Audit event streaming

Version history

Users can set a streaming destination for a top-level group or instance to receive all audit events about the group, subgroups, and projects, as structured JSON.

Top-level group owners and instance administrators can manage their audit logs in third-party systems. Any service that can receive structured JSON data can be used as the streaming destination.

Each streaming destination can have up to 20 custom HTTP headers included with each streamed event.

GitLab can stream a single event more than once to the same destination. Use the id key in the payload to deduplicate incoming data.

caution
Streaming destinations receive all audit event data, which could include sensitive information. Make sure you trust the streaming destination.

Top-level group streaming destinations

Manage streaming destinations for top-level groups.

HTTP destinations

Manage HTTP streaming destinations for top-level groups.

Add a new HTTP destination

Add a new HTTP streaming destination to a top-level group.

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To add streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select Add streaming destination and select HTTP endpoint to show the section for adding destinations.
  5. In the Name and Destination URL fields, add a destination name and URL.
  6. Optional. Locate the Custom HTTP headers table.
  7. To make the header active, select the Active checkbox. The header will be sent with the audit event.
  8. Select Add header to create a new name and value pair. Enter as many name and value pairs as required. You can add up to 20 headers per streaming destination.
  9. After all headers have been filled out, select Add to add the new streaming destination.

List HTTP destinations

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a group.

To list the streaming destinations for a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand it and see all the custom HTTP headers.

Update an HTTP destination

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a group.

To update a streaming destination’s name:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. In the Name fields, add a destination name to update.
  6. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

To update a streaming destination’s custom HTTP headers:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Custom HTTP headers table.
  6. Locate the header that you wish to update.
  7. To make the header active, select the Active checkbox. The header will be sent with the audit event.
  8. Select Add header to create a new name and value pair. Enter as many name and value pairs as required. You can add up to 20 headers per streaming destination.
  9. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Delete an HTTP destination

Delete streaming destinations for a top-level group. When the last destination is successfully deleted, streaming is disabled for the top-level group.

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a group.

To delete a streaming destination:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Select Delete destination.
  6. Confirm by selecting Delete destination in the dialog.

To delete only the custom HTTP headers for a streaming destination:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Custom HTTP headers table.
  6. Locate the header that you wish to remove.
  7. To the right of the header, select Delete ().
  8. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Verify event authenticity

Introduced in GitLab 15.2.

Each streaming destination has a unique verification token (verificationToken) that can be used to verify the authenticity of the event. This token is either specified by the Owner or generated automatically when the event destination is created and cannot be changed.

Each streamed event contains the verification token in the X-Gitlab-Event-Streaming-Token HTTP header that can be verified against the destination’s value when listing streaming destinations.

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a group.

To list streaming destinations and see the verification tokens:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Verification token input.

Update event filters

Event type filtering in the UI with a defined list of audit event types introduced in GitLab 16.1.

When this feature is enabled for a group, you can permit users to filter streamed audit events per destination. If the feature is enabled with no filters, the destination receives all audit events.

A streaming destination that has an event type filter set has a filtered () label.

To update a streaming destination’s event filters:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Filter by audit event type dropdown list.
  6. Select the dropdown list and select or clear the required event types.
  7. Select Save to update the event filters.

Update namespace filters

Namespace filtering in the UI introduced in GitLab 16.7.

When this feature is enabled for a group, you can permit users to filter streamed audit events per destination. If the feature is enabled with no filters, the destination receives all audit events.

A streaming destination that has a namespace filter set has a filtered () label.

To update a streaming destination’s namespace filters:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Filter by groups or projects dropdown list.
  6. Select the dropdown list and select or clear the required namespaces.
  7. Select Save to update the namespace filter.

Override default content type header

By default, streaming destinations use a content-type header of application/x-www-form-urlencoded. However, you might want to set the content-type header to something else. For example ,application/json.

To override the content-type header default value for a top-level group streaming destination, use either:

Google Cloud Logging destinations

Introduced in GitLab 16.2.

Manage Google Cloud Logging destinations for top-level groups.

Prerequisites

Before setting up Google Cloud Logging streaming audit events, you must:

  1. Create a service account for Google Cloud with the appropriate credentials and permissions. This account is used to configure audit log streaming authentication. For more information, see Creating and managing service accounts in the Google Cloud documentation.
  2. Enable the Logs Writer role for the service account to enable logging on Google Cloud. For more information, see Access control with IAM.
  3. Create a JSON key for the service account. For more information, see Creating a service account key.

Add a new Google Cloud Logging destination

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To add Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select Add streaming destination and select Google Cloud Logging to show the section for adding destinations.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the new destination.
  6. Enter the Google project ID, Google client email, and Google private key from previously-created Google Cloud service account key to add to the new destination.
  7. Enter a random string to use as a log ID for the new destination. You can use this later to filter log results in Google Cloud.
  8. Select Add to add the new streaming destination.

List Google Cloud Logging destinations

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To list Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations for a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the Google Cloud Logging stream to expand and see all the fields.

