Removals by version

In each release, GitLab removes features that were deprecated in an earlier release. Some features cause breaking changes when they are removed.

To be notified of upcoming breaking changes, add this URL to your RSS feed reader: https://about.gitlab.com/breaking-changes.xml

Removed in 16.0

Auto DevOps no longer provisions a database by default

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Currently, Auto DevOps provisions an in-cluster PostgreSQL database by default. In GitLab 16.0, databases will be provisioned only for users who opt in. This change supports production deployments that require more robust database management.

If you want Auto DevOps to provision an in-cluster database, set the POSTGRES_ENABLED CI/CD variable to true.

Azure Storage Driver defaults to the correct root prefix

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Azure Storage Driver used to write to // as the default root directory. This default root directory appeared in some places in the Azure UI as /<no-name>/. We maintained this legacy behavior to support older deployments using this storage driver. However, when moving to Azure from another storage driver, this behavior hides all your data until you configure the storage driver with trimlegacyrootprefix: true to build root paths without an extra leading slash.

In GitLab 16.0, the new default configuration for the storage driver uses trimlegacyrootprefix: true, and / is the default root directory. You can set your configuration to trimlegacyrootprefix: false if needed, to revert to the previous behavior.

Bundled Grafana Helm Chart

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Grafana Helm chart that was bundled with the GitLab Helm Chart is removed in the GitLab Helm Chart 7.0 release (releasing along with GitLab 16.0).

The global.grafana.enabled setting for the GitLab Helm Chart has also been removed alongside the Grafana Helm chart.

If you’re using the bundled Grafana, you should switch to the newer chart version from Grafana Labs or a Grafana Operator from a trusted provider.

In your new Grafana instance, you can configure the GitLab provided Prometheus as a data source and connect Grafana to the GitLab UI.

CAS OmniAuth provider is removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The omniauth-cas3 gem that provides GitLab with the CAS OmniAuth provider is being removed. You can no longer authenticate into a GitLab instance through CAS. This gem sees very little use. The gem has not had a new release in almost 5 years, which means that its dependencies are out of date and required manual patching during GitLab’s upgrade to OmniAuth 2.0.

CiCdSettingsUpdate mutation renamed to ProjectCiCdSettingsUpdate

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The CiCdSettingsUpdate mutation was renamed to ProjectCiCdSettingsUpdate in GitLab 15.0. The CiCdSettingsUpdate mutation will be removed in GitLab 16.0. Any user scripts that use the CiCdSettingsUpdate mutation must be updated to use ProjectCiCdSettingsUpdate instead.

Conan project-level search returns only project-specific results”

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The GitLab Conan repository supports the conan search command, but when searching a project-level endpoint, instance-level Conan packages could have been returned. This unintended functionality is removed in GitLab 16.0. The search endpoint for the project level now only returns packages from the target project.

Configuring Redis config file paths using environment variables is no longer supported

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

You can no longer specify Redis configuration file locations using the environment variables like GITLAB_REDIS_CACHE_CONFIG_FILE or GITLAB_REDIS_QUEUES_CONFIG_FILE. Use the default configuration file locations instead, for example config/redis.cache.yml or config/redis.queues.yml.

Container Registry pull-through cache is removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Container Registry pull-through cache was deprecated in GitLab 15.8 and removed in GitLab 16.0. This feature is part of the upstream Docker Distribution project but we are removing that code in favor of the GitLab Dependency Proxy. Use the GitLab Dependency Proxy to proxy and cache container images from Docker Hub.

Container Scanning variables that reference Docker removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

All Container Scanning variables with a name prefixed by DOCKER_ have been removed. This includes:

  • DOCKER_IMAGE
  • DOCKER_PASSWORD
  • DOCKER_USER
  • DOCKERFILE_PATH

Instead, use the new variable names:

  • CS_IMAGE
  • CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD
  • CS_REGISTRY_USER
  • CS_DOCKERFILE_PATH

Dependency Scanning ends support for Java 13, 14, 15, and 16

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Dependency Scanning no longer supports projects that use Java versions 13, 14, 15, and 16.

Developer role providing the ability to import projects to a group

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The ability for users with the Developer role for a group to import projects to that group was deprecated in GitLab 15.8 and is removed in GitLab 16.0.

From GitLab 16.0, only users with at least the Maintainer role for a group can import projects to that group.

Embedding Grafana panels in Markdown is removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The ability to add Grafana panels in GitLab Flavored Markdown is removed. We intend to replace this feature with the ability to embed charts with the GitLab Observability UI.

Enforced validation of CI/CD parameter character lengths

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Previously, only CI/CD job names had a strict 255-character limit. Now, more CI/CD keywords are validated to ensure they stay under the limit.

The following to 255 characters are now strictly limited to 255 characters:

  • The stage keyword.
  • The ref parameter, which is the Git branch or tag name for the pipeline.
  • The description and target_url parameters, used by external CI/CD integrations.

Users on self-managed instances should update their pipelines to ensure they do not use parameters that exceed 255 characters. Users on GitLab.com do not need to make any changes, as these parameters are already limited in that database.

GitLab administrators must have permission to modify protected branches or tags

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab administrators can no longer perform actions on protected branches or tags unless they have been explicitly granted that permission. These actions include pushing and merging into a protected branch, unprotecting a branch, and creating protected tags.

GitLab.com importer

The GitLab.com importer was deprecated in GitLab 15.8 and is removed in GitLab 16.0.

The GitLab.com importer was introduced in 2015 for importing a project from GitLab.com to a self-managed GitLab instance through the UI.

This feature was available on self-managed instances only. Migrating GitLab groups and projects by direct transfer supersedes the GitLab.com importer and provides a more cohesive importing functionality.

See migrated group items and migrated project items for an overview.

GraphQL API: Runner status no longer returns PAUSED and ACTIVE values

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 16.0 and later, the GraphQL query for runners will no longer return the statuses PAUSED and ACTIVE.

  • PAUSED has been replaced with the field, paused: true.
  • ACTIVE has been replaced with the field, paused: false.

Jira DVCS connector for Jira Cloud and Jira 8.13 and earlier

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Jira DVCS connector for Jira Cloud was deprecated in GitLab 15.1 and has been removed in 16.0. Use the GitLab for Jira Cloud app instead. The Jira DVCS connector was also deprecated for Jira 8.13 and earlier. You can only use the Jira DVCS connector with Jira Data Center or Jira Server in Jira 8.14 and later. Upgrade your Jira instance to Jira 8.14 or later, and reconfigure the Jira integration in your GitLab instance. If you cannot upgrade your Jira instance in time and are on GitLab self-managed version, we offer a workaround until GitLab 16.6. This breaking change is deployed in GitLab 16.0 behind a feature flag named jira_dvcs_end_of_life_amnesty. The flag is disabled by default, but you can ask an administrator to enable the flag at any time. For questions related to this announcement, see the feedback issue.

Legacy Gitaly configuration method

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Previously, Gitaly configuration keys for Omnibus GitLab were scattered throughout the configuration file. In GitLab 15.10, we added support for a single configuration structure that matches Gitaly internal configuration. Both methods of configuring Gitaly were supported in parallel.

In GitLab 16.0, we removed support for the former configuration method and now only support the new configuration method.

Before upgrading to GitLab 16.0, administrators must migrate to the new single configuration structure. For instructions, see Gitaly - Omnibus GitLab configuration structure change.

Legacy Gitaly configuration methods with variables

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The environment variables GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL were deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and are removed in GitLab 16.0. These variables are replaced with standard config.toml Gitaly configuration.

GitLab instances that use GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL to configure Gitaly must switch to configuring using config.toml.

Legacy Praefect configuration method

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Previously, Praefect configuration keys for Omnibus GitLab were scattered throughout the configuration file. In GitLab 15.9, we added support for a single configuration structure that matches Praefect internal configuration. Both methods of configuring Praefect were supported in parallel.

In GitLab 16.0, we removed support for the former configuration method and now only support the new configuration method.

Before upgrading to GitLab 16.0, administrators must migrate to the new single configuration structure. For instructions, see Praefect - Omnibus GitLab configuration structure change.

License-Check and the Policies tab on the License Compliance page

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The License Check Policies feature has been removed. Additionally, the Policies tab on the License Compliance page and all APIs related to the License Check feature have been removed. To enforce approvals based on detected licenses, use the License Approval policy feature instead.

Limit CI_JOB_TOKEN scope is disabled

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.4 we introduced the ability to limit your project’s CI/CD job token (CI_JOB_TOKEN) access to make it more secure. You could use the Limit CI_JOB_TOKEN access setting to prevent job tokens from your project’s pipelines from being used to access other projects. When enabled with no other configuration, your pipelines could not access any other projects. To use job tokens to access other projects from your project’s pipelines, you needed to list those other projects explicitly in the setting’s allowlist, and you needed to be a maintainer in all the projects. You might have seen this mentioned as the “outbound scope” of the job token.

The job token functionality was updated in 15.9 with a better security setting. Instead of securing your own project’s job tokens from accessing other projects, the new workflow is to secure your own project from being accessed by other projects’ job tokens without authorization. You can see this as an “inbound scope” for job tokens. When this new Allow access to this project with a CI_JOB_TOKEN setting is enabled with no other configuration, job tokens from other projects cannot access your project. If you want a project to have access to your own project, you must list it in the new setting’s allowlist. You must be a maintainer in your own project to control the new allowlist, but you only need to have the Guest role in the other projects. This new setting is enabled by default for all new projects.

In GitLab 16.0, the old Limit CI_JOB_TOKEN access setting is disabled by default for all new projects. In existing projects with this setting currently enabled, it will continue to function as expected, but you are unable to add any more projects to the old allowlist. If the setting is disabled in any project, it is not possible to re-enable this setting in 16.0 or later. To control access between your projects, use the new Allow access setting instead.

