Permissions and roles

When you add a user to a project or group, you assign them a role. The role determines which actions they can take in GitLab.

If you add a user to both a project’s group and the project itself, the higher role is used.

GitLab administrators have all permissions.

Roles

The available roles are:

  • Guest (This role applies to private and internal projects only.)
  • Reporter
  • Developer
  • Maintainer
  • Owner
  • Minimal Access (available for the top-level group only)

A user assigned the Guest role has the least permissions, and the Owner has the most.

By default, all users can create top-level groups and change their usernames. A GitLab administrator can change this behavior for the GitLab instance.

Project members permissions

Version history
  • Introduced in GitLab 14.8, personal namespace owners appear with Owner role in new projects in their namespace. Introduced with a flag named personal_project_owner_with_owner_access. Disabled by default.
  • Generally available in GitLab 14.9. Feature flag personal_project_owner_with_owner_access removed.

A user’s role determines what permissions they have on a project. The Owner role provides all permissions but is available only:

  • For group and project Owners. In GitLab 14.8 and earlier, the role is inherited for a group’s projects.
  • For Administrators.

Personal namespace owners:

  • Are displayed as having the Maintainer role on projects in the namespace, but have the same permissions as a user with the Owner role.
  • In GitLab 14.9 and later, for new projects in the namespace, are displayed as having the Owner role.

For more information about how to manage project members, see members of a project.

The following table lists project permissions available for each role:

ActionGuestReporterDeveloperMaintainerOwner
Analytics:
View issue analytics
Analytics:
View value stream analytics
Analytics:
View DORA metrics
 
Analytics:
View CI/CD analytics
 
Analytics:
View code review analytics
 
Analytics:
View merge request analytics
 
Analytics:
View repository analytics
 
Application security:
View licenses in dependency list
  
Application security:
Create and run on-demand DAST scans
  
Application security:
View dependency list
  
Application security:
Create a CVE ID Request
   
Application security:
Create or assign security policy project
    
Application security:
Create, edit, delete individual security policies
  
GitLab Agent for Kubernetes:
View agents
  
GitLab Agent for Kubernetes:
Manage agents
   
Container Registry:
Create, edit, delete cleanup policies
   
Container Registry:
Push an image to the Container Registry
  
Container Registry:
Pull an image from the Container Registry
✓ (19)✓ (19)
Container Registry:
Remove a Container Registry image
  
GitLab Pages:
View Pages protected by access control
GitLab Pages:
Manage
   
GitLab Pages:
Manage GitLab Pages domains and certificates
   
GitLab Pages:
Remove GitLab Pages
   
Incident Management:
Assign an alert
Incident Management:
Participate in on-call rotation
Incident Management:
View incident
Incident Management:
Change alert status
 
Incident Management:
Change incident severity
 
Incident Management:
Create incident
 
Incident Management:
View alerts
 
Incident Management:
View escalation policies
 
Incident Management:
View on-call schedules
 
Incident Management:
Change incident escalation status
  
Incident Management:
Change incident escalation policy
  
Incident Management:
Manage on-call schedules
   
Incident Management:
Manage escalation policies
   
Issue boards:
Create or delete lists
 
Issue boards:
Move issues between lists
 
Issues:
Add Labels
✓ (15)
Issues:
Add to epic
 ✓ (22)✓ (22)✓ (22)✓ (22)
Issues:
Assign
✓ (15)
Issues:
Create (17)
Issues:
Create confidential issues
Issues:
View Design Management pages
Issues:
View related issues
Issues:
Set weight
 
Issues:
Set metadata such as labels, milestones, or assignees when creating an issue
✓ (15)
Issues:
Edit metadata such labels, milestones, or assignees for an existing issue
(15)
Issues:
Set parent epic
 
Issues:
View confidential issues
(2)
Issues:
Close / reopen (18)
 
Issues:
Lock threads
 
Issues:
Manage related issues
 
Issues:
Manage tracker
 
Issues:
Move issues (14)
 
Issues:
Set issue time tracking estimate and time spent
 
Issues:
Archive Design Management files
  
Issues:
Upload Design Management files
  
Issues:
Delete
    
License Scanning:
View allowed and denied licenses
✓ (1)
License Scanning:
View License Compliance reports
✓ (1)
License Scanning:
View License list
 
License approval policies:
Manage license policy
   
Merge requests:
Assign reviewer
 
Merge requests:
See list
 
Merge requests:
Apply code change suggestions
  
Merge requests:
Approve (8)
  
Merge requests:
Assign
  
Merge requests:
Create (16)
  
