Custom instance-level project templates

Introduced in GitLab 11.2.

GitLab administrators can set a group to be the source of project templates that are selectable when a new project is created on the instance. These templates can be selected when you go to New project > Create from template and select the Instance tab.

Every project in the group, but not its subgroups, can be selected when a new project is created, based on the user’s access permissions:

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

The Metrics Dashboard is set to Only Project Members when you create a new project. Make sure you change it to Everyone With Access before making it a project template.

Repository and database information that are copied over to each new project are identical to the data exported with the GitLab Project Import/Export.

To set project templates at the group level, see Custom group-level project templates.

Select instance-level project template group

To select the group to use as the source for the project templates:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to.
  2. Select Admin Area.
  3. Select Settings > Templates.
  4. Expand Custom project templates.
  5. Select a group to use.
  6. Select Save changes.

Projects in subgroups of the template group are not included in the template list.

What is copied from the templates

The entire custom instance-level project templates repository is copied, including:

  • Branches
  • Commits
  • Tags

If the user:

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

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