In 17.0, we plan to remove the Limit setting completely, and set the Allow access setting to enabled for all projects. This change ensures a higher level of security between projects. If you currently use the Limit setting, you should update your projects to use the Allow access setting instead. If other projects access your project with a job token, you must add them to the Allow access setting’s allowlist.

To prepare for this change, users on GitLab.com or self-managed GitLab 15.9 or later can enable the Allow access setting now and add the other projects. It will not be possible to disable the setting in 17.0 or later.

Managed Licenses API

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Managed Licenses API has been removed. To enforce approvals in merge requests when non-compliant licenses are detected, use the License Approval policy feature instead.

Our GraphQL APIs can be used to create a Security Policy Project, update the policy.yml in the Security Policy Project, and enforce those policies.

To query a list of dependencies and components, use our Dependencies REST API or export from the Dependency List.

Maximum number of active pipelines per project limit (ci_active_pipelines)

The Maximum number of active pipelines per project limit has been removed. Instead, use the other recommended rate limits that offer similar protection:

Monitoring performance metrics through Prometheus is removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

We previously launched a solution that allows you to view performance metrics by displaying data stored in a Prometheus instance. The Prometheus instance can be set up as a GitLab-managed app or you can connect a previously configured Prometheus instance. The latter is known as an “external Prometheus” in GitLab. The value we provided was to enable you to easily set up monitoring (using GitLab Managed Apps) and have the visualization of the metrics all in the same tool you used to build the application.

However, as we are removing certificate-based integrations, the full monitoring experience is also deprecated as you will not have the option to easily set up Prometheus from GitLab. Furthermore, we plan to consolidate on a focused observability dashboard experience instead of having multiple paths to view metrics. Because of this, we are also removing the external Prometheus experience, together with the metrics visualization capability.

This removal only refers to the GitLab Metrics capabilities, and does not include:

Non-expiring access tokens no longer supported

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Currently, you can create access tokens that have no expiration date. These access tokens are valid indefinitely, which presents a security risk if the access token is divulged. Because expiring access tokens are better, from GitLab 15.4 we populate a default expiration date.

In GitLab 16.0, any personal, project, or group access token that does not have an expiration date will automatically have an expiration date set at 365 days later than the current date.

Non-standard default Redis ports are no longer supported

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

If GitLab starts without any Redis configuration file present, GitLab assumes it can connect to three Redis servers at localhost:6380, localhost:6381 and localhost:6382. We are changing this behavior so GitLab assumes there is one Redis server at localhost:6379.

If you want to keep using the three servers, you must configure the Redis URLs by editing the config/redis.cache.yml,config/redis.queues.yml, and config/redis.shared_state.yml files.

PipelineSecurityReportFinding name GraphQL field

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Previously, the PipelineSecurityReportFinding GraphQL type was updated to include a new title field. This field is an alias for the current name field, making the less specific name field redundant. The name field is removed from the PipelineSecurityReportFinding type in GitLab 16.0.

PostgreSQL 12 compatibility

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 16.0, PostgreSQL 13 is the minimum supported PostgreSQL version. PostgreSQL 12 is no longer shipped with the GitLab Omnibus package. Before upgrading to GitLab 16.0, if you are:

Praefect custom metrics endpoint configuration

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Support for using the prometheus_exclude_database_from_default_metrics configuration value was deprecated in GitLab 15.9 and is removed in GitLab 16.0. We made this change to improve the performance of Praefect. All metrics that scrape the Praefect database are now exported to the /db_metrics endpoint.

You must update your metrics collection targets to use the /db_metrics endpoint.

Project REST API field operations_access_level removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In project REST API endpoints, the operations_access_level field is removed in favor of more specialized fields like:

  • releases_access_level
  • environments_access_level
  • feature_flags_access_level
  • infrastructure_access_level
  • monitor_access_level

Rake task for importing bare repositories

The Rake task for importing bare repositories gitlab:import:repos was deprecated in GitLab 15.8 and is removed in GitLab 16.0.

This Rake task imported a directory tree of repositories into a GitLab instance. These repositories must have been managed by GitLab previously, because the Rake task relied on the specific directory structure or a specific custom Git setting in order to work (gitlab.fullpath).

Importing repositories using this Rake task had limitations. The Rake task:

  • Only knew about project and project wiki repositories and didn’t support repositories for designs, group wikis, or snippets.
  • Permitted you to import non-hashed storage projects even though these aren’t supported.
  • Relied on having Git config gitlab.fullpath set. Epic 8953 proposes removing support for this setting.

Alternatives to using the gitlab:import:repos Rake task include:

Redis 5 compatibility

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 13.9, we updated the Omnibus GitLab package and GitLab Helm chart 4.9 to Redis 6. Redis 5 reached end of life in April 2022 and is not supported.

GitLab 16.0, we have removed support for Redis 5. If you are using your own Redis 5.0 instance, you must upgrade it to Redis 6.0 or later before upgrading to GitLab 16.0 or later.

Removal of job_age parameter in POST /jobs/request Runner endpoint

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The job_age parameter, returned from the POST /jobs/request API endpoint used in communication with GitLab Runner, has been removed in GitLab 16.0.

This could be a breaking change for anyone that developed their own runner that relies on this parameter being returned by the endpoint. This is not a breaking change for anyone using an officially released version of GitLab Runner, including public shared runners on GitLab.com.

Remove legacy configuration fields in GitLab Runner Helm Chart

In GitLab 13.6 and later, users can specify any runner configuration in the GitLab Runner Helm chart. When this features was released, we deprecated the fields in the GitLab Helm Chart configuration specific to the runner. As of v1.0 of the GitLab Runner Helm chart (GitLab 16.0), the following fields have been removed and are no longer supported:

  • image
  • rbac.resources
  • rbac.verbs
  • runners.image
  • runners.imagePullSecrets
  • runners.imagePullPolicy
  • runners.requestConcurrency
  • runners.privileged
  • runners.namespace
  • runners.pollTimeout
  • runners.outputLimit
  • runners.cache.cacheType
  • runners.cache.cachePath
  • runners.cache.cacheShared
  • runners.cache.s3ServerAddress
  • runners.cache.s3BucketLocation
  • runners.cache.s3CacheInsecure
  • runners.cache.gcsBucketName
  • runners.builds
  • runners.services
  • runners.helpers
  • runners.pod_security_context
  • runners.serviceAccountName
  • runners.cloneUrl
  • runners.nodeSelector
  • runners.nodeTolerations
  • runners.podLabels
  • runners.podAnnotations
  • runners.env

Remove the deprecated environment_tier parameter from the DORA API

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The environment_tier parameter has been superseded by the environment_tiers parameter.

If you use the environment_tier parameter in your integration (REST or GraphQL) then you need to replace it with the environment_tiers parameter which accepts an array of strings.

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

From GitLab 15.9, all Release links are external. The external field of the ReleaseAssetLink type was deprecated in 15.9, and removed in GitLab 16.0.

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

From GitLab 15.9, all Release links are external. The external field in the Releases and Release link APIs was deprecated in 15.9, and removed in GitLab 16.0.

Security report schemas version 14.x.x

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Version 14.x.x security report schemas have been removed. Security reports that use schema version 14.x.x will cause an error in the pipeline’s Security tab. For more information, refer to security report validation.

Self-monitoring project is removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab self-monitoring project was meant to enable self-hosted GitLab administrators to visualize performance metrics of GitLab within GitLab itself. This feature relied on GitLab Metrics dashboards. With metrics dashboard being removed, self-monitoring project is also removed. We recommended that self-hosted users monitor their GitLab instance with alternative visualization tools, such as Grafana.

Starboard directive in the config for the GitLab agent for Kubernetes removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The GitLab operational container scanning feature no longer requires you to install Starboard. The starboard: directive in configuration files for the GitLab agent for Kubernetes has been removed. Use the container_scanning: directive instead.

Stop publishing GitLab Runner images based on Windows Server 2004 and 20H2

As of GitLab 16.0, GitLab Runner images based on Windows Server 2004 and 20H2 will not be provided as these operating systems are end-of-life.

The Phabricator task importer

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Phabricator task importer was deprecated in GitLab 15.7 and is removed in 16.0.

The Phabricator project hasn’t been actively maintained since June 1, 2021. We haven’t observed imports using this tool. There has been no activity on the open related issues on GitLab.

The Security Code Scan-based GitLab SAST analyzer is now removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab SAST uses various analyzers to scan code for vulnerabilities. We’ve reduced the number of supported analyzers used by default in GitLab SAST. This is part of our long-term strategy to deliver a faster, more consistent user experience across different programming languages.

As of GitLab 16.0, the SAST CI/CD template no longer uses the Security Code Scan-based analyzer for .NET. We’ve removed this analyzer from the SAST CI/CD template and replaced it with GitLab-supported detection rules for C# in the Semgrep-based analyzer.

Because this analyzer has reached End of Support in GitLab 16.0, we won’t provide further updates to it. However, we won’t delete any container images we previously published for this analyzer or remove the ability to run it by using a custom CI/CD pipeline job.

If you’ve already dismissed a vulnerability finding from the deprecated analyzer, the replacement attempts to respect your previous dismissal. See Vulnerability translation documentation for further details.

If you customize the behavior of GitLab SAST by disabling the Semgrep-based analyzer or depending on specific SAST jobs in your pipelines, you must take action as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

The stable Terraform CI/CD template has been replaced with the latest template

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

With every major GitLab version, we update the stable Terraform templates with the current latest templates. This change affects the quickstart and the base templates.

The new templates do not change the directory to $TF_ROOT explicitly: gitlab-terraform gracefully handles directory changing. If you altered the job scripts to assume that the current working directory is $TF_ROOT, you must manually add cd "$TF_ROOT" now.

Because the latest template introduces Merge Request Pipeline support which is not supported in Auto DevOps, those rules are not yet integrated into the stable template. However, we may introduce them later on, which may break your Terraform pipelines in regards to which jobs are executed.