Merge requests:
Add labels
  
Merge requests:
Lock threads
  
Merge requests:
Manage or accept
  
Merge requests:
Resolve a thread
  
Merge requests:
Manage merge approval rules (project settings)
   
Merge requests:
Delete
    
Package registry:
Pull a package
✓ (1)
Package registry:
Publish a package
  
Package registry:
Delete a package
   
Package registry:
Delete a file associated with a package
   
Project operations:
View Error Tracking list
 
Project operations:
Manage Feature flags
  
Project operations:
Manage Error Tracking
   
Projects:
Download project
✓ (1)
Projects:
Leave comments
Projects:
Reposition comments on images (posted by any user)
✓ (9)✓ (9)✓ (9)
Projects:
View Insights
Projects:
View releases
✓ (5)
Projects:
View Requirements
Projects:
View time tracking reports
✓ (1)
Projects:
View wiki pages
Projects:
Create snippets
 
Projects:
Manage labels
 
Projects:
View project traffic statistics
 
Projects:
Create, edit, delete milestones.
 
Projects:
Create, edit, delete releases
  ✓ (12)✓ (12)✓ (12)
Projects:
Create, edit wiki pages
  
Projects:
Enable Review Apps
  
Projects:
View project Audit Events
  ✓ (10)
Projects:
Add deploy keys
   
Projects:
Add new team members
   
Projects:
Manage team members
   ✓ (20)
Projects:
Change project features visibility level
   ✓ (13)
Projects:
Configure webhooks
   
Projects:
Delete wiki pages
  
Projects:
Edit comments (posted by any user)
   
Projects:
Edit project badges
   
Projects:
Edit project settings
   
Projects:
Export project
   
Projects:
Manage project access tokens (11)
   ✓ (20)
Projects:
Manage Project Operations
   
Projects:
Rename project
   
Projects:
Share (invite) projects with groups
   ✓ (7)✓ (7)
Projects:
View 2FA status of members
   
Projects:
Assign project to a compliance framework
    
Projects:
Archive project
    
Projects:
Change project visibility level
    
Projects:
Delete project
    
Projects:
Disable notification emails
    
Projects:
Transfer project to another namespace
    
Projects: View Usage Quotas page   
Repository:
Pull project code
✓ (1)
Repository:
View project code
✓ (1) (23)
Repository:
View a commit status
 
Repository:
Add tags
  
Repository:
Create new branches
  
Repository:
Create or update commit status
  ✓ (4)
Repository:
Force push to non-protected branches
  
Repository:
Push to non-protected branches
  
Repository:
Remove non-protected branches
  
Repository:
Rewrite or remove Git tags
  
Repository:
Enable or disable branch protection
   
Repository:
Enable or disable tag protection
   
Repository:
Manage push rules
   
Repository:
Push to protected branches (4)
   
Repository:
Turn on or off protected branch push for developers
   
Repository:
Remove fork relationship
    
Repository:
Force push to protected branches (3)
     
Repository:
Remove protected branches (3)
     
Requirements Management:
Archive / reopen
 
Requirements Management:
Create / edit
 
Requirements Management:
Import / export
 
Security dashboard:
Create issue from vulnerability finding
  
Security dashboard:
Create vulnerability from vulnerability finding
  
Security dashboard:
Dismiss vulnerability
  
Security dashboard:
Dismiss vulnerability finding
  
Security dashboard:
Resolve vulnerability
  
Security dashboard:
Revert vulnerability to detected state
  
Security dashboard:
Use security dashboard
  
Security dashboard:
View vulnerability
  
Security dashboard:
View vulnerability findings in dependency list
  
Tasks:
Create (17)
 
Tasks:
Edit
 
Tasks:
Remove from issue
 
Tasks:
Delete (21)
    
