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gitlab-foss/doc/user/permissions.md
2025-07-09 15:07:48 +00:00

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stage, group, info, title
stage group info title
Software Supply Chain Security Authorization To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/product/ux/technical-writing/#assignments Roles and permissions

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  • Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
  • Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

{{< /details >}}

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

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You can assign users a default role or a custom role.

The available default roles are:

  • Guest (This role applies to private and internal projects only.)
  • Planner
  • 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.

Group members permissions

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

The following table lists group permissions available for each role:

Analytics group permissions

Group permission for analytics features including value streams, product analytics, and insights:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View insights
View insights charts
View issue analytics
View contribution analytics
View value stream analytics
View productivity analytics
View group DevOps adoption
View metrics dashboard annotations
Manage metrics dashboard annotations

Application security group permissions

Group permissions for Application Security features including dependency management, security analyzers, security policies, and vulnerability management.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View dependency list
View vulnerability report
View security dashboard
Create security policy project
Assign security policy project

CI/CD group permissions

Group permissions for CI/CD features including runners, variables, and protected environments:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View group runners
Manage group-level Kubernetes cluster
Manage group runners
Manage group level CI/CD variables
Manage group protected environments

Compliance group permissions

Group permissions for compliance features including compliance center, audit events, compliance frameworks, and licenses.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View audit events 1
View licenses in dependency list
View compliance center
Manage compliance frameworks
Assign compliance frameworks to projects
Manage audit streams

Footnotes

  1. Users can view only events based on their individual actions. For more details, see the prerequisites.

GitLab Duo group permissions

Group permissions for GitLab Duo:

Action Non-member Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Use GitLab Duo features 1
Configure GitLab Duo feature availability
Configure GitLab Duo Self Hosted
Enable beta and experimental features
Purchase GitLab Duo seats

Footnotes

  1. If the user has GitLab Duo Pro or Enterprise, the user must be assigned a seat to gain access to that GitLab Duo add-on. If the user has GitLab Duo Core, there are no other requirements.

Groups group permissions

Group permissions for group features:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Browse group
Search projects in group
View group audit events 1
Create project in group 2
Create subgroup 3
Change custom settings for project integrations
Edit epic comments (posted by any user)
Fork project into a group
View Billing 4
View group Usage Quotas page 4
Migrate group
Delete group
Manage subscriptions, storage, and compute minutes
Manage group access tokens
Change group visibility level
Edit group settings
Configure project templates
Configure SAML SSO 4
Disable notification emails
Import project

Footnotes

  1. Developers and Maintainers can only view events based on their individual actions. For more information, see the prerequisites.
  2. Developers, Maintainers and Owners: Only if the project creation role is set for the instance or for the group.
    Developers: 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".
  3. Maintainers: Only if users with the Maintainer role can create subgroups.
  4. Does not apply to subgroups.

Project planning group permissions

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View epic
Search epics 1
Add issues to an epic 2
Add child epics 3
Add internal notes
Create epics
Update epic details
Manage epic boards
Delete epics

Footnotes

  1. You must have permission to view the epic.
  2. You must have permission to view the epic and edit the issue.
  3. You must have permission to view the parent and child epics.

Group permissions for wikis:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View group wiki 1
Search group wikis 2
Create group wiki pages
Edit group wiki pages
Delete group wiki pages

Footnotes

  1. Guests: In addition, if your group is public or internal, all users who can see the group can also see group wiki pages.
  2. Guests: In addition, if your group is public or internal, all users who can see the group can also search group wiki pages.

Packages and registries group permissions

Group permissions for container registry:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Pull container registry images 1
Pull container images with the dependency proxy
Delete container registry images

Footnotes

  1. Guests can only view events based on their individual actions.

Group permissions for package registry:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Pull packages
Publish packages
Delete packages
Manage package settings
Manage dependency proxy cleanup policies
Enable dependency proxy
Disable dependency proxy
Purge the group dependency proxy
Enable package request forwarding
Disable package request forwarding

Repository group permissions

Group permissions for repository features including merge requests, push rules, and deploy tokens.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Manage deploy tokens
Manage merge request settings
Manage push rules

User management group permissions

Group permissions for user management:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View 2FA status of members
Filter members by 2FA status
Manage group members
Manage group-level custom roles
Share (invite) groups to groups

Workspace group permissions

Groups permissions for workspaces:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View workspace cluster agents mapped to a group
Map or unmap workspace cluster agents to and from a group

Project members permissions

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.
  • 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.
  • 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 tables list the project permissions available for each role.