To accommodate the changes, you might need to adjust the rules in your .gitlab-ci.yml file.

Two DAST API variables have been removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The variables DAST_API_HOST_OVERRIDE and DAST_API_SPECIFICATION have been removed from use for DAST API scans.

DAST_API_HOST_OVERRIDE has been removed in favor of using the DAST_API_TARGET_URL to automatically override the host in the OpenAPI specification.

DAST_API_SPECIFICATION has been removed in favor of DAST_API_OPENAPI. To continue using an OpenAPI specification to guide the test, users must replace the DAST_API_SPECIFICATION variable with the DAST_API_OPENAPI variable. The value can remain the same, but the variable name must be replaced.

Use of id field in vulnerabilityFindingDismiss mutation

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

You can use the vulnerabilityFindingDismiss GraphQL mutation to set the status of a vulnerability finding to Dismissed. Previously, this mutation used the id field to identify findings uniquely. However, this did not work for dismissing findings from the pipeline security tab. Therefore, using the id field as an identifier has been dropped in favor of the uuid field. Using the ‘uuid’ field as an identifier allows you to dismiss the finding from the pipeline security tab.

Vulnerability confidence field

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 15.3, security report schemas below version 15 were deprecated. The confidence attribute on vulnerability findings exists only in schema versions before 15-0-0 and in GitLab prior to 15.4. To maintain consistency between the reports and our public APIs, the confidence attribute on any vulnerability-related components of our GraphQL API is now removed.

CI_BUILD_* predefined variables removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The predefined CI/CD variables that start with CI_BUILD_* were deprecated in GitLab 9.0, and removed in GitLab 16.0. If you still use these variables, you must change to the replacement predefined variables which are functionally identical:

Removed variableReplacement variable
CI_BUILD_BEFORE_SHACI_COMMIT_BEFORE_SHA
CI_BUILD_IDCI_JOB_ID
CI_BUILD_MANUALCI_JOB_MANUAL
CI_BUILD_NAMECI_JOB_NAME
CI_BUILD_REFCI_COMMIT_SHA
CI_BUILD_REF_NAMECI_COMMIT_REF_NAME
CI_BUILD_REF_SLUGCI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG
CI_BUILD_REPOCI_REPOSITORY_URL
CI_BUILD_STAGECI_JOB_STAGE
CI_BUILD_TAGCI_COMMIT_TAG
CI_BUILD_TOKENCI_JOB_TOKEN
CI_BUILD_TRIGGEREDCI_PIPELINE_TRIGGERED

POST ci/lint API endpoint removed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The POST ci/lint API endpoint was deprecated in 15.7, and removed in 16.0. This endpoint did not validate the full range of CI/CD configuration options. Instead, use POST /projects/:id/ci/lint, which properly validates CI/CD configuration.

vulnerabilityFindingDismiss GraphQL mutation

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The VulnerabilityFindingDismiss GraphQL mutation has been removed. This mutation was not used often as the Vulnerability Finding ID was not available to users (this field was deprecated in 15.3). Instead of VulnerabilityFindingDismiss, you should use VulnerabilityDismiss to dismiss vulnerabilities in the Vulnerability Report or SecurityFindingDismiss for security findings in the CI Pipeline Security tab.

Removed in 15.11

Exporting and importing projects in JSON format not supported

GitLab previously created project file exports in JSON format. In GitLab 12.10, NDJSON was added as the preferred format.

To support transitions, importing JSON-formatted project file exports was still possible if you configured the relevant feature flags.

From GitLab 15.11, importing a JSON-formatted project file exports is not supported.

openSUSE Leap 15.3 packages

Distribution support and security updates for openSUSE Leap 15.3 ended December 2022.

Starting in GitLab 15.7 we started providing packages for openSUSE Leap 15.4, and in GitLab 15.11 we stopped providing packages for openSUSE Leap 15.3.

To continue using GitLab, upgrade to openSUSE Leap 15.4.

Removed in 15.9

Live Preview no longer available in the Web IDE

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Live Preview feature of the Web IDE was intended to provide a client-side preview of static web applications. However, complex configuration steps and a narrow set of supported project types have limited its utility. With the introduction of the Web IDE Beta in GitLab 15.7, you can now connect to a full server-side runtime environment. With upcoming support for installing extensions in the Web IDE, we’ll also support more advanced workflows than those available with Live Preview. As of GitLab 15.9, Live Preview is no longer available in the Web IDE.

omniauth-authentiq gem no longer available

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

omniauth-authentiq is an OmniAuth strategy gem that was part of GitLab. The company providing authentication services, Authentiq, has shut down. Therefore the gem is being removed.

omniauth-shibboleth gem no longer available

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

omniauth-shibboleth is an OmniAuth strategy gem that was part of GitLab. The gem has not received security updates and does not meet GitLab quality guidance criteria. This gem was originally scheduled for removal by 14.1, but it was not removed at that time. The gem is being removed now.

Removed in 15.8

CiliumNetworkPolicy within the auto deploy Helm chart is removed

All functionality related to the GitLab Container Network Security and Container Host Security categories was deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. The CiliumNetworkPolicy definition that exists as part of the GitLab Auto Deploy Helm chart was not removed as scheduled in GitLab 15.0. This policy is planned to be removed in the GitLab 15.8 release.

If you want to preserve this functionality, you can follow one of these two paths:

  1. Fork the GitLab Auto Deploy Helm chart into the chart/ path within your project
  2. Set AUTO_DEPLOY_IMAGE_VERSION and DAST_AUTO_DEPLOY_IMAGE_VERSION to the most recent version of the image that included the CiliumNetworkPolicy

Exporting and importing groups in JSON format not supported

GitLab previously created group file exports in JSON format. In GitLab 13.10, NDJSON was added as the preferred format.

To support transitions, importing JSON-formatted group file exports was still possible if you configured the relevant feature flags.

From GitLab 15.8, importing a JSON-formatted group file exports is not supported.

artifacts:public CI/CD keyword refactored

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The artifacts:public CI/CD keyword was discovered to be not working properly since GitLab 15.8 and needed to be refactored. This feature is disabled on GitLab.com, and disabled by default on self-managed instances. If an administrator for an instance running GitLab 15.8 or 15.9 enabled this feature via the non_public_artifacts feature flag, it is likely that artifacts created with the public:false setting are being treated as public:true.

If you have projects that use this setting, you should delete artifacts that must not be public, or change the visibility of affected projects to private, before updating to GitLab 15.8 or later.

In GitLab 15.10, this feature’s code was refactored. On instances with this feature enabled, new artifacts created with public:false are now working as expected, though still disabled by default. Avoid testing this feature with production data until it is enabled by default and made generally available.

Removed in 15.7

File Type variable expansion in .gitlab-ci.yml

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Prior to this change, variables that referenced or applied alias file variables expanded the value of the File type variable. For example, the file contents. This behavior was incorrect because it did not comply with typical shell variable expansion rules. A user could run an $echo command with the variable as an input parameter to leak secrets or sensitive information stored in ‘File’ type variables.

In 15.7, we are removing file type variable expansion from GitLab. It is essential to check your CI pipelines to confirm if your scripts reference a file variable. If your CI job relies on the previous expansion functionality, that CI job will not work and generate an error as of 15.7. The new behavior is that variable expansion that reference or apply alias file variables expand to the file name or path of the File type variable, instead of its value, such as the file contents.

Flowdock integration

As of December 22, 2022, we are removing the Flowdock integration because the service was shut down on August 15, 2022.

Removed in 15.6

NFS as Git repository storage is no longer supported

As of November 22, 2022, we have removed support for customers using NFS for Git repository storage. This was originally planned for May 22, 2022, but in an effort to allow continued maturity of Gitaly Cluster, we delayed our removal of support date until now. Please see our official Statement of Support for further information.

This change in support follows the development deprecation for NFS for Git repository storage that occurred in GitLab 14.0.

Gitaly Cluster offers tremendous benefits for our customers such as:

We encourage customers currently using NFS for Git repositories to migrate as soon as possible by reviewing our documentation on migrating to Gitaly Cluster.

Removed in 15.4

SAST analyzer consolidation and CI/CD template changes

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

We have replaced the GitLab SAST analyzers for certain languages in GitLab 15.4 as part of our long-term strategy to deliver a more consistent user experience, faster scan times, and reduced CI minute usage.

Starting from GitLab 15.4, the GitLab-managed SAST CI/CD template uses Semgrep-based scanning instead of the following analyzers:

We will no longer make any updates to the ESLint-, Gosec-, and Bandit-based analyzers. The SpotBugs-based analyzer will continue to be used for Groovy, Kotlin, and Scala scanning.

We won’t delete container images previously published for these analyzers, so older versions of the CI/CD template will continue to work.

If you changed the default GitLab SAST configuration, you may need to update your configuration as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

Removed in 15.3

Support for Debian 9

Long term service and support (LTSS) for Debian 9 Stretch ended in July 2022. Therefore, we will no longer support the Debian 9 distribution for the GitLab package. Users can upgrade to Debian 10 or Debian 11.

Vulnerability Report sort by State

The ability to sort the Vulnerability Report by the State column was disabled and put behind a feature flag in GitLab 14.10 due to a refactor of the underlying data model. The feature flag has remained off by default as further refactoring will be required to ensure sorting by this value remains performant. Due to very low usage of the State column for sorting, the feature flag is instead removed in 15.3 to simplify the codebase and prevent any unwanted performance degradation.

Vulnerability Report sort by Tool

The ability to sort the Vulnerability Report by the Tool column (scan type) was disabled and put behind a feature flag in GitLab 14.10 due to a refactor of the underlying data model. The feature flag has remained off by default as further refactoring will be required to ensure sorting by this value remains performant. Due to very low usage of the Tool column for sorting, the feature flag is instead removed in GitLab 15.3 to simplify the codebase and prevent any unwanted performance degradation.

