manifest.v2+json" \
        "https://gitlab.example.com:5050/v2/${CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE}/tags/reference/${CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA}"

Listing all container repositories 

GET http(s)://${CI_REGISTRY}/v2/_catalog

To list all container repositories on your GitLab instance, administrator credentials are required:

$ SCOPE="registry:catalog:*"

$ curl  --request GET --user "<admin-username>:<admin-password>" \
        "https://gitlab.example.com/jwt/auth?service=container_registry&scope=${SCOPE}"
{"token":" ... "}

$ curl --header "Authorization: Bearer <token_from_above>" https://gitlab.example.com:5050/v2/_catalog