Analytics

Project permissions for analytics features including value streams, usage trends, product analytics, and insights.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View issue analytics
View value stream analytics
View CI/CD analytics
View code review analytics
View DORA metrics
View merge request analytics
View repository analytics
View Value Streams Dashboard & AI impact analytics

Application security

Project permissions for application security features including dependency management, security analyzers, security policies, and vulnerability management.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View dependency list
View licenses in dependency list
View security dashboard
View vulnerability report
Create vulnerability manually
Create issue from vulnerability finding
Create on-demand DAST scans
Run on-demand DAST scans
Create individual security policies
Change individual security policies
Delete individual security policies
Create CVE ID request
Change vulnerability status 1
Create security policy project
Assign security policy project
Manage security configurations

Footnotes

  1. The admin_vulnerability permission was removed from the Developer role in GitLab 17.0.

CI/CD

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

Project Owners can perform any listed action, and can delete pipelines:

Action Non-member Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer
View existing artifacts 1
View list of jobs 2
View artifacts 3
Download artifacts 3
View environments 1
View job logs and job details page 2
View pipelines and pipeline details pages 2
View pipelines tab in MR 1
View vulnerabilities in a pipeline 4
Run deployment job for a protected environment 5
View agents for Kubernetes
View project Secure Files
Download project Secure Files
View a job with debug logging
Create environments
Delete environments
Stop environments
Run, rerun, or retry CI/CD pipeline or job
Run, rerun, or retry CI/CD pipeline or job for a protected branch 6
Delete job logs or job artifacts 7
Enable review apps
Cancel jobs 8
Read Terraform state
Run interactive web terminals
Use pipeline editor
Manage agents for Kubernetes
Manage CI/CD settings
Manage job triggers
Manage project CI/CD variables
Manage project protected environments
Manage project Secure Files
Manage Terraform state
Add project runners to project
Clear runner caches manually
Enable instance runners in project

Footnotes

  1. Non-members and guests: Only if the project is public.
  2. Non-members: Only if the project is public and Project-based pipeline visibility is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD.
    Guests: Only if Project-based pipeline visibility is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD.
  3. Non-members: Only if the project is public, Project-based pipeline visibility is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD, and artifacts:public: false is not set on the job.
    Guests: Only if Project-based pipeline visibility is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD and artifacts:public: false is not set on the job.
    Reporters: Only if artifacts:public: false is not set on the job.
  4. Guests: Only if Project-based pipeline visibility is enabled in Project Settings > CI/CD.
  5. Reporters: Only if the user is part of a group with access to the protected environment.
    Developers and maintainers: Only if the user is allowed to deploy to the protected branch.
  6. Developers and maintainers: Only if the user is allowed to merge or push to the protected branch.
  7. Developers: Only if the job was triggered by the user and runs for a non-protected branch.
  8. Cancellation permissions can be restricted in the pipeline settings.

This table shows granted privileges for jobs triggered by specific roles.

Project Owners can do any listed action, but no users can push source and LFS together. Guest users and members with the Reporter role cannot do any of these actions.

Action Developer Maintainer
Clone source and LFS from current project
Clone source and LFS from public projects
Clone source and LFS from internal projects 1
Clone source and LFS from private projects 2
Pull container images from current project
Pull container images from public projects
Pull container images from internal projects 1
Pull container images from private projects 2
Push container images to current project 3

Footnotes

  1. Developers and Maintainers: Only if the triggering user is not an external user.
  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.
  3. You cannot push container images to other projects.

Compliance

Project permissions for compliance features including compliance center, audit events, compliance frameworks, and licenses.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View allowed and denied licenses in MR 1
View audit events 2
View licenses in dependency list
Manage audit streams

Footnotes

  1. On GitLab Self-Managed, users with the Guest role are able to perform this action only on public and internal projects (not on private projects). External users must have at least the Reporter role, even if the project is internal. Users with the Guest role on GitLab.com are able to perform this action only on public projects because internal visibility is not available.
  2. Users can only view events based on their individual actions. For more details, see the prerequisites.

