Custom group-level project templates

When you create a project, you can choose from a list of templates. These templates, for things like GitLab Pages or Ruby, populate the new project with a copy of the files contained in the template. This information is identical to the information used by GitLab project import/export and can help you start a new project more quickly.

You can customize the list of available templates, so that all projects in your group have the same list. To do this, you populate a subgroup with the projects you want to use as templates.

You can also configure custom templates for the instance.

Set up project templates for a group

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role for the group.

To set up custom project templates in a group, add the subgroup that contains the project templates to the group settings:

1. In the group, create a subgroup.
2. Add projects to the new subgroup as your templates.
3. In the left menu for the group, select Settings > General.
4. Expand Custom project templates and select the subgroup.

The next time a group member creates a project, they can select any of the projects in the subgroup.

Projects in nested subgroups are not included in the template list.

Which projects are available as templates

• Public and internal projects can be selected by any authenticated user as a template for a new project, if all project features except for GitLab Pages and Security and compliance are set to Everyone With Access.
• Private projects can be selected only by users who are members of the projects.

A known issue exists: Inherited members can’t select project templates, unless the project_templates_without_min_access feature flag is enabled. This feature flag is disabled on GitLab.com, and so users must be granted direct membership of the template project.

Example structure

Here’s a sample group and project structure for project templates, for myorganization:

# GitLab instance and group
gitlab.com/myorganization/
    # Subgroups
    internal
    tools
    # Subgroup for handling project templates
    websites
        templates
            # Project templates
            client-site-django
            client-site-gatsby
            client-site-html

        # Other projects
        client-site-a
        client-site-b
        client-site-c
        ...

What is copied from the templates

The entire custom project templates repository configured for your instance is copied, including:

• Branches
• Commits
• Tags

If the user:

• Has the Owner role on the project that contains the custom templates for the instance, or is a GitLab administrator: all project settings, including project members, are copied over to the new project.
• Doesn’t have the Owner role, or is not a GitLab administrator: project deploy keys and project webhooks aren’t copied over because they contain sensitive data.

To learn more about what is migrated, see Items that are exported.

User assignments in templates

When you use a template created by another user, any items that were assigned to a user in the template are reassigned to you. It’s important to understand this reassignment when you configure security features like protected branches and tags. For example, if the template contains a protected branch:

• In the template, the branch allows the template owner to merge into the default branch.
• In the project created from the template, the branch allows you to merge into the default branch.

Troubleshooting

Administrator cannot see custom project templates for the group when creating a project

Custom project templates for a group are available only to group members. If the administrator account you are using is not a member of a group, you can’t access the templates.