Getting started with the API¶
python-gitlab only supports GitLab APIs v4.
gitlab.Gitlab
class¶
To connect to a GitLab server, create a gitlab.Gitlab
object:
import gitlab
# private token or personal token authentication
gl = gitlab.Gitlab('http://10.0.0.1', private_token='JVNSESs8EwWRx5yDxM5q')
# oauth token authentication
gl = gitlab.Gitlab('http://10.0.0.1', oauth_token='my_long_token_here')
# job token authentication (to be used in CI)
import os
gl = gitlab.Gitlab('http://10.0.0.1', job_token=os.environ['CI_JOB_TOKEN'])
# anonymous gitlab instance, read-only for public resources
gl = gitlab.Gitlab('http://10.0.0.1')
# make an API request to create the gl.user object. This is mandatory if you
# use the username/password authentication.
gl.auