• List repository tree
• Get a blob from repository
• Raw blob content
• Get file archive
• Compare branches, tags or commits
• Contributors
• Merge Base
• Add changelog data to a changelog file
  • Supported attributes
  • Requirements for from attribute
  • Examples
• Generate changelog data
• Related topics

Repositories API

List repository tree

Get a list of repository files and directories in a project. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.

This command provides essentially the same features as the git ls-tree command. For more information, refer to the section Tree Objects in the Git internals documentation.

GET /projects/:id/repository/tree

Supported attributes:

[
  {
    "id": "a1e8f8d745cc87e3a9248358d9352bb7f9a0aeba",
    "name": "html",
    "type": "tree",
    "path": "files/html",
    "mode": "040000"
  },
  {
    "id": "4535904260b1082e14f867f7a24fd8c21495bde3",
    "name": "images",
    "type": "tree",
    "path": "files/images",
    "mode": "040000"
  },
  {
    "id": "31405c5ddef582c5a9b7a85230413ff90e2fe720",
    "name": "js",
    "type": "tree",
    "path": "files/js",
    "mode": "040000"
  },
  {
    "id": "cc71111cfad871212dc99572599a568bfe1e7e00",
    "name": "lfs",
    "type": "tree",
    "path": "files/lfs",
    "mode": "040000"
  },
  {
    "id": "fd581c619bf59cfdfa9c8282377bb09c2f897520",
    "name": "markdown",
    "type": "tree",
    "path": "files/markdown",
    "mode": "040000"
  },
  {
    "id": "23ea4d11a4bdd960ee5320c5cb65b5b3fdbc60db",
    "name": "ruby",
    "type": "tree",
    "path": "files/ruby",
    "mode": "040000"
  },
  {
    "id": "7d70e02340bac451f281cecf0a980907974bd8be",
    "name": "whitespace",
    "type": "blob",
    "path": "files/whitespace",
    "mode": "100644"
  }
]

Get a blob from repository

Allows you to receive information, such as size and content, about blobs in a repository. Blob content is Base64 encoded. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication, if the repository is publicly accessible.

GET /projects/:id/repository/blobs/:sha

Supported attributes:

Raw blob content

Get the raw file contents for a blob, by blob SHA. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.

GET /projects/:id/repository/blobs/:sha/raw

Supported attributes:

Get file archive

Get an archive of the repository. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.

For GitLab.com users, this endpoint has a rate limit threshold of 5 requests per minute.

GET /projects/:id/repository/archive[.format]

format is an optional suffix for the archive format, and defaults to tar.gz. For example, specifying archive.zip sends an archive in ZIP format. Available options are:

• bz2
• tar
• tar.bz2
• tar.gz
• tb2
• tbz
• tbz2
• zip

Supported attributes:

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/<project_id>/repository/archive?sha=<commit_sha>&path=<path>"

Compare branches, tags or commits

This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible. Diffs can have an empty diff string if diff limits are reached.

GET /projects/:id/repository/compare

Supported attributes:

GET /projects/:id/repository/compare?from=main&to=feature

Example response:

{
  "commit": {
    "id": "12d65c8dd2b2676fa3ac47d955accc085a37a9c1",
    "short_id": "12d65c8dd2b",
    "title": "JS fix",
    "author_name": "Example User",
    "author_email": "user@example.com",
    "created_at": "2014-02-27T10:27:00+02:00"
  },
  "commits": [{
    "id": "12d65c8dd2b2676fa3ac47d955accc085a37a9c1",
    "short_id": "12d65c8dd2b",
    "title": "JS fix",
    "author_name": "Example User",
    "author_email": "user@example.com",
    "created_at": "2014-02-27T10:27:00+02:00"
  }],
  "diffs": [{
    "old_path": "files/js/application.js",
    "new_path": "files/js/application.js",
    "a_mode": null,
    "b_mode": "100644",
    "diff": "@@ -24,8 +24,10 @@\n //= require g.raphael-min\n //= require g.bar-min\n //= require branch-graph\n-//= require highlightjs.min\n-//= require ace/ace\n //= require_tree .\n //= require d3\n //= require underscore\n+\n+function fix() { \n+  alert(\"Fixed\")\n+}",
    "new_file": false,
    "renamed_file": false,
    "deleted_file": false
  }],
  "compare_timeout": false,
  "compare_same_ref": false,
  "web_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/janedoe/gitlab-foss/-/compare/ae73cb07c9eeaf35924a10f713b364d32b2dd34f...0b4bc9a49b562e85de7cc9e834518ea6828729b9"
}

Contributors

Get repository contributors list. This endpoint can be accessed without authentication if the repository is publicly accessible.