Removed in 15.2

Support for older browsers

In GitLab 15.2, we are cleaning up and removing old code that was specific for browsers that we no longer support. This has no impact on users if they use one of our supported web browsers.

Most notably, support for the following browsers has been removed:

  • Apple Safari 14 and older.
  • Mozilla Firefox 78.

The minimum supported browser versions are:

  • Apple Safari 14.1.
  • Mozilla Firefox 91.
  • Google Chrome 92.
  • Chromium 92.
  • Microsoft Edge 92.

Removed in 15.0

API: stale status returned instead of offline or not_connected

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Runner API endpoints have changed in 15.0.

If a runner has not contacted the GitLab instance in more than three months, the API returns stale instead of offline or not_connected. The stale status was introduced in 14.6.

The not_connected status is no longer valid. It was replaced with never_contacted. Available statuses are online, offline, stale, and never_contacted.

Audit events for repository push events

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Audit events for repository events are removed as of GitLab 15.0.

Audit events for repository events were always disabled by default and had to be manually enabled with a feature flag. Enabling them could slow down GitLab instances by generating too many events. Therefore, they are removed.

Please note that we will add high-volume audit events in the future as part of streaming audit events. An example of this is how we will send Git fetch actions as a streaming audit event. If you would be interested in seeing repository push events or some other action as a streaming audit event, please reach out to us!

Background upload for object storage

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

To reduce the overall complexity and maintenance burden of GitLab’s object storage feature, support for using background_upload has been removed in GitLab 15.0. By default direct upload will be used.

This impacts a subset of object storage providers, including but not limited to:

  • OpenStack Customers using OpenStack need to change their configuration to use the S3 API instead of Swift.
  • RackSpace Customers using RackSpace-based object storage need to migrate data to a different provider.

If your object storage provider does not support background_upload, please migrate objects to a supported object storage provider.

Encrypted S3 buckets

Additionally, this also breaks the use of encrypted S3 buckets with storage-specific configuration form.

If your S3 buckets have SSE-S3 or SSE-KMS encryption enabled, please migrate your configuration to use consolidated object storage form before upgrading to GitLab 15.0. Otherwise, you may start getting ETag mismatch errors during objects upload.

403 errors

If you see 403 errors when uploading to object storage after upgrading to GitLab 15.0, check that the correct permissions are assigned to the bucket. Direct upload needs the ability to delete an object (example: s3:DeleteObject), but background uploads do not.

remote_directory with a path prefix

If the object storage remote_directory configuration contains a slash (/) after the bucket (example: gitlab/uploads), be aware that this was never officially supported. Some users found that they could specify a path prefix to the bucket. In direct upload mode, object storage uploads will fail if a slash is present in GitLab 15.0.

If you have set a prefix, you can use a workaround to revert to background uploads:

  1. Continue to use storage-specific configuration.

  2. In Omnibus GitLab, set the GITLAB_LEGACY_BACKGROUND_UPLOADS to re-enable background uploads:

     gitlab_rails['env'] = { 'GITLAB_LEGACY_BACKGROUND_UPLOADS' => 'artifacts,external_diffs,lfs,uploads,packages,dependency_proxy,terraform_state,pages' }

Support for prefixes was restored in GitLab 15.2 via this MR. Support for setting GITLAB_LEGACY_BACKGROUND_UPLOADS will be removed in GitLab 15.4.

Container Network and Host Security

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

All functionality related to the Container Network Security and Container Host Security categories was deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and is scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. Users who need a replacement for this functionality are encouraged to evaluate the following open source projects as potential solutions that can be installed and managed outside of GitLab: AppArmor, Cilium, Falco, FluentD, Pod Security Admission. To integrate these technologies with GitLab, add the desired Helm charts in your copy of the Cluster Management Project Template. Deploy these Helm charts in production by calling commands through GitLab CI/CD.

As part of this change, the following capabilities within GitLab are scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0:

  • The Security & Compliance > Threat Monitoring page.
  • The Network Policy security policy type, as found on the Security & Compliance > Policies page.
  • The ability to manage integrations with the following technologies through GitLab: AppArmor, Cilium, Falco, FluentD, and Pod Security Policies.
  • All APIs related to the above functionality.

For additional context, or to provide feedback regarding this change, please reference our deprecation issue.

Container registry authentication with htpasswd

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Container Registry supports authentication with htpasswd. It relies on an Apache htpasswd file, with passwords hashed using bcrypt.

Since it isn’t used in the context of GitLab (the product), htpasswd authentication will be deprecated in GitLab 14.9 and removed in GitLab 15.0.

Custom geo:db:* Rake tasks are no longer available

In GitLab 14.8, we deprecated the geo:db:* Rake tasks and replaced them with built-in tasks after switching the Geo tracking database to use Rails’ 6 support of multiple databases. The following geo:db:* tasks have been removed from GitLab 15.0 and have been replaced with their corresponding db:*:geo tasks:

  • geo:db:drop -> db:drop:geo
  • geo:db:create -> db:create:geo
  • geo:db:setup -> db:setup:geo
  • geo:db:migrate -> db:migrate:geo
  • geo:db:rollback -> db:rollback:geo
  • geo:db:version -> db:version:geo
  • geo:db:reset -> db:reset:geo
  • geo:db:seed -> db:seed:geo
  • geo:schema:load:geo -> db:schema:load:geo
  • geo:db:schema:dump -> db:schema:dump:geo
  • geo:db:migrate:up -> db:migrate:up:geo
  • geo:db:migrate:down -> db:migrate:down:geo
  • geo:db:migrate:redo -> db:migrate:redo:geo
  • geo:db:migrate:status -> db:migrate:status:geo
  • geo:db:test:prepare -> db:test:prepare:geo
  • geo:db:test:load -> db:test:load:geo
  • geo:db:test:purge -> db:test:purge:geo

DS_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS environment variable

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

We are removing the DS_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS environment variable from Dependency Scanning on May 22, 2022 in 15.0. After this removal, this variable’s value will be ignored. To configure which analyzers to run with the default configuration, you should use the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS variable instead.

Dependency Scanning default Java version changed to 17

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

For Dependency Scanning, the default version of Java that the scanner expects will be updated from 11 to 17. Java 17 is the most up-to-date Long Term Support (LTS) version. Dependency Scanning continues to support the same range of versions (8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17), only the default version is changing. If your project uses the previous default of Java 11, be sure to set the DS_JAVA_VERSION variable to match. Please note that consequently the default version of Gradle is now 7.3.3.

ELK stack logging

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The logging features in GitLab allow users to install the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) to aggregate and manage application logs. Users could search for relevant logs in GitLab directly. However, since deprecating certificate-based integration with Kubernetes clusters and GitLab Managed Apps, this feature is no longer available. For more information on the future of logging and observability, you can follow the issue for integrating Opstrace with GitLab.

Elasticsearch 6.8.x in GitLab 15.0

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Elasticsearch 6.8 support has been removed in GitLab 15.0. Elasticsearch 6.8 has reached end of life. If you use Elasticsearch 6.8, you must upgrade your Elasticsearch version to 7.x prior to upgrading to GitLab 15.0. You should not upgrade to Elasticsearch 8 until you have completed the GitLab 15.0 upgrade.

View the version requirements for details.

End of support for Python 3.6 in Dependency Scanning

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

For those using Dependency Scanning for Python projects, we are removing support for the default gemnasium-python:2 image which uses Python 3.6, as well as the custom gemnasium-python:2-python-3.9 image which uses Python 3.9. The new default image as of GitLab 15.0 will be for Python 3.9 as it is a supported version and 3.6 is no longer supported.

External status check API breaking changes

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The external status check API was originally implemented to support pass-by-default requests to mark a status check as passing. Pass-by-default requests are now removed. Specifically, the following are removed:

  • Requests that do not contain the status field.
  • Requests that have the status field set to approved.

From GitLab 15.0, status checks are only set to a passing state if the status field is both present and set to passed. Requests that:

  • Do not contain the status field will be rejected with a 400 error. For more information, see the relevant issue.
  • Contain any value other than passed, such as approved, cause the status check to fail. For more information, see the relevant issue.

To align with this change, API calls to list external status checks also return the value of passed rather than approved for status checks that have passed.

GitLab Serverless

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

All functionality related to GitLab Serverless was deprecated in GitLab 14.3 and is scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. Users who need a replacement for this functionality are encouraged to explore using the following technologies with GitLab CI/CD:

For additional context, or to provide feedback regarding this change, please reference our deprecation issue.

Gitaly nodes in virtual storage

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Configuring the Gitaly nodes directly in the virtual storage’s root configuration object has been deprecated in GitLab 13.12 and is no longer supported in GitLab 15.0. You must move the Gitaly nodes under the 'nodes' key as described in the Praefect configuration.

GraphQL permissions change for Package settings

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The GitLab Package stage offers a Package Registry, Container Registry, and Dependency Proxy to help you manage all of your dependencies using GitLab. Each of these product categories has a variety of settings that can be adjusted using the API.

The permissions model for GraphQL is being updated. After 15.0, users with the Guest, Reporter, and Developer role can no longer update these settings:

The issue for this removal is GitLab-#350682

Jaeger integration

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Tracing in GitLab is an integration with Jaeger, an open-source end-to-end distributed tracing system. GitLab users could previously navigate to their Jaeger instance to gain insight into the performance of a deployed application, tracking each function or microservice that handles a given request. Tracing in GitLab was deprecated in GitLab 14.7, and removed in 15.0. To track work on a possible replacement, see the issue for Opstrace integration with GitLab.

Known host required for GitLab Runner SSH executor

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.3, we added a configuration setting in the GitLab Runner config.toml. This setting, [runners.ssh.disable_strict_host_key_checking], controls whether or not to use strict host key checking with the SSH executor.

In GitLab 15.0, the default value for this configuration option has changed from true to false. This means that strict host key checking will be enforced when using the GitLab Runner SSH executor.