GitLab Duo

Project permissions for GitLab Duo:

Action Non-member Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Use GitLab Duo features 1
Configure GitLab Duo feature availability

Footnotes

  1. Code Suggestions requires a user being assigned a seat to gain access to a GitLab Duo add-on.

Machine learning model registry and experiment

Project permissions for model registry and model experiments.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View models and versions 1
View model experiments 2
Create models, versions, and artifacts 3
Edit models, versions, and artifacts
Delete models, versions, and artifacts
Create experiments and candidates
Edit experiments and candidates
Delete experiments and candidates

Footnotes

  1. Non-members can only view models and versions in public projects with the Everyone with access visibility level. Non-members can't view internal projects, even if they're logged in.
  2. Non-members can only view model experiments in public projects with the Everyone with access visibility level. Non-members can't view internal projects, even if they're logged in.
  3. You can also upload and download artifacts with the package registry API, which uses a different set of permissions.

Monitoring

Project permissions for monitoring including error tracking and incident management:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View an incident
Assign an incident management alert
Participate in on-call rotation for Incident Management
View alerts
View error tracking list
View escalation policies
View on-call schedules
Create incident
Change alert status
Change incident severity
Change incident escalation status
Change incident escalation policy
Manage error tracking
Manage escalation policies
Manage on-call schedules

Project planning

Project permissions for issues:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View issues
Search issues and comments
Create issues
View confidential issues
Search confidential issues and comments
Edit issues, including metadata, item locking, and resolving threads 1
Add internal notes
Close and reopen issues 2
Manage design management files
Manage issue boards
Manage milestones
Search milestones
Archive or reopen requirements 3
Create or edit requirements 4
Import or export requirements
Archive test cases
Create test cases
Move test cases
Reopen test cases
Import issues from a CSV file
Export issues to a CSV file
Delete issues
Manage Feature flags

Footnotes

  1. Metadata includes labels, assignees, milestones, epics, weight, confidentiality, time tracking, and more. Guest users can only set metadata when creating an issue. They cannot change the metadata on existing issues. Guest users can modify the title and description of issues that they authored or are assigned to.
  2. Guest users can close and reopen issues that they authored or are assigned to.
  3. Guest users can archive and reopen issues that they authored or are assigned to.
  4. Guest users can modify the title and description that they authored or are assigned to.

Project permissions for tasks:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View tasks
Search tasks
Create tasks
Edit tasks, including metadata, item locking, and resolving threads 1
Add a linked item
Convert to another item type
Remove from issue
Add internal note
Delete tasks 2

Footnotes

  1. Guest users can modify the title and description that they authored or are assigned to.
  2. Users who don't have the Planner or Owner role can delete the tasks they authored.

Project permissions for OKRs:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View OKRs
Search OKRs
Create OKRs
Edit OKRs, including metadata, item locking, and resolving threads
Add a child OKR
Add a linked item
Convert to another item type
Edit OKRs
Change confidentiality in OKR
Add internal note

Project permissions for wikis:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View wiki
Search wikis
Create wiki pages
Edit wiki pages
Delete wiki pages

Packages and registry

Project permissions for container registry:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Pull container registry images 1
Push container registry images
Delete container registry images
Manage cleanup policies
Create tag protection rules
Create immutable tag protection rules

Footnotes:

  1. Viewing the container registry and pulling images is controlled by container registry visibility permissions.

Project permissions for package registry:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Pull packages 1
Publish packages
Delete packages
Delete files associated with a package

Footnotes

  1. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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.

Projects

Project permissions for project features:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
Download project 1
Leave comments
Reposition comments on images (posted by any user) 2
View insights
View requirements
View time tracking reports 1
View snippets
Search snippets and comments
View project traffic statistics
Create snippets
View releases 3
Manage releases 4
Configure webhooks
Manage project access tokens 5
Export project
Rename project
Edit project badges
Edit project settings
Change project features visibility level 6
Change custom settings for project integrations
Edit comments posted by other users
Add deploy keys
Manage project operations
View Usage Quotas page
Globally delete snippets
Globally edit snippets
Archive project
Change project visibility level
Delete project
Disable notification emails
Transfer project

Footnotes

  1. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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. Applies only to comments on Design Management designs.

