Project import/export API

See also:

Schedule an export

Start a new export.

The endpoint also accepts an upload parameter. This parameter is a hash. It contains all the necessary information to upload the exported project to a web server or to any S3-compatible platform. At the moment we only support binary data file uploads to the final server.

The upload[url] parameter is required if the upload parameter is present. 

POST /projects/:id/export
Attribute Type Required Description
id integer/string yes The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user
description string no Overrides the project description
upload hash no Hash that contains the information to upload the exported project to a web server
upload[url] string yes The URL to upload the project
upload[http_method] string no The HTTP method to upload the exported project. Only PUT and POST methods allowed. Default is PUT 
curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/export" \
    --data "upload[http_method]=PUT" \
    --data-urlencode "upload[url]=https://example-bucket.s3.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com/backup?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIMBJHN2O62W8IELQ%2F20180312%2Feu-west-3%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20180312T110328Z&X-Amz-Expires=900&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=8413facb20ff33a49a147a0b4abcff4c8487cc33ee1f7e450c46e8f695569dbd"

{
  "message": "202 Accepted"
}
note
The upload request is sent with Content-Type: application/gzip header. Ensure that your pre-signed URL includes this as part of the signature.

Export status

Get the status of export. 

GET /projects/:id/export
Attribute Type Required Description
id integer/string yes The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user 
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/export"

Status can be one of:

  • none: No exports queued, started, finished, or being regenerated.
  • queued: The request for export is received, and is in the queue to be processed.
  • started: The export process has started and is in progress. It includes:
    • The process of exporting.
    • Actions performed on the resulting file, such as sending an email notifying the user to download the file, or uploading the exported file to a web server.
  • finished: After the export process has completed and the user has been notified.
  • regeneration_in_progress: An export file is available to download, and a request to generate a new export is in process.

_links are only present when export has finished.

created_at is the project create timestamp, not the export start time. 

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": "Itaque perspiciatis minima aspernatur corporis consequatur.",
  "name": "Gitlab Test",
  "name_with_namespace": "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Test",
  "path": "gitlab-test",
  "path_with_namespace": "gitlab-org/gitlab-test",
  "created_at": "2017-08-29T04:36:44.383Z",
  "export_status": "finished",
  "_links": {
    "api_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/export/download",
    "web_url": "https://gitlab.example.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-test/download_export"
  }
}

Export download

Download the finished export. 

GET /projects/:id/export/download
Attribute Type Required Description
id integer/string yes The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user 
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" --remote-header-name \
     --remote-name "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/5/export/download"

ls *export.tar.gz
2017-12-05_22-11-148_namespace_project_export.tar.gz

Import a file 

POST /projects/import
Attribute Type Required Description
namespace integer/string no The ID or path of the namespace to import the project to. Defaults to the current user’s namespace
name string no The name of the project to be imported. Defaults to the path of the project if not provided
file string yes The file to be uploaded
path string yes Name and path for new project
overwrite boolean no If there is a project with the same path the import overwrites it. Default to false
override_params Hash no Supports all fields defined in the Project API

The override parameters passed take precedence over all values defined inside the export file.

To upload a file from your file system, use the --form argument. This causes cURL to post data using the header Content-Type: multipart/form-data. The file= parameter must point to a file on your file system and be preceded by @. For example: 

curl --request POST --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" --form "path=api-project" \
     --form "file=@/path/to/file" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/import"

cURL doesn’t support posting a file from a remote server. Importing a project from a remote server can be accomplished through something like the following: 

import requests
from io import BytesIO

s3_file = requests.get(presigned_url)

url =  'https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/import'
files = {'file': ('file.tar.gz', BytesIO(s3_file.content))}
data = {
    "path": "example-project",
    "namespace": "example-group"
}
headers = {
    'Private-Token': "<your_access_token>"
}

requests.post(url, headers=headers, data=data, files=files)

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": null,
  "name": "api-project",
  "name_with_namespace": "Administrator / api-project",
  "path": "api-project",
  "path_with_namespace": "root/api-project",
  "created_at": "2018-02-13T09:05:58.023Z",
  "import_status": "scheduled",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": []
}
note
The maximum import file size can be set by the Administrator, default is 0 (unlimited).. As an administrator, you can modify the maximum import file size. To do so, use the max_import_size option in the Application settings API or the Admin UI. Default

Import a file from a remote object storage

Beta.

This endpoint is behind a feature flag that is enabled by default.