Legacy Geo Admin UI routes

In GitLab 13.0, we introduced new project and design replication details routes in the Geo Admin UI. These routes are /admin/geo/replication/projects and /admin/geo/replication/designs. We kept the legacy routes and redirected them to the new routes. These legacy routes /admin/geo/projects and /admin/geo/designs have been removed in GitLab 15.0. Please update any bookmarks or scripts that may use the legacy routes.

Legacy approval status names in License Compliance API

We have now removed the deprecated legacy names for approval status of license policy (blacklisted, approved) in the API queries and responses. If you are using our License Compliance API you should stop using the approved and blacklisted query parameters, they are now allowed and denied. In 15.0 the responses will also stop using approved and blacklisted so you may need to adjust any of your custom tools.

Move Gitaly Cluster Praefect database_host_no_proxy and database_port_no_proxy configs

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Gitaly Cluster configuration keys for praefect['database_host_no_proxy'] and praefect['database_port_no_proxy'] are replaced with praefect['database_direct_host'] and praefect['database_direct_port'].

Move custom_hooks_dir setting from GitLab Shell to Gitaly

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The custom_hooks_dir setting is now configured in Gitaly, and is removed from GitLab Shell in GitLab 15.0.

OAuth implicit grant

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The OAuth implicit grant authorization flow is no longer supported. Any applications that use OAuth implicit grant must switch to alternative supported OAuth flows.

OAuth tokens without an expiration

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab no longer supports OAuth tokens without an expiration.

Any existing token without an expiration has one automatically generated and applied.

Optional enforcement of SSH expiration

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Disabling SSH expiration enforcement is unusual from a security perspective and could create unusual situations where an expired key is unintentionally able to be used. Unexpected behavior in a security feature is inherently dangerous and so now we enforce expiration on all SSH keys.

Optional enforcement of personal access token expiration

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Allowing expired personal access tokens to be used is unusual from a security perspective and could create unusual situations where an expired key is unintentionally able to be used. Unexpected behavior in a security feature is inherently dangerous and so we now do not let expired personal access tokens be used.

Out-of-the-box SAST (SpotBugs) support for Java 8

The GitLab SAST SpotBugs analyzer scans Java, Scala, Groovy, and Kotlin code for security vulnerabilities. For technical reasons, the analyzer must first compile the code before scanning. Unless you use the pre-compilation strategy, the analyzer attempts to automatically compile your project’s code.

In GitLab versions prior to 15.0, the analyzer image included Java 8 and Java 11 runtimes to facilitate compilation.

As of GitLab 15.0, we’ve:

  • Removed Java 8 from the analyzer image to reduce the size of the image.
  • Added Java 17 to the analyzer image to make it easier to compile with Java 17.
  • Changed the default Java version from Java 8 to Java 17.

If you rely on Java 8 being present in the analyzer environment, you must take action as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

Pipelines field from the version field

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GraphQL, there are two pipelines fields that you can use in a PackageDetailsType to get the pipelines for package versions:

  • The versions field’s pipelines field. This returns all the pipelines associated with all the package’s versions, which can pull an unbounded number of objects in memory and create performance concerns.
  • The pipelines field of a specific version. This returns only the pipelines associated with that single package version.

To mitigate possible performance problems, we will remove the versions field’s pipelines field in GitLab 15.0. Although you will no longer be able to get all pipelines for all versions of a package, you can still get the pipelines of a single version through the remaining pipelines field for that version.

Pseudonymizer

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Pseudonymizer feature is generally unused, can cause production issues with large databases, and can interfere with object storage development. It was removed in GitLab 15.0.

Request profiling

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Request profiling has been removed in GitLab 15.0.

We’re working on consolidating our profiling tools and making them more easily accessible. We evaluated the use of this feature and we found that it is not widely used. It also depends on a few third-party gems that are not actively maintained anymore, have not been updated for the latest version of Ruby, or crash frequently when profiling heavy page loads.

For more information, check the summary section of the deprecation issue.

Required pipeline configurations in Premium tier

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Required pipeline configuration helps to define and mandate organization-wide pipeline configurations and is a requirement at an executive and organizational level. To align better with our pricing philosophy, this feature is removed from the Premium tier in GitLab 15.0. This feature continues to be available in the GitLab Ultimate tier.

We recommend customers use Compliance Pipelines, also in GitLab Ultimate, as an alternative as it provides greater flexibility, allowing required pipelines to be assigned to specific compliance framework labels.

This change also helps GitLab remain consistent in our tiering strategy with the other related Ultimate-tier features:

Retire-JS Dependency Scanning tool

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

We have removed support for retire.js from Dependency Scanning as of May 22, 2022 in GitLab 15.0. JavaScript scanning functionality will not be affected as it is still being covered by Gemnasium.

If you have explicitly excluded retire.js using the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS variable, then you will be able to remove the reference to retire.js. If you have customized your pipeline’s Dependency Scanning configuration related to the retire-js-dependency_scanning job, then you will want to switch to gemnasium-dependency_scanning. If you have not used the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS to reference retire.js, or customized your template specifically for retire.js, you will not need to take any action.

Runner status not_connected API value

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The GitLab Runner REST and GraphQL API endpoints deprecated the not_connected status value in GitLab 14.6 and will start returning never_contacted in its place starting in GitLab 15.0.

Runners that have never contacted the GitLab instance will also return stale if created more than 3 months ago.

SAST support for .NET 2.1

The GitLab SAST Security Code Scan analyzer scans .NET code for security vulnerabilities. For technical reasons, the analyzer must first build the code to scan it.

In GitLab versions prior to 15.0, the default analyzer image (version 2) included support for:

  • .NET 2.1
  • .NET Core 3.1
  • .NET 5.0

In GitLab 15.0, we’ve changed the default major version for this analyzer from version 2 to version 3. This change:

Version 3 was announced in GitLab 14.6 and made available as an optional upgrade.

If you rely on .NET 2.1 support being present in the analyzer image by default, you must take action as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Long term service and support (LTSS) for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 SP2 ended on March 31, 2021. The CA certificates on SP2 include the expired DST root certificate, and it’s not getting new CA certificate package updates. We have implemented some workarounds, but we will not be able to continue to keep the build running properly.

Secret Detection configuration variables

To make it simpler and more reliable to customize GitLab Secret Detection, we’ve removed some of the variables that you could previously set in your CI/CD configuration.

The following variables previously allowed you to customize the options for historical scanning, but interacted poorly with the GitLab-managed CI/CD template and are now removed:

  • SECRET_DETECTION_COMMIT_FROM
  • SECRET_DETECTION_COMMIT_TO
  • SECRET_DETECTION_COMMITS
  • SECRET_DETECTION_COMMITS_FILE

The SECRET_DETECTION_ENTROPY_LEVEL previously allowed you to configure rules that only considered the entropy level of strings in your codebase, and is now removed. This type of entropy-only rule created an unacceptable number of incorrect results (false positives).

You can still customize the behavior of the Secret Detection analyzer using the available CI/CD variables.

For further details, see the deprecation issue for this change.

Self-managed certificate-based integration with Kubernetes feature flagged

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In 15.0 the certificate-based integration with Kubernetes will be disabled by default.

After 15.0, you should use the agent for Kubernetes to connect Kubernetes clusters with GitLab. The agent for Kubernetes is a more robust, secure, and reliable integration with Kubernetes. How do I migrate to the agent?

If you need more time to migrate, you can enable the certificate_based_clusters feature flag, which re-enables the certificate-based integration.

In GitLab 16.0, we will remove the feature, its related code, and the feature flag. GitLab will continue to fix any security or critical issues until 16.0.

For updates and details, follow this epic.

Sidekiq configuration for metrics and health checks

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 15.0, you can no longer serve Sidekiq metrics and health checks over a single address and port.

To improve stability, availability, and prevent data loss in edge cases, GitLab now serves Sidekiq metrics and health checks from two separate servers.

When you use Omnibus or Helm charts, if GitLab is configured for both servers to bind to the same address, a configuration error occurs. To prevent this error, choose different ports for the metrics and health check servers:

If you installed GitLab from source, verify manually that both servers are configured to bind to separate addresses and ports.

Static Site Editor

The Static Site Editor was deprecated in GitLab 14.7 and the feature is being removed in GitLab 15.0. Incoming requests to the Static Site Editor will be redirected and open the target file to edit in the Web IDE. Current users of the Static Site Editor can view the documentation for more information, including how to remove the configuration files from existing projects. We will continue investing in improvements to the Markdown editing experience by maturing the Content Editor and making it available as a way to edit content across GitLab.

Support for gitaly['internal_socket_dir']

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Gitaly introduced a new directory that holds all runtime data Gitaly requires to operate correctly. This new directory replaces the old internal socket directory, and consequentially the usage of gitaly['internal_socket_dir'] was deprecated in favor of gitaly['runtime_dir'].

Support for legacy format of config/database.yml

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The syntax of GitLab’s database configuration located in database.yml has changed and the legacy format has been removed. The legacy format supported a single PostgreSQL adapter, whereas the new format supports multiple databases. The main: database needs to be defined as a first configuration item.

This change only impacts users compiling GitLab from source, all the other installation methods handle this configuration automatically. Instructions are available in the source update documentation.

Test coverage project CI/CD setting

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

To specify a test coverage pattern, in GitLab 15.0 the project setting for test coverage parsing has been removed.

To set test coverage parsing, use the project’s .gitlab-ci.yml file by providing a regular expression with the coverage keyword.

The promote-db command is no longer available from gitlab-ctl

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.5, we introduced the command gitlab-ctl promote to promote any Geo secondary node to a primary during a failover. This command replaces gitlab-ctl promote-db which is used to promote database nodes in multi-node Geo secondary sites. The gitlab-ctl promote-db command has been removed in GitLab 15.0.

Update to the Container Registry group-level API

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 15.0, support for the tags and tags_count parameters will be removed from the Container Registry API that gets registry repositories from a group.