  3. 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.

  4. If the tag is protected, this depends on the access given to Developers and Maintainers.

  5. For GitLab Self-Managed, project access tokens are available in all tiers. For GitLab.com, project access tokens are supported in the Premium and Ultimate tier (excluding trial licenses).

  6. A Maintainer or Owner can't change project features visibility level if project visibility is set to private.

Project permissions for GitLab Pages:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View GitLab Pages protected by access control
Manage GitLab Pages
Manage GitLab Pages domain and certificates
Remove GitLab Pages

Repository

Project permissions for repository features including source code, branches, push rules, and more:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View project code 1
Search project code 2
Search commits and comments 3
Pull project code 4
View commit status
Create commit status 5
Update commit status 5
Create Git tags
Delete Git tags
Create new branches
Push to non-protected branches
Force push to non-protected branches
Delete non-protected branches
Manage protected branches
Push to protected branches 5
Delete protected branches
Manage protected tags
Manage push rules
Remove fork relationship
Force push to protected branches 6

Footnotes

  1. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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. In GitLab 15.9 and later, users with the Guest role and an Ultimate license can view private repository content if an administrator (on GitLab Self-Managed or GitLab Dedicated) or group owner (on GitLab.com) gives those users permission. The administrator or group owner can create a custom role through the API or UI and assign that role to the users.
  2. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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. In GitLab 15.9 and later, users with the Guest role and an Ultimate license can search private repository content if an administrator (on GitLab Self-Managed or GitLab Dedicated) or group owner (on GitLab.com) gives those users permission. The administrator or group owner can create a custom role through the API or UI and assign that role to the users.
  3. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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.
  4. If the branch is protected, this depends on the access given to Developers and Maintainers.
  5. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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. In GitLab 15.9 and later, users with the Guest role and an Ultimate license can view private repository content if an administrator (on GitLab Self-Managed or GitLab Dedicated) or group owner (on GitLab.com) gives those users permission. The administrator or group owner can create a custom role through the API or UI and assign that role to the users.
  6. Not allowed for Guest, Reporter, Developer, Maintainer, or Owner. See protected branches.

Merge requests

Project permissions for merge requests:

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View a merge request 1
Search merge requests and comments 1
Add internal note
Comment and add suggestions
Create snippets
Create merge request 2
Update merge request details 3
Manage merge request settings
Manage merge request approval rules
Delete merge request

Footnotes

  1. On GitLab Self-Managed, 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. In projects that accept contributions from external members, users can create, edit, and close their own merge requests. For private projects, this excludes the Guest role as those users cannot clone private projects. For internal projects, includes users with read-only access to the project, as they can clone internal projects.
  3. For information on eligible approvers for merge requests, see eligible approvers.

User management

Project permissions for user management.

Action Guest Planner Reporter Developer Maintainer Owner
View 2FA status of members
Manage project members 1
Share (invite) projects with groups 2

Footnotes

  1. Maintainers cannot create, demote, or remove Owners, and they cannot promote users to the Owner role. They also cannot approve Owner role access requests.
  2. When Share Group Lock is enabled the project can't be shared with other groups. It does not affect group with group sharing.

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

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  • Tier: Premium, Ultimate
  • Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

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{{< history >}}

  • Support for inviting users with Minimal Access role introduced in GitLab 15.9.

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Users with the Minimal Access role do not:

  • Automatically have access to projects and subgroups in that top-level group.
  • Count as licensed seats on GitLab Self-Managed Ultimate subscriptions or any GitLab.com subscriptions, provided the user has no other role anywhere in the instance or in the GitLab.com namespace.

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

You can use the Minimal Access role with SAML SSO for GitLab.com groups to control access to groups and projects in the group hierarchy. You can set the default role to Minimal Access for members automatically added to the top-level group through SSO.

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > SAML SSO.
  3. From the Default membership role dropdown list, select Minimal Access.
  4. Select Save changes.

Minimal access users receive 404 errors

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 in the parent group. Guest users consume a license seat in the Premium tier but do not in the Ultimate tier.