GET /projects/:id/repository/contributors

Supported attributes:

Example response:

[{
  "name": "Example User",
  "email": "example@example.com",
  "commits": 117,
  "additions": 0,
  "deletions": 0
}, {
  "name": "Sample User",
  "email": "sample@example.com",
  "commits": 33,
  "additions": 0,
  "deletions": 0
}]

Merge Base

Get the common ancestor for 2 or more refs, such as commit SHAs, branch names, or tags.

GET /projects/:id/repository/merge_base

Example request, with the refs truncated for readability:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/repository/merge_base?refs[]=304d257d&refs[]=0031876f"

Example response:

{
  "id": "1a0b36b3cdad1d2ee32457c102a8c0b7056fa863",
  "short_id": "1a0b36b3",
  "title": "Initial commit",
  "created_at": "2014-02-27T08:03:18.000Z",
  "parent_ids": [],
  "message": "Initial commit\n",
  "author_name": "Example User",
  "author_email": "user@example.com",
  "authored_date": "2014-02-27T08:03:18.000Z",
  "committer_name": "Example User",
  "committer_email": "user@example.com",
  "committed_date": "2014-02-27T08:03:18.000Z"
}

Add changelog data to a changelog file

Generate changelog data based on commits in a repository.

Given a semantic version and a range of commits, GitLab generates a changelog for all commits that use a particular Git trailer. GitLab adds a new Markdown-formatted section to a changelog file in the Git repository of the project. The output format can be customized.

For user-facing documentation, see Changelogs.

POST /projects/:id/repository/changelog

Supported attributes

Changelogs support these attributes:

Requirements for from attribute

If the from attribute is unspecified, GitLab uses the Git tag of the last stable version that came before the version specified in the version attribute. For GitLab to extract version numbers from tag names, Git tag names must follow a specific format. By default, GitLab considers tags using these formats:

• vX.Y.Z
• X.Y.Z

Where X.Y.Z is a version that follows semantic versioning. For example, consider a project with the following tags:

• v1.0.0-pre1
• v1.0.0
• v1.1.0
• v2.0.0

If the version attribute is 2.1.0, GitLab uses tag v2.0.0. And when the version is 1.1.1, or 1.2.0, GitLab uses tag v1.1.0. The tag v1.0.0-pre1 is never used, because pre-release tags are ignored.

If from is unspecified and no tag to use is found, the API produces an error. To solve such an error, you must explicitly specify a value for the from attribute.

Examples

These examples use cURL to perform HTTP requests. The example commands use these values:

• Project ID: 42
• Location: hosted on GitLab.com
• Example API token: token

This command generates a changelog for version 1.0.0.

The commit range:

• Starts with the tag of the last release.
• Ends with the last commit on the target branch. The default target branch is the project’s default branch.

If the last tag is v0.9.0 and the default branch is main, the range of commits included in this example is v0.9.0..main:

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --data "version=1.0.0" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"

To generate the data on a different branch, specify the branch parameter. This command generates data from the foo branch:

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --data "version=1.0.0&branch=foo" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"

To use a different trailer, use the trailer parameter:

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --data "version=1.0.0&trailer=Type" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"

To store the results in a different file, use the file parameter:

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  --data "version=1.0.0&file=NEWS" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog"

Generate changelog data

Generate changelog data based on commits in a repository, without committing them to a changelog file.

Works exactly like POST /projects/:id/repository/changelog, except the changelog data isn’t committed to any changelog file.

GET /projects/:id/repository/changelog

Supported attributes:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: token" \
  "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/42/repository/changelog?version=1.0.0"

Example response, with line breaks added for readability:

{
  "notes": "## 1.0.0 (2021-11-17)\n\n### feature (2 changes)\n\n-
    [Title 2](namespace13/project13@ad608eb642124f5b3944ac0ac772fecaf570a6bf)
    ([merge request](namespace13/project13!2))\n-
    [Title 1](namespace13/project13@3c6b80ff7034fa0d585314e1571cc780596ce3c8)
    ([merge request](namespace13/project13!1))\n"
}

Related topics

• User documentation for changelogs
• Developer documentation for changelog entries in GitLab