The GET /groups/:id/registry/repositories endpoint will remain, but won’t return any info about tags. To get the info about tags, you can use the existing GET /registry/repositories/:id endpoint, which will continue to support the tags and tag_count options as it does today. The latter must be called once per image repository.

Versions from PackageType

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As part of the work to create a Package Registry GraphQL API, the Package group deprecated the Version type for the basic PackageType type and moved it to PackageDetailsType.

In GitLab 15.0, we will completely remove Version from PackageType.

Vulnerability Check

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The vulnerability check feature was deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and is scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. We encourage you to migrate to the new security approvals feature instead. You can do so by navigating to Security & Compliance > Policies and creating a new Scan Result Policy.

The new security approvals feature is similar to vulnerability check. For example, both can require approvals for MRs that contain security vulnerabilities. However, security approvals improve the previous experience in several ways:

  • Users can choose who is allowed to edit security approval rules. An independent security or compliance team can therefore manage rules in a way that prevents development project maintainers from modifying the rules.
  • Multiple rules can be created and chained together to allow for filtering on different severity thresholds for each scanner type.
  • A two-step approval process can be enforced for any desired changes to security approval rules.
  • A single set of security policies can be applied to multiple development projects to allow for ease in maintaining a single, centralized ruleset.

Managed-Cluster-Applications.gitlab-ci.yml

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Managed-Cluster-Applications.gitlab-ci.yml CI/CD template is being removed. If you need an alternative, try the Cluster Management project template instead. If your are not ready to move, you can copy the last released version of the template into your project.

artifacts:reports:cobertura keyword

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As of GitLab 15.0, the artifacts:reports:cobertura keyword has been replaced by artifacts:reports:coverage_report. Cobertura is the only supported report file, but this is the first step towards GitLab supporting other report types.

defaultMergeCommitMessageWithDescription GraphQL API field

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The GraphQL API field defaultMergeCommitMessageWithDescription has been removed in GitLab 15.0. For projects with a commit message template set, it will ignore the template.

dependency_proxy_for_private_groups feature flag

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

A feature flag was introduced in GitLab 13.7 as part of the change to require authentication to use the Dependency Proxy. Before GitLab 13.7, you could use the Dependency Proxy without authentication.

In GitLab 15.0, we will remove the feature flag, and you must always authenticate when you use the Dependency Proxy.

omniauth-kerberos gem

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The omniauth-kerberos gem is no longer supported. This gem has not been maintained and has very little usage. Therefore, we removed support for this authentication method and recommend using SPEGNO instead. You can follow the upgrade instructions to upgrade from the removed integration to the new supported one.

We are not removing Kerberos SPNEGO integration. We are removing the old password-based Kerberos.

promote-to-primary-node command from gitlab-ctl

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.5, we introduced the command gitlab-ctl promote to promote any Geo secondary node to a primary during a failover. This command replaces gitlab-ctl promote-to-primary-node which was only usable for single-node Geo sites. gitlab-ctl promote-to-primary-node has been removed in GitLab 15.0.

push_rules_supersede_code_owners feature flag

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The push_rules_supersede_code_owners feature flag has been removed in GitLab 15.0. From now on, push rules will supersede the CODEOWNERS file. Even if Code Owner approval is required, a push rule that explicitly allows a specific user to push code supersedes the Code Owners setting.

type and types keyword from CI/CD configuration

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The type and types CI/CD keywords is removed in GitLab 15.0, so pipelines that use these keywords fail with a syntax error. Switch to stage and stages, which have the same behavior.

bundler-audit Dependency Scanning tool

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

We are removing bundler-audit from Dependency Scanning on May 22, 2022 in 15.0. After this removal, Ruby scanning functionality will not be affected as it is still being covered by Gemnasium.

If you have explicitly excluded bundler-audit using the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS variable, then you will be able to remove the reference to bundler-audit. If you have customized your pipeline’s Dependency Scanning configuration related to the bundler-audit-dependency_scanning job, then you will want to switch to gemnasium-dependency_scanning. If you have not used the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS to reference bundler-audit or customized your template specifically for bundler-audit, you will not need to take any action.

Removed in 14.10

Permissions change for downloading Composer dependencies

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The GitLab Composer repository can be used to push, search, fetch metadata about, and download PHP dependencies. All these actions require authentication, except for downloading dependencies.

Downloading Composer dependencies without authentication is deprecated in GitLab 14.9, and will be removed in GitLab 15.0. Starting with GitLab 15.0, you must authenticate to download Composer dependencies.

Removed in 14.9

Integrated error tracking disabled by default

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.4, GitLab released an integrated error tracking backend that replaces Sentry. This feature caused database performance issues. In GitLab 14.9, integrated error tracking is removed from GitLab.com, and turned off by default in GitLab self-managed. While we explore the future development of this feature, please consider switching to the Sentry backend by changing your error tracking to Sentry in your project settings.

For additional background on this removal, please reference Disable Integrated Error Tracking by Default. If you have feedback please add a comment to Feedback: Removal of Integrated Error Tracking.

Removed in 14.6

Limit the number of triggered pipeline to 25K in free tier

A large amount of triggered pipelines in a single project impacts the performance of GitLab.com. In GitLab 14.6, we are limiting the number of triggered pipelines in a single project on GitLab.com at any given moment to 25,000. This change applies to projects in the free tier only, Premium and Ultimate are not affected by this change.

Release CLI distributed as a generic package

The release-cli will be released as a generic package starting in GitLab 14.2. We will continue to deploy it as a binary to S3 until GitLab 14.5 and stop distributing it in S3 in GitLab 14.6.

Removed in 14.3

Introduced limit of 50 tags for jobs

GitLab values efficiency and is prioritizing reliability for GitLab.com in FY22. In 14.3, GitLab CI/CD jobs must have less than 50 tags. If a pipeline contains a job with 50 or more tags, you will receive an error and the pipeline will not be created.

List project pipelines API endpoint removes name support in 14.3

In GitLab 14.3, we will remove the ability to filter by name in the list project pipelines API endpoint to improve performance. If you currently use this parameter with this endpoint, you must switch to username.

Use of legacy storage setting

The support for gitlab_pages['use_legacy_storage'] setting in Omnibus installations has been removed.

In 14.0 we removed domain_config_source which had been previously deprecated, and allowed users to specify disk storage. In 14.0 we added use_legacy_storage as a temporary flag to unblock upgrades, and allow us to debug issues with our users and it was deprecated and communicated for removal in 14.3.

Removed in 14.2

Max job log file size of 100 MB

GitLab values efficiency for all users in our wider community of contributors, so we’re always working hard to make sure the application performs at a high level with a lovable UX. In GitLab 14.2, we have introduced a job log file size limit, set to 100 megabytes by default. Administrators of self-managed GitLab instances can customize this to any value. All jobs that exceed this limit are dropped and marked as failed, helping prevent performance impacts or over-use of resources. This ensures that everyone using GitLab has the best possible experience.

Removed in 14.1

Remove support for prometheus.listen_address and prometheus.enable

The support for prometheus.listen_address and prometheus.enable has been removed from gitlab.yml. Use prometheus.enabled and prometheus.server_address to set up Prometheus server that GitLab instance connects to. Refer to our documentation for details.

This only affects new installations from source where users might use the old configurations.

Remove support for older browsers

In GitLab 14.1, we are cleaning up and removing old code that was specific for browsers that we no longer support. This has no impact on users when one of our supported web browsers is used.

Most notably, support for the following browsers has been removed:

  • Apple Safari 13 and older.
  • Mozilla Firefox 68.
  • Pre-Chromium Microsoft Edge.

The minimum supported browser versions are:

  • Apple Safari 13.1.
  • Mozilla Firefox 78.
  • Google Chrome 84.
  • Chromium 84.
  • Microsoft Edge 84.

Removed in 14.0

Auto Deploy CI template v1

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.0, we will update the Auto Deploy CI template to the latest version. This includes new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements with a dependency on the v2 auto-deploy-image. Auto Deploy CI template v1 is deprecated going forward.

Since the v1 and v2 versions are not backward-compatible, your project might encounter an unexpected failure if you already have a deployed application. Follow the upgrade guide to upgrade your environments. You can also start using the latest template today by following the early adoption guide.

Breaking changes to Terraform CI template

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab 14.0 renews the Terraform CI template to the latest version. The new template is set up for the GitLab Managed Terraform state, with a dependency on the GitLab terraform-images image, to provide a good user experience around GitLab’s Infrastructure-as-Code features.

The current stable and latest templates are not compatible, and the current latest template becomes the stable template beginning with GitLab 14.0, your Terraform pipeline might encounter an unexpected failure if you run a custom init job.

Code Quality RuboCop support changed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

By default, the Code Quality feature has not provided support for Ruby 2.6+ if you’re using the Code Quality template. To better support the latest versions of Ruby, the default RuboCop version is updated to add support for Ruby 2.4 through 3.0. As a result, support for Ruby 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 is removed. You can re-enable support for older versions by customizing your configuration.

Relevant Issue: Default codeclimate-rubocop engine does not support Ruby 2.6+

Container Scanning Engine Clair

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Clair, the default container scanning engine, was deprecated in GitLab 13.9 and is removed from GitLab 14.0 and replaced by Trivy. We advise customers who are customizing variables for their container scanning job to follow these instructions to ensure that their container scanning jobs continue to work.

DAST default template stages

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.0, we’ve removed the stages defined in the current DAST.gitlab-ci.yml template to avoid the situation where the template overrides manual changes made by DAST users. We’re making this change in response to customer issues where the stages in the template cause problems when used with customized DAST configurations. Because of this removal, gitlab-ci.yml configurations that do not specify a dast stage must be updated to include this stage.

