Members of a project

Members are the users and groups who have access to your project.

Each member gets a role, which determines what they can do in the project.

Project members can:

  1. Be direct members of the project.
  2. Inherit membership of the project from the project’s group.
  3. Be a member of a group that was shared with the project.
  4. Be a member of a group that was shared with the project’s group.
flowchart RL subgraph Group A A(Direct member) B{{Shared member}} subgraph Project A H(1. Direct member) C{{2. Inherited member}} D{{4. Inherited member}} E{{3. Shared member}} end A-->|Direct membership of Group A\nInherited membership of Project A|C end subgraph Group C G(Direct member) end subgraph Group B F(Direct member) end F-->|Group B\nshared with\nGroup A|B B-->|Inherited membership of Project A|D G-->|Group C shared with Project A|E

Add users to a project

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Add users to a project so they become members and have permission to perform actions.

Prerequisite:

  • You must have the Owner or Maintainer role.

To add a user to a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Members.
  3. Select Invite members.
  4. Enter an email address and select a role.

  5. Optional. Select an Access expiration date. From that date onward, the user can no longer access the project.

    caution
    If you give a member the Maintainer role and select an expiration date, that member has full permissions for the time they are in the role. This includes the ability to extend their own time in the Maintainer role.
  6. Select Invite.

If the user has a GitLab account, they are added to the members list. If you used an email address, the user receives an email.

If the invitation is not accepted, GitLab sends reminder emails two, five, and ten days later. Unaccepted invites are automatically deleted after 90 days.

If the user does not have a GitLab account, they are prompted to create an account using the email address the invitation was sent to.

Which roles you can assign

The maximum role you can assign depends on whether you have the Owner or Maintainer role for the group. For example, the maximum role you can set is:

  • Owner (50), if you have the Owner role for the project.
  • Maintainer (40), if you have the Maintainer role on the project.

In GitLab 14.8 and earlier, direct members of a project have a maximum role of Maintainer. The Owner role can be added for the group only.

Add groups to a project

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When you add a group to a project, each user in the group gets access to the project. Each user’s access is based on:

  • The role they’re assigned in the group.
  • The maximum role you choose when you invite the group.

If a user has a group role with fewer permissions than the maximum project role, the user keeps the permissions of their group role. For example, if you add a user with the Guest role to a project with a maximum role of Maintainer, the user has only the permissions of the Guest role.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have the Maintainer or Owner role.
  • Sharing the project with other groups must not be prevented.

To add a group to a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Members.
  3. Select Invite a group.
  4. Select a group.
  5. Select the highest role for users in the group.
  6. Optional. Select an Access expiration date. From that date onward, the group can no longer access the project.
  7. Select Invite.

The members of the group are not displayed on the Members tab. The Members tab shows:

  • Members who are directly assigned to the project.
  • If the project was created in a group namespace, members of that group.

Import users from another project

You can import another project’s users to your own project. Users retain the same permissions as the project you import them from.

Prerequisite:

  • You must have the Maintainer or Owner role.

To import users:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Members.
  3. Select Import from a project.
  4. Select the project. You can view only the projects for which you’re a maintainer.
  5. Select Import project members.

After the success message displays, refresh the page to view the new members.

Inherited membership

When your project belongs to a group, group members inherit their role from the group.

Project members page

In this example:

  • Three members have access to the project.
  • User 0 is a Reporter and has inherited their role from the demo group, which contains the project.
  • User 1 belongs directly to the project. In the Source column, they are listed as a Direct member.
  • Administrator is the Owner and member of all groups. They have inherited their role from the demo group.

If a user is a:

  • Direct member of a project, the Expiration and Max role fields can be updated directly on the project.
  • Inherited member from a parent group, the Expiration and Max role fields must be updated on the parent group.

Remove a member from a project

If a user is a direct member of a project, you can remove them. If membership is inherited from a parent group, then the member can be removed only from the parent group itself.

Prerequisites:

  • To remove direct members with the:
    • Maintainer, Developer, Reporter, or Guest role, you must have the Maintainer role.
    • Owner role, you must have the Owner role.
  • Optional. Unassign the member from all issues and merge requests that are assigned to them.

To remove a member from a project:

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Members.
  3. Next to the project member you want to remove, select Remove member.
  4. Optional. In the confirmation box, select the Also unassign this user from related issues and merge requests checkbox.
  5. To prevent leaks of sensitive information from private projects, verify the user has not forked the private repository or created webhooks. Existing forks continue to receive changes from the upstream project, and webhooks continue to receive updates. You may also want to configure your project to prevent projects in a group from being forked outside their group.
  6. Select Remove member.

Ensure removed users cannot invite themselves back

Malicious users with the Maintainer or Owner role could exploit a race condition that allows them to invite themselves back to a group or project that a GitLab administrator has removed them from.

To avoid this problem, GitLab administrators can:

  • Remove the malicious user session from the GitLab Rails console.
  • Impersonate the malicious user to:
    • Remove the user from the project.
    • Log the user out of GitLab.
  • Block the malicious user account.
  • Remove the malicious user account.
  • Change the password for the malicious user account.

Filter and sort members

Version history

You can filter and sort members in a project.

Display inherited members

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Members.
  3. In the Filter members box, select Membership = Inherited.
  4. Press Enter.

Project members filter inherited

Display direct members

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Project information > Members.
  3. In the Filter members box, select Membership = Direct.
  4. Press Enter.

Project members filter direct

You can search for members by name, username, or email.

Project members search

Sort

You can sort members by Account, Access granted, Max role, or Last sign-in in ascending or descending order.

Project members sort

Request access to a project

GitLab users can request to become a member of a project.

  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find the project you want to be a member of.
  2. By the project name, select Request Access.

Request access button

An email is sent to the most recently active project maintainers or owners. Up to ten project maintainers or owners are notified. Any project owner or maintainer can approve or decline the request. Project maintainers cannot approve Owner role access requests.

If a project does not have any direct owners or maintainers, the notification is sent to the most recently active owners of the project’s group.

If you change your mind before your request is approved, select Withdraw Access Request.

Prevent users from requesting access to a project

You can prevent users from requesting access to a project.

Prerequisite:

  • You must be the project owner.
  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
  4. Under Project visibility, select Users can request access.
  5. Select Save changes.

Share a project with a group

Instead of adding users one by one, you can share a project with an entire group.