Terraform:
Read Terraform state
  
Terraform:
Manage Terraform state
   
Test cases:
Archive
 
Test cases:
Create
 
Test cases:
Move
 
Test cases:
Reopen
 
  1. On self-managed GitLab instances, users with the Guest role are able to perform this action only on public and internal projects (not on private projects). External users must be given explicit access (at least the Reporter role) even if the project is internal. Users with the Guest role on GitLab.com are only able to perform this action on public projects because internal visibility is not available.
  2. Guest users can only view the confidential issues they created themselves or are assigned to.
  3. Not allowed for Guest, Reporter, Developer, Maintainer, or Owner. See protected branches.
  4. If the branch is protected, this depends on the access given to Developers and Maintainers.
  5. Guest users can access GitLab Releases for downloading assets but are not allowed to download the source code nor see repository information like commits and release evidence.
  6. Actions are limited only to records owned (referenced) by user.
  7. When Share Group Lock is enabled the project can’t be shared with other groups. It does not affect group with group sharing.
  8. For information on eligible approvers for merge requests, see Eligible approvers.
  9. Applies only to comments on Design Management designs.
  10. Users can only view events based on their individual actions.
  11. Project access tokens are supported for self-managed instances on Free and above. They are also supported on GitLab SaaS Premium and above (excluding trial licenses).
  12. If the tag is protected, this depends on the access given to Developers and Maintainers.
  13. A Maintainer or Owner can’t change project features visibility level if project visibility is set to private.
  14. Attached design files are moved together with the issue even if the user doesn’t have the Developer role.
  15. Guest users can only set metadata (for example, labels, assignees, or milestones) when creating an issue. They cannot change the metadata on existing issues.
  16. In projects that accept contributions from external members, users can create, edit, and close their own merge requests.
  17. Authors and assignees can modify the title and description even if they don’t have the Reporter role.
  18. Authors and assignees can close and reopen issues even if they don’t have the Reporter role.
  19. The ability to view the Container Registry and pull images is controlled by the Container Registry’s visibility permissions.
  20. Maintainers cannot create, demote, or remove Owners, and they cannot promote users to the Owner role. They also cannot approve Owner role access requests.
  21. Authors of tasks can delete them even if they don’t have the Owner role, but they have to have at least the Guest role for the project.
  22. You must have permission to view the epic.
  23. In GitLab 15.9 and later, users with the Guest role and an Ultimate license can view private repository content if an administrator (on self-managed) or group owner (on GitLab.com) gives those users permission. The administrator or group owner can create a custom role through the API and assign that role to the users.

Project features permissions

More details about the permissions for some project-level features follow.

GitLab CI/CD permissions

GitLab CI/CD permissions for some roles can be modified by these settings:

  • Public pipelines: When set to public, gives access to certain CI/CD features to Guest project members.
  • Pipeline visibility: When set to Everyone with Access, gives access to certain CI/CD “view” features to non-project members.
ActionNon-memberGuestReporterDeveloperMaintainerOwner
See that artifacts exist✓ (3)✓ (3)
View a list of jobs✓ (1)✓ (2)
View and download artifacts✓ (1)✓ (2)
View environments ✓ (3)✓ (3)
View job logs and job details page✓ (1)✓ (2)
View pipelines and pipeline details pages✓ (1)✓ (2)
View pipelines tab in MR✓ (3)✓ (3)
View vulnerabilities in a pipeline ✓ (2)
View and download project-level Secure Files    
Cancel and retry jobs   
Create new environments    
Delete job logs or job artifacts   ✓ (4)
Run CI/CD pipeline   
Run CI/CD pipeline for a protected branch   ✓ (5)✓ (5)
Stop environments    
Run deployment job for a protected environment  ✓ (5)✓ (6)✓ (6)
View a job with debug logging    
Use pipeline editor   
Run interactive web terminals    
Add project runners to project    
Clear runner caches manually    
Enable shared runners in project    
Manage CI/CD settings    
Manage job triggers    
Manage project-level CI/CD variables    
Manage project-level Secure Files     
Use environment terminals     
Delete pipelines     
  1. If the project is public and Public pipelines is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD.
  2. If Public pipelines is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD.
  3. If the project is public.
  4. Only if the job was both:
    • Triggered by the user.
    • In GitLab 13.0 and later, run for a non-protected branch.
  5. If the user is allowed to merge or push to the protected branch.
  6. If the user if part of a group with at least the Reporter role

Job permissions

This table shows granted privileges for jobs triggered by specific types of users:

ActionGuest, ReporterDeveloperMaintainerAdministrator
Run CI job 
Clone source and LFS from current project 
Clone source and LFS from public projects 
Clone source and LFS from internal projects ✓ (1)✓ (1)
Clone source and LFS from private projects ✓ (2)✓ (2)✓ (2)
Pull container images from current project 
Pull container images from public projects 
Pull container images from internal projects ✓ (1)✓ (1)
Pull container images from private projects ✓ (2)✓ (2)✓ (2)
Push container images to current project 
Push container images to other projects    
Push source and LFS    
  1. Only if the triggering user is not an external one.
  2. Only if the triggering user is a member of the project. See also Usage of private Docker images with if-not-present pull policy.

Group members permissions

Any user can remove themselves from a group, unless they are the last Owner of the group.