DAST environment variable renaming and removal

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab 13.8 renamed multiple environment variables to support their broader usage in different workflows. In GitLab 14.0, the old variables have been permanently removed and will no longer work. Any configurations using these variables must be updated to the new variable names. Any scans using these variables in GitLab 14.0 and later will fail to be configured correctly. These variables are:

  • DAST_AUTH_EXCLUDE_URLS becomes DAST_EXCLUDE_URLS.
  • AUTH_EXCLUDE_URLS becomes DAST_EXCLUDE_URLS.
  • AUTH_USERNAME becomes DAST_USERNAME.
  • AUTH_PASSWORD becomes DAST_PASSWORD.
  • AUTH_USERNAME_FIELD becomes DAST_USERNAME_FIELD.
  • AUTH_PASSWORD_FIELD becomes DAST_PASSWORD_FIELD.
  • DAST_ZAP_USE_AJAX_SPIDER will now be DAST_USE_AJAX_SPIDER.
  • DAST_FULL_SCAN_DOMAIN_VALIDATION_REQUIRED will be removed, since the feature is being removed.

Default Browser Performance testing job renamed in GitLab 14.0

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Browser Performance Testing has run in a job named performance by default. With the introduction of Load Performance Testing in GitLab 13.2, this naming could be confusing. To make it clear which job is running Browser Performance Testing, the default job name is changed from performance to browser_performance in the template in GitLab 14.0.

Relevant Issue: Rename default Browser Performance Testing job

Default DAST spider begins crawling at target URL

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab 14.0, DAST has removed the current method of resetting the scan to the hostname when starting to spider. Prior to GitLab 14.0, the spider would not begin at the specified target path for the URL but would instead reset the URL to begin crawling at the host root. GitLab 14.0 changes the default for the new variable DAST_SPIDER_START_AT_HOST to false to better support users’ intention of beginning spidering and scanning at the specified target URL, rather than the host root URL. This change has an added benefit: scans can take less time, if the specified path does not contain links to the entire site. This enables easier scanning of smaller sections of an application, rather than crawling the entire app during every scan.

Default branch name for new repositories now main

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Every Git repository has an initial branch, which is named master by default. It’s the first branch to be created automatically when you create a new repository. Future Git versions will change the default branch name in Git from master to main. In coordination with the Git project and the broader community, GitLab has changed the default branch name for new projects on both our SaaS (GitLab.com) and self-managed offerings starting with GitLab 14.0. This will not affect existing projects.

GitLab has already introduced changes that allow you to change the default branch name both at the instance level (for self-managed users) and at the group level (for both SaaS and self-managed users). We encourage you to make use of these features to set default branch names on new projects.

For more information, check out our blog post.

Dependency Scanning

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As mentioned in 13.9 and this blog post several removals for Dependency Scanning take effect.

Previously, to exclude a DS analyzer, you needed to remove it from the default list of analyzers, and use that to set the DS_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS variable in your project’s CI template. We determined it should be easier to avoid running a particular analyzer without losing the benefit of newly added analyzers. As a result, we ask you to migrate from DS_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS to DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS when it is available. Read about it in issue #287691.

Previously, to prevent the Gemnasium analyzers to fetch the advisory database at runtime, you needed to set the GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE variable. However, this is not documented properly, and its naming is inconsistent with the equivalent BUNDLER_AUDIT_UPDATE_DISABLED variable. As a result, we ask you to migrate from GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE to GEMNASIUM_UPDATE_DISABLED when it is available. Read about it in issue #215483.

Deprecated GraphQL fields

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In accordance with our GraphQL deprecation and removal process, the following fields that were deprecated prior to 13.7 are fully removed in 14.0:

  • Mutations::Todos::MarkAllDone, Mutations::Todos::RestoreMany - :updated_ids
  • Mutations::DastScannerProfiles::Create, Types::DastScannerProfileType - :global_id
  • Types::SnippetType - :blob
  • EE::Types::GroupType, EE::Types::QueryType - :vulnerabilities_count_by_day_and_severity
  • DeprecatedMutations (concern**) - AddAwardEmoji, RemoveAwardEmoji, ToggleAwardEmoji
  • EE::Types::DeprecatedMutations (concern***) - Mutations::Pipelines::RunDastScan, Mutations::Vulnerabilities::Dismiss, Mutations::Vulnerabilities::RevertToDetected

DevOps Adoption API Segments

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The first release of the DevOps Adoption report had a concept of Segments. Segments were quickly removed from the report because they introduced an additional layer of complexity on top of Groups and Projects. Subsequent iterations of the DevOps Adoption report focus on comparing adoption across groups rather than segments. GitLab 14.0 removes all references to Segments from the GraphQL API and replaces them with Enabled groups.

Disk source configuration for GitLab Pages

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab Pages API-based configuration has been available since GitLab 13.0. It replaces the unsupported disk source configuration removed in GitLab 14.0, which can no longer be chosen. You should stop using disk source configuration, and move to gitlab for an API-based configuration. To migrate away from the ‘disk’ source configuration, set gitlab_pages['domain_config_source'] = "gitlab" in your /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb file. We recommend you migrate before updating to GitLab 14.0, to identify and troubleshoot any potential problems before upgrading.

Experimental prefix in Sidekiq queue selector options

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab supports a queue selector to run only a subset of background jobs for a given process. When it was introduced, this option had an ‘experimental’ prefix (experimental_queue_selector in Omnibus, experimentalQueueSelector in Helm charts).

As announced in the 13.6 release post, the ‘experimental’ prefix is no longer supported. Instead, queue_selector for Omnibus and queueSelector in Helm charts should be used.

External Pipeline Validation Service Code Changes

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

For self-managed instances using the experimental external pipeline validation service, the range of error codes GitLab accepts will be reduced. Currently, pipelines are invalidated when the validation service returns a response code from 400 to 499. In GitLab 14.0 and later, pipelines will be invalidated for the 406: Not Accepted response code only.

Geo Foreign Data Wrapper settings

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As announced in GitLab 13.3, the following configuration settings in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb have been removed in 14.0:

  • geo_secondary['db_fdw']
  • geo_postgresql['fdw_external_user']
  • geo_postgresql['fdw_external_password']
  • gitlab-_rails['geo_migrated_local_files_clean_up_worker_cron']

GitLab OAuth implicit grant

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab is deprecating the OAuth 2 implicit grant flow as it has been removed for OAuth 2.1.

Migrate your existing applications to other supported OAuth2 flows.

GitLab Runner helper image in GitLab.com Container Registry

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In 14.0, we are now pulling the GitLab Runner helper image from the GitLab Container Registry instead of Docker Hub. Refer to issue #27218 for details.

GitLab Runner installation to ignore the skel directory

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab Runner 14.0, the installation process will ignore the skel directory by default when creating the user home directory. Refer to issue #4845 for details.

Gitaly Cluster SQL primary elector

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Now that Praefect supports a primary election strategy for each repository, we have removed the sql election strategy. The per_repository election strategy is the new default, which is automatically used if no election strategy was specified.

If you had configured the sql election strategy, you must follow the migration instructions before upgrading to 14.0.

Global SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG in SAST CI template

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

With the maturity of GitLab Secure scanning tools, we’ve needed to add more granularity to our release process. Previously, GitLab shared a major version number for all analyzers and tools. This requires all tools to share a major version, and prevents the use of semantic version numbering. In GitLab 14.0, SAST removes the SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG global variable in our managed SAST.gitlab-ci.yml CI template, in favor of the analyzer job variable setting the major.minor tag in the SAST vendored template.

Each analyzer job now has a scoped SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG variable, which will be actively managed by GitLab and set to the major tag for the respective analyzer. To pin to a specific version, change the variable value to the specific version tag. If you override or maintain custom versions of SAST.gitlab-ci.yml, update your CI templates to stop referencing the global SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG, and move it to a scoped analyzer job tag. We strongly encourage inheriting and overriding our managed CI templates to future-proof your CI templates. This change allows you to more granularly control future analyzer updates with a pinned major.minor version. This deprecation and removal changes our previously announced plan to pin the Static Analysis tools.

Hardcoded master in CI/CD templates

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Our CI/CD templates have been updated to no longer use hard-coded references to a master branch. In 14.0, they all use a variable that points to your project’s configured default branch instead. If your CI/CD pipeline relies on our built-in templates, verify that this change works with your current configuration. For example, if you have a master branch and a different default branch, the updates to the templates may cause changes to your pipeline behavior. For more information, read the issue.

Helm v2 support

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Helm v2 was officially deprecated in November of 2020, with the stable repository being de-listed from the Helm Hub shortly thereafter. With the release of GitLab 14.0, which will include the 5.0 release of the GitLab Helm chart, Helm v2 will no longer be supported.

Users of the chart should upgrade to Helm v3 to deploy GitLab 14.0 and later.

Legacy DAST domain validation

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The legacy method of DAST Domain Validation for CI/CD scans was deprecated in GitLab 13.8, and is removed in GitLab 14.0. This method of domain validation only disallows scans if the DAST_FULL_SCAN_DOMAIN_VALIDATION_REQUIRED environment variable is set to true in the gitlab-ci.yml file, and a Gitlab-DAST-Permission header on the site is not set to allow. This two-step method required users to opt in to using the variable before they could opt out from using the header.

For more information, see the removal issue.

Legacy feature flags

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Legacy feature flags became read-only in GitLab 13.4. GitLab 14.0 removes support for legacy feature flags, so you must migrate them to the new version. You can do this by first taking a note (screenshot) of the legacy flag, then deleting the flag through the API or UI (you don’t need to alter the code), and finally create a new Feature Flag with the same name as the legacy flag you deleted. Also, make sure the strategies and environments match the deleted flag. We created a video tutorial to help with this migration.

Legacy fields from DAST report

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As a part of the migration to a common report format for all of the Secure scanners in GitLab, DAST is making changes to the DAST JSON report. Certain legacy fields were deprecated in 13.8 and have been completely removed in 14.0. These fields are @generated, @version, site, and spider. This should not affect any normal DAST operation, but does affect users who consume the JSON report in an automated way and use these fields. Anyone affected by these changes, and needs these fields for business reasons, is encouraged to open a new GitLab issue and explain the need.