Update a Google Cloud Logging destination

Button to add private key introduced in GitLab 16.3.

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To update Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the Google Cloud Logging stream to expand.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the destination.
  6. Enter the Google project ID and Google client email from previously-created Google Cloud service account key to update the destination.
  7. Enter a random string to update the log ID for the destination. You can use this later to filter log results in Google Cloud.
  8. Select Add a new private key and enter a Google private key to update the private key.
  9. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Delete a Google Cloud Logging streaming destination

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To delete Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the Google Cloud Logging stream to expand.
  5. Select Delete destination.
  6. Confirm by selecting Delete destination in the dialog.

AWS S3 destinations

Version history

Manage AWS S3 destinations for top-level groups.

Prerequisites

Before setting up AWS S3 streaming audit events, you must:

  1. Create a access key for AWS with the appropriate credentials and permissions. This account is used to configure audit log streaming authentication. For more information, see Managing access keys.
  2. Create a AWS S3 bucket. This bucket is used to store audit log streaming data. For more information, see Creating a bucket

Add a new AWS S3 destination

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To add AWS S3 streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select Add streaming destination and select AWS S3 to show the section for adding destinations.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the new destination.
  6. Enter the Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, Bucket Name, and AWS Region from previously-created AWS access key and bucket to add to the new destination.
  7. Select Add to add the new streaming destination.

List AWS S3 destinations

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To list AWS S3 streaming destinations for a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the AWS S3 stream to expand and see all the fields.

Update a AWS S3 destination

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To update AWS S3 streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the AWS S3 stream to expand.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the destination.
  6. Enter the Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, Bucket Name, and AWS Region from previously-created AWS access key and bucket to update the destination.
  7. Select Add a new Secret Access Key and enter a AWS Secret Access Key to update the Secret Access Key.
  8. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Delete a AWS S3 streaming destination

Prerequisites:

  • Owner role for a top-level group.

To delete AWS S3 streaming destinations to a top-level group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Secure > Audit events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the AWS S3 stream to expand.
  5. Select Delete destination.
  6. Confirm by selecting Delete destination in the dialog.

Instance streaming destinations

Version history

Manage streaming destinations for an entire instance.

HTTP destinations

Manage HTTP streaming destinations for an entire instance.

Add a new HTTP destination

Add a new HTTP streaming destination to an instance.

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To add a streaming destination for an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select Add streaming destination and select HTTP endpoint to show the section for adding destinations.
  5. In the Name and Destination URL fields, add a destination name and URL.
  6. Optional. To add custom HTTP headers, select Add header to create a new name and value pair, and input their values. Repeat this step for as many name and value pairs are required. You can add up to 20 headers per streaming destination.
  7. To make the header active, select the Active checkbox. The header will be sent with the audit event.
  8. Select Add header to create a new name and value pair. Repeat this step for as many name and value pairs are required. You can add up to 20 headers per streaming destination.
  9. After all headers have been filled out, select Add to add the new streaming destination.

List HTTP destinations

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To list the streaming destinations for an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand it and see all the custom HTTP headers.

Update an HTTP destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To update a instance streaming destination’s name:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. In the Name fields, add a destination name to update.
  6. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

To update a instance streaming destination’s custom HTTP headers:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Custom HTTP headers table.
  6. Locate the header that you wish to update.
  7. To make the header active, select the Active checkbox. The header will be sent with the audit event.
  8. Select Add header to create a new name and value pair. Enter as many name and value pairs as required. You can add up to 20 headers per streaming destination.
  9. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Delete an HTTP destination

Delete streaming destinations for an entire instance. When the last destination is successfully deleted, streaming is disabled for the instance.

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To delete the streaming destinations for an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Select Delete destination.
  6. Confirm by selecting Delete destination in the dialog.

To delete only the custom HTTP headers for a streaming destination:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. To the right of the item, Edit ().
  5. Locate the Custom HTTP headers table.
  6. Locate the header that you wish to remove.
  7. To the right of the header, select Delete ().
  8. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Verify event authenticity

Version history

Each streaming destination has a unique verification token (verificationToken) that can be used to verify the authenticity of the event. This token is either specified by the Owner or generated automatically when the event destination is created and cannot be changed.

Each streamed event contains the verification token in the X-Gitlab-Event-Streaming-Token HTTP header that can be verified against the destination’s value when listing streaming destinations.

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To list streaming destinations for an instance and see the verification tokens:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. View the verification token on the right side of each item.

Update event filters

Event type filtering in the UI with a defined list of audit event types introduced in GitLab 16.3.

When this feature is enabled, you can permit users to filter streamed audit events per destination. If the feature is enabled with no filters, the destination receives all audit events.

A streaming destination that has an event type filter set has a filtered () label.

To update a streaming destination’s event filters:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the stream to expand.
  5. Locate the Filter by audit event type dropdown list.
  6. Select the dropdown list and select or clear the required event types.
  7. Select Save to update the event filters.