To enable this endpoint: 

Feature.enable(:import_project_from_remote_file)

To disable this endpoint: 

Feature.disable(:import_project_from_remote_file)

POST /projects/remote-import
Attribute Type Required Description
namespace integer/string no The ID or path of the namespace to import the project to. Defaults to the current user’s namespace.
name string no The name of the project to import. If not provided, defaults to the path of the project.
url string yes URL for the file to import.
path string yes Name and path for the new project.
overwrite boolean no Whether to overwrite a project with the same path when importing. Defaults to false.
override_params Hash no Supports all fields defined in the Project API.

The passed override parameters take precedence over all values defined in the export file. 

curl --request POST \
  --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/remote-import" \
  --data '{"url":"https://remoteobject/file?token=123123","path":"remote-project"}'

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": null,
  "name": "remote-project",
  "name_with_namespace": "Administrator / remote-project",
  "path": "remote-project",
  "path_with_namespace": "root/remote-project",
  "created_at": "2018-02-13T09:05:58.023Z",
  "import_status": "scheduled",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [],
  "import_error": null
}

The Content-Length header must return a valid number. The maximum file size is 10 gigabytes. The Content-Type header must be application/gzip.

Import a file from AWS S3

Version history
POST /projects/remote-import-s3
Attribute Type Required Description
namespace integer/string no The ID or path of the namespace to import the project to. Defaults to the current user’s namespace.
name string no The name of the project to import. If not provided, defaults to the path of the project.
path string yes The full path of the new project.
region string yes
bucket_name string yes
file_key string yes
access_key_id string yes .
secret_access_key string yes

The passed override parameters take precedence over all values defined in the export file. 

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/remote-import-s3" \
  --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your gitlab access key>" \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
  "name": "Sample Project",
  "path": "sample-project",
  "region": "<Your S3 region name>",
  "bucket_name": "<Your S3 bucket name>",
  "file_key": "<Your S3 file key>",
  "access_key_id": "<Your AWS access key id>",
  "secret_access_key": "<Your AWS secret access key>"
}'

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": null,
  "name": "Sample project",
  "name_with_namespace": "Administrator / sample-project",
  "path": "sample-project",
  "path_with_namespace": "root/sample-project",
  "created_at": "2018-02-13T09:05:58.023Z",
  "import_status": "scheduled",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [],
  "import_error": null
}

Import status

Get the status of an import. 

GET /projects/:id/import
Attribute Type Required Description
id integer/string yes The ID or URL-encoded path of the project owned by the authenticated user 
curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" "https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/1/import"

Status can be one of:

  • none
  • scheduled
  • failed
  • started
  • finished

If the status is failed, it includes the import error message under import_error. If the status is failed, started or finished, the failed_relations array might be populated with any occurrences of relations that failed to import either due to unrecoverable errors or because retries were exhausted (a typical example are query timeouts.)

note
An element’s id field in failed_relations references the failure record, not the relation.
note
The failed_relations array is capped to 100 items.
{
  "id": 1,
  "description": "Itaque perspiciatis minima aspernatur corporis consequatur.",
  "name": "Gitlab Test",
  "name_with_namespace": "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Test",
  "path": "gitlab-test",
  "path_with_namespace": "gitlab-org/gitlab-test",
  "created_at": "2017-08-29T04:36:44.383Z",
  "import_status": "started",
  "import_type": "github",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [
    {
      "id": 42,
      "created_at": "2020-04-02T14:48:59.526Z",
      "exception_class": "RuntimeError",
      "exception_message": "A failure occurred",
      "source": "custom error context",
      "relation_name": "merge_requests",
      "line_number": 0
    }
  ]
}

When importing from GitHub, the a stats field lists how many objects were already fetched from GitHub and how many were already imported: 

{
  "id": 1,
  "description": "Itaque perspiciatis minima aspernatur corporis consequatur.",
  "name": "Gitlab Test",
  "name_with_namespace": "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Test",
  "path": "gitlab-test",
  "path_with_namespace": "gitlab-org/gitlab-test",
  "created_at": "2017-08-29T04:36:44.383Z",
  "import_status": "started",
  "import_type": "github",
  "correlation_id": "mezklWso3Za",
  "failed_relations": [
    {
      "id": 42,
      "created_at": "2020-04-02T14:48:59.526Z",
      "exception_class": "RuntimeError",
      "exception_message": "A failure occurred",
      "source": "custom error context",
      "relation_name": "merge_requests",
      "line_number": 0
    }
  ],
  "stats": {
    "fetched": {
      "diff_note": 19,
      "issue": 3,
      "label": 1,
      "note": 3,
      "pull_request": 2,
      "pull_request_merged_by": 1,
      "pull_request_review": 16
    },
    "imported": {
      "diff_note": 19,
      "issue": 3,
      "label": 1,
      "note": 3,
      "pull_request": 2,
      "pull_request_merged_by": 1,
      "pull_request_review": 16
    }
  }
}