For more information, see the removal issue.

Legacy storage

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As announced in GitLab 13.0, legacy storage has been removed in GitLab 14.0.

License Compliance

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In 13.0, we deprecated the License-Management CI template and renamed it License-Scanning. We have been providing backward compatibility by warning users of the old template to switch. Now in 14.0, we are completely removing the License-Management CI template. Read about it in issue #216261 or this blog post.

Limit projects returned in GET /groups/:id/

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

To improve performance, we are limiting the number of projects returned from the GET /groups/:id/ API call to 100. A complete list of projects can still be retrieved with the GET /groups/:id/projects API call.

Make pwsh the default shell for newly-registered Windows Runners

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab Runner 13.2, PowerShell Core support was added to the Shell executor. In 14.0, PowerShell Core, pwsh is now the default shell for newly-registered Windows runners. Windows CMD will still be available as a shell option for Windows runners. Refer to issue #26419 for details.

Migrate from SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS to SAST_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Until GitLab 13.9, if you wanted to avoid running one particular GitLab SAST analyzer, you needed to remove it from the long string of analyzers in the SAST.gitlab-ci.yml file and use that to set the SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS variable in your project’s CI file. If you did this, it would exclude you from future new analyzers because this string hard codes the list of analyzers to execute. We avoid this problem by inverting this variable’s logic to exclude, rather than choose default analyzers. Beginning with 13.9, we migrated to SAST_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS in our SAST.gitlab-ci.yml file. We encourage anyone who uses a customized SAST configuration in their project CI file to migrate to this new variable. If you have not overridden SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS, no action is needed. The CI/CD variable SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS has been removed in GitLab 14.0, which released on June 22, 2021.

Off peak time mode configuration for Docker Machine autoscaling

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab Runner 13.0, issue #5069, we introduced new timing options for the GitLab Docker Machine executor. In GitLab Runner 14.0, we have removed the old configuration option, off peak time mode.

OpenSUSE Leap 15.1

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Support for OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 is being deprecated. Support for 15.1 will be dropped in 14.0. We are now providing support for openSUSE Leap 15.2 packages.

PostgreSQL 11 support

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab 14.0 requires PostgreSQL 12 or later. It offers significant improvements to indexing, partitioning, and general performance benefits.

Starting in GitLab 13.7, all new installations default to PostgreSQL version 12. From GitLab 13.8, single-node instances are automatically upgraded as well. If you aren’t ready to upgrade, you can opt out of automatic upgrades.

Redundant timestamp field from DORA metrics API payload

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The deployment frequency project-level API endpoint has been deprecated in favor of the DORA 4 API, which consolidates all the metrics under one API with the specific metric as a required field. As a result, the timestamp field, which doesn’t allow adding future extensions and causes performance issues, will be removed. With the old API, an example response would be { "2021-03-01": 3, "date": "2021-03-01", "value": 3 }. The first key/value ("2021-03-01": 3) will be removed and replaced by the last two ("date": "2021-03-01", "value": 3).

Release description in the Tags API

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab 14.0 removes support for the release description in the Tags API. You can no longer add a release description when creating a new tag. You also can no longer create or update a release through the Tags API. Please migrate to use the Releases API instead.

Ruby version changed in Ruby.gitlab-ci.yml

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

By default, the Ruby.gitlab-ci.yml file has included Ruby 2.5.

To better support the latest versions of Ruby, the template is changed to use ruby:latest, which is currently 3.0. To better understand the changes in Ruby 3.0, please reference the Ruby-lang.org release announcement.

Relevant Issue: Updates Ruby version 2.5 to 3.0

SAST analyzer SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG variable

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

With the release of SAST Custom Rulesets in GitLab 13.5 we allow greater flexibility in configuration options for our Go analyzer (GoSec). As a result we no longer plan to support our less flexible SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG analyzer setting. This variable was deprecated in GitLab 13.10. GitLab 14.0 removes the old SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG variable. If you use or override SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG in your CI file, update your SAST CI configuration or pin to an older version of the GoSec analyzer. We strongly encourage inheriting and overriding our managed CI templates to future-proof your CI templates.

Service Templates

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Service Templates are removed in GitLab 14.0. They were used to apply identical settings to a large number of projects, but they only did so at the time of project creation.

While they solved part of the problem, updating those values later proved to be a major pain point. Project Integration Management solves this problem by enabling you to create settings at the Group or Instance level, and projects within that namespace inheriting those settings.

Success and failure for finished build metric conversion

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab Runner 13.5, we introduced failed and success states for a job. To support Prometheus rules, we chose to convert success/failure to finished for the metric. In 14.0, the conversion has now been removed. Refer to issue #26900 for details.

Terraform template version

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

As we continuously develop GitLab’s Terraform integrations, to minimize customer disruption, we maintain two GitLab CI/CD templates for Terraform:

At every major release of GitLab, the “latest version” template becomes the “major version” template, inheriting the “latest template” setup. As we have added many new features to the Terraform integration, the new setup for the “major version” template can be considered a breaking change.

The latest template supports the Terraform Merge Request widget and doesn’t need additional setup to work with the GitLab managed Terraform state.

To check the new changes, see the new “major version” template.

Ubuntu 16.04 support

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Ubuntu 16.04 reached end-of-life in April 2021, and no longer receives maintenance updates. We strongly recommend users to upgrade to a newer release, such as 20.04.

GitLab 13.12 will be the last release with Ubuntu 16.04 support.

Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) package

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) reached end of life on Friday, July 17, 2020. In GitLab Runner 14.0, Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) is no longer available from our package distribution. Refer to issue #26036 for details.

Unicorn in GitLab self-managed

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

Support for Unicorn has been removed in GitLab 14.0 in favor of Puma. Puma has a multi-threaded architecture which uses less memory than a multi-process application server like Unicorn. On GitLab.com, we saw a 40% reduction in memory consumption by using Puma.

WIP merge requests renamed ‘draft merge requests’

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The WIP (work in progress) status for merge requests signaled to reviewers that the merge request in question wasn’t ready to merge. We’ve renamed the WIP feature to Draft, a more inclusive and self-explanatory term. Draft clearly communicates the merge request in question isn’t ready for review, and makes no assumptions about the progress being made toward it. Draft also reduces the cognitive load for new users, non-English speakers, and anyone unfamiliar with the WIP acronym.

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The Web Application Firewall (WAF) was deprecated in GitLab 13.6 and is removed from GitLab 14.0. The WAF had limitations inherent in the architectural design that made it difficult to meet the requirements traditionally expected of a WAF. By removing the WAF, GitLab is able to focus on improving other areas in the product where more value can be provided to users. Users who currently rely on the WAF can continue to use the free and open source ModSecurity project, which is independent from GitLab. Additional details are available in the deprecation issue.

Windows Server 1903 image support

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In 14.0, we have removed Windows Server 1903. Microsoft ended support for this version on 2020-08-12. Refer to issue #27551 for details.

Windows Server 1909 image support

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In 14.0, we have removed Windows Server 1909. Microsoft ended support for this version on 2021-05-11. Refer to issue #27899 for details.

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab Runner 13.3, a symlink was added from /user/lib/gitlab-runner/gitlab-runner to /usr/bin/gitlab-runner. In 14.0, the symlink has been removed and the runner is now installed in /usr/bin/gitlab-runner. Refer to issue #26651 for details.

?w=1 URL parameter to ignore whitespace changes

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

To create a consistent experience for users based on their preferences, support for toggling whitespace changes via URL parameter has been removed in GitLab 14.0.

CI_PROJECT_CONFIG_PATH variable

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

The CI_PROJECT_CONFIG_PATH predefined project variable has been removed in favor of CI_CONFIG_PATH, which is functionally the same.

If you are using CI_PROJECT_CONFIG_PATH in your pipeline configurations, please update them to use CI_CONFIG_PATH instead.

FF_RESET_HELPER_IMAGE_ENTRYPOINT feature flag

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In 14.0, we have deactivated the FF_RESET_HELPER_IMAGE_ENTRYPOINT feature flag. Refer to issue #26679 for details.

FF_SHELL_EXECUTOR_USE_LEGACY_PROCESS_KILL feature flag

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

In GitLab Runner 13.1, issue #3376, we introduced sigterm and then sigkill to a process in the Shell executor. We also introduced a new feature flag, FF_SHELL_EXECUTOR_USE_LEGACY_PROCESS_KILL, so you can use the previous process termination sequence. In GitLab Runner 14.0, issue #6413, the feature flag has been removed.

FF_USE_GO_CLOUD_WITH_CACHE_ARCHIVER feature flag

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab Runner 14.0 removes the FF_USE_GO_CLOUD_WITH_CACHE_ARCHIVER feature flag. Refer to issue #27175 for details.

secret_detection_default_branch job

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

To ensure Secret Detection was scanning both default branches and feature branches, we introduced two separate secret detection CI jobs (secret_detection_default_branch and secret_detection) in our managed Secret-Detection.gitlab-ci.yml template. These two CI jobs created confusion and complexity in the CI rules logic. This deprecation moves the rule logic into the script section, which then determines how the secret_detection job is run (historic, on a branch, commits, etc). If you override or maintain custom versions of SAST.gitlab-ci.yml or Secret-Detection.gitlab-ci.yml, you must update your CI templates. We strongly encourage inheriting and overriding our managed CI templates to future-proof your CI templates. GitLab 14.0 no longer supports the old secret_detection_default_branch job.

trace parameter in jobs API

caution
This is a breaking change. Review the details carefully before upgrading.

GitLab Runner was updated in GitLab 13.4 to internally stop passing the trace parameter to the /api/jobs/:id endpoint. GitLab 14.0 deprecates the trace parameter entirely for all other requests of this endpoint. Make sure your GitLab Runner version matches your GitLab version to ensure consistent behavior.