The following table lists group permissions available for each role:

ActionGuestReporterDeveloperMaintainerOwner
Add/remove child epics ✓ (8)
Add an issue to an epic ✓ (7)✓ (7)✓ (7)✓ (7)✓ (7)
Browse group
Pull a container image using the dependency proxy
View Contribution analytics
View group epic
View group wiki pages✓ (5)
View Insights
View Insights charts
View Issue analytics
View value stream analytics
Create/edit group epic  
Create/edit/delete epic boards  
Manage group labels 
Publish packages   
Pull packages  
Delete packages    
Create/edit/delete Maven and generic package duplicate settings    
Enable/disable package request forwarding   
Pull a Container Registry image✓ (6)
Remove a Container Registry image  
View Group DevOps Adoption  
View metrics dashboard annotations 
View Productivity analytics  
Create and edit group wiki pages  
Create project in group  ✓ (2)(4)✓ (2)✓ (2)
Fork project into a group   
Create/edit/delete group milestones 
Create/edit/delete iterations 
Create/edit/delete metrics dashboard annotations  
Enable/disable a dependency proxy   
Purge the dependency proxy for a group    
Create/edit/delete dependency proxy cleanup policies    
Use security dashboard   
View group Audit Events  ✓ (6)✓ (6)
Create subgroup   ✓ (1)
Delete group wiki pages  
Edit epic comments (posted by any user)   
List group deploy tokens   
Manage group push rules    
View/manage group-level Kubernetes cluster   
Create and manage compliance frameworks    
Create/Delete group deploy tokens    
Change group visibility level    
Delete group    
Delete group epic     
Disable notification emails    
Edit group settings    
Edit SAML SSO     ✓ (3)
Filter members by 2FA status    
Manage group level CI/CD variables    
Manage group members    
Share (invite) groups with groups    
View 2FA status of members    
View Billing     ✓ (3)
View group Usage Quotas page    ✓ (3)
View group runners   
Manage group runners    
Migrate groups    
Manage subscriptions, and purchase storage and compute minutes     
  1. Groups can be set to allow either Owners, or Owners and users with the Maintainer role, to create subgroups.
  2. Default project creation role can be changed at:
  3. Does not apply to subgroups.
  4. Developers can push commits to the default branch of a new project only if the default branch protection is set to “Partially protected” or “Not protected”.
  5. In addition, if your group is public or internal, all users who can see the group can also see group wiki pages.
  6. Users can only view events based on their individual actions.
  7. You must have permission to view the epic and edit the issue.
  8. You must have permission to view the parent and child epics.

Subgroup permissions

When you add a member to a subgroup, they inherit the membership and permission level from the parent groups. This model allows access to nested groups if you have membership in one of its parents.

For more information, see subgroup memberships.

Users with Minimal Access

Version history
  • Introduced in GitLab 13.4.
  • Support for inviting users with Minimal Access role introduced in GitLab 15.9.

Users with the Minimal Access role do not:

  • Count as licensed seats on self-managed Ultimate subscriptions or any GitLab.com subscriptions.
  • Automatically have access to projects and subgroups in that root group.

Owners must explicitly add these users to the specific subgroups and projects.

You can use the Minimal Access role to give the same member more than one role in a group:

  1. Add the member to the root group with a Minimal Access role.
  2. Invite the member as a direct member with a specific role in any subgroup or project in that group.

Because of an outstanding issue, when a user with the Minimal Access role:

  • Signs in with standard web authentication, they receive a 404 error when accessing the parent group.
  • Signs in with Group SSO, they receive a 404 error immediately because they are redirected to the parent group page.

To work around the issue, give these users the Guest role or higher to any project or subgroup within the parent group.

Custom roles

Version history

Custom roles allow group members who are assigned the Owner role to create roles specific to the needs of their organization.

For a demo of the custom roles feature, see [Demo] Ultimate Guest can view code on private repositories via custom role.

The following custom roles are available:

  • The Guest+1 role, which allows users with the Guest role to view code.
  • In GitLab 16.1 and later, you can create a custom role that can view vulnerability reports and change the status of the vulnerabilities.
  • In GitLab 16.3 and later, you can create a custom role that can view the dependency list.
  • In GitLab 16.4 and later, you can create a custom role that can approve merge requests.

You can discuss individual custom role and permission requests in issue 391760.

When you enable a custom role for a user with the Guest role, that user has access to elevated permissions, and therefore:

This does not apply to Guest+1, a Guest custom role that only enables the read_code permission. Users with that specific custom role are not considered billable users and do not use a seat.

Create a custom role

Prerequisites:

  • You must be an administrator for the self-managed instance, or have the Owner role in the group you are creating the custom role in.
  • The group must be in the Ultimate tier.
  • You must have:
    • At least one private project so that you can see the effect of giving a user with the Guest role a custom role. The project can be in the group itself or one of that group’s subgroups.
    • A personal access token with the API scope.