Override default content type header

By default, streaming destinations use a content-type header of application/x-www-form-urlencoded. However, you might want to set the content-type header to something else. For example ,application/json.

To override the content-type header default value for an instance streaming destination, use either:

Google Cloud Logging destinations

Introduced in GitLab 16.5.

Manage Google Cloud Logging destinations for an entire instance.

Prerequisites

Before setting up Google Cloud Logging streaming audit events, you must:

  1. Create a service account for Google Cloud with the appropriate credentials and permissions. This account is used to configure audit log streaming authentication. For more information, see Creating and managing service accounts in the Google Cloud documentation.
  2. Enable the Logs Writer role for the service account to enable logging on Google Cloud. For more information, see Access control with IAM.
  3. Create a JSON key for the service account. For more information, see Creating a service account key.

Add a new Google Cloud Logging destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To add Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations to an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select Add streaming destination and select Google Cloud Logging to show the section for adding destinations.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the new destination.
  6. Enter the Google project ID, Google client email, and Google private key from previously-created Google Cloud service account key to add to the new destination.
  7. Enter a random string to use as a log ID for the new destination. You can use this later to filter log results in Google Cloud.
  8. Select Add to add the new streaming destination.

List Google Cloud Logging destinations

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To list Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations for an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the Google Cloud Logging stream to expand and see all the fields.

Update a Google Cloud Logging destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To update Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations to an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the Google Cloud Logging stream to expand.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the destination.
  6. Enter the Google project ID and Google client email from previously-created Google Cloud service account key to update the destination.
  7. Enter a random string to update the log ID for the destination. You can use this later to filter log results in Google Cloud.
  8. Select Add a new private key and enter a Google private key to update the private key.
  9. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Delete a Google Cloud Logging streaming destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To delete Google Cloud Logging streaming destinations to an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the Google Cloud Logging stream to expand.
  5. Select Delete destination.
  6. Confirm by selecting Delete destination in the dialog.

AWS S3 destinations

Introduced in GitLab 16.7 with a flag named allow_streaming_instance_audit_events_to_amazon_s3. Disabled by default.

On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To enable the feature, an administrator can enable the feature flag named allow_streaming_instance_audit_events_to_amazon_s3. On GitLab.com, this feature is not available.

Manage AWS S3 destinations for entire instance.

Prerequisites

Before setting up AWS S3 streaming audit events, you must:

  1. Create a access key for AWS with the appropriate credentials and permissions. This account is used to configure audit log streaming authentication. For more information, see Managing access keys.
  2. Create a AWS S3 bucket. This bucket is used to store audit log streaming data. For more information, see Creating a bucket

Add a new AWS S3 destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To add AWS S3 streaming destinations to an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select Add streaming destination and select AWS S3 to show the section for adding destinations.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the new destination.
  6. Enter the Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, Bucket Name, and AWS Region from previously-created AWS access key and bucket to add to the new destination.
  7. Select Add to add the new streaming destination.

List AWS S3 destinations

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To list AWS S3 streaming destinations for an instance.

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the AWS S3 stream to expand and see all the fields.

Update an AWS S3 destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To update AWS S3 streaming destinations to an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the AWS S3 stream to expand.
  5. Enter a random string to use as a name for the destination.
  6. Enter the Access Key ID, Secret Access Key, Bucket Name, and AWS Region from previously-created AWS access key and bucket to update the destination.
  7. Select Add a new Secret Access Key and enter a AWS Secret Access Key to update the Secret Access Key.
  8. Select Save to update the streaming destination.

Delete an AWS S3 streaming destination

Prerequisites:

  • Administrator access on the instance.

To delete AWS S3 streaming destinations on an instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
  2. Select Monitoring > Audit Events.
  3. On the main area, select the Streams tab.
  4. Select the AWS S3 stream to expand.
  5. Select Delete destination.
  6. Confirm by selecting Delete destination in the dialog.

Payload schema

Documentation for an audit event streaming schema was introduced in GitLab 15.3.

Streamed audit events have a predictable schema in the body of the response.

Field Description Notes
author_id User ID of the user who triggered the event  
author_name Human-readable name of the author that triggered the event Helpful when the author no longer exists
created_at Timestamp when event was triggered  
details JSON object containing additional metadata Has no defined schema but often contains additional information about an event
entity_id ID of the audit event’s entity  
entity_path Full path of the entity affected by the auditable event  
entity_type String representation of the type of entity Acceptable values include User, Group, and Key. This list is not exhaustive
event_type String representation of the type of audit event  
id Unique identifier for the audit event Can be used for deduplication if required
ip_address IP address of the host used to trigger the event  
target_details Additional details about the target  
target_id ID of the audit event’s target  
target_type String representation of the target’s type  

JSON payload schema 

{
  "properties": {
    "id": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "author_id": {
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "author_name": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "details": {},
    "ip_address": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "entity_id": {
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "entity_path": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "entity_type": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "event_type": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "target_id": {
      "type": "integer"
    },
    "target_type": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "target_details": {
      "type": "string"
    },
  },
  "type": "object"
}