GitLab SaaS

Prerequisite:

  • You must have the Owner role in the group you are creating the custom role in.
  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Roles and Permissions.
  3. Select Add new role.
  4. In Base role to use as template, select Guest.
  5. In Role name, enter the custom role’s title.
  6. Select the Permissions for the new custom role.
  7. Select Create new role.

Self Managed GitLab Instances

Prerequisite:

  • You must be an administrator for the self-managed instance you are creating the custom role in.
  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to.
  2. Select Admin Area.
  3. Select Settings > Roles and Permissions.
  4. From the top dropdown list, select the group you want to create a custom role in.
  5. Select Add new role.
  6. In Base role to use as template, select Guest.
  7. In Role name, enter the custom role’s title.
  8. Select the Permissions for the new custom role.
  9. Select Create new role.

To create a custom role, you can also use the API.

Custom role requirements

For every ability, a minimal access level is defined. To be able to create a custom role which enables a certain ability, the member_roles table record has to have the associated minimal access level. For all abilities, the minimal access level is Guest. Only users who have at least the Guest role can be assigned to a custom role.

Some roles and abilities require having other abilities enabled. For example, a custom role can only have administration of vulnerabilities (admin_vulnerability) enabled if reading vulnerabilities (read_vulnerability) is also enabled.

You can see the required minimal access levels and abilities requirements in the following table.

AbilityMinimal access levelRequired ability
read_codeGuest-
read_dependencyGuest-
read_vulnerabilityGuest-
admin_merge_requestGuest-
admin_vulnerabilityGuestread_vulnerability

Associate a custom role with an existing group member

To associate a custom role with an existing group member, a group member with the Owner role:

  1. Invites a user as a direct member to the root group or any subgroup or project in the root group’s hierarchy as a Guest. At this point, this Guest user cannot see any code on the projects in the group or subgroup.
  2. Optional. If the Owner does not know the id of the Guest user receiving a custom role, finds that id by making an API request.

  3. Associates the member with the Guest+1 role using the Group and Project Members API endpoint

    # to update a project membership
    curl --request PUT --header "Content-Type: application/json" --header "Authorization: Bearer <your_access_token>" --data '{"member_role_id": '<member_role_id>', "access_level": 10}' "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/<project_id>/members/<user_id>"
    
    # to update a group membership
    curl --request PUT --header "Content-Type: application/json" --header "Authorization: Bearer <your_access_token>" --data '{"member_role_id": '<member_role_id>', "access_level": 10}' "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/groups/<group_id>/members/<user_id>"
    

    Where:

    • <project_id and <group_id>: The id or URL-encoded path of the project or group associated with the membership receiving the custom role.
    • <member_role_id>: The id of the member role created in the previous section.
    • <user_id>: The id of the user receiving a custom role.

    Now the Guest+1 user can view code on all projects associated with this membership.

Remove a custom role

Prerequisite:

  • You must be an administrator or have the Owner role in the group you are removing the custom role from.

You can remove a custom role from a group only if no group members have that role.

To do this, you can either remove the custom role from all group members with that custom role, or remove those members from the group.

Remove a custom role from a group member

To remove a custom role from a group member, use the Group and Project Members API endpoint and pass an empty member_role_id value.

# to update a project membership
curl --request PUT --header "Content-Type: application/json" --header "Authorization: Bearer <your_access_token>" --data '{"member_role_id": "", "access_level": 10}' "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/<project_id>/members/<user_id>"

# to update a group membership
curl --request PUT --header "Content-Type: application/json" --header "Authorization: Bearer <your_access_token>" --data '{"member_role_id": "", "access_level": 10}' "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/groups/<group_id>/members/<user_id>"

Remove a group member with a custom role from the group

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Manage > Members.
  3. On the member row you want to remove, select the vertical ellipsis () and select Remove member.
  4. In the Remove member confirmation dialog, do not select any checkboxes.
  5. Select Remove member.

Delete the custom role

After you have made sure no group members have that custom role, delete the custom role.

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to.
  2. GitLab.com only. Select Admin Area.
  3. Select Settings > Roles and Permissions.
  4. Select Custom Roles.
  5. In the Actions column, select Delete role () and confirm.

To delete a custom role, you can also use the API. To use the API, you must know the id of the custom role. If you do not know this id, find it by making an API request.

Known issues

  • If a user with a custom role is shared with a group or project, their custom role is not transferred over with them. The user has the regular Guest role in the new group or project.
  • You cannot use an Auditor user as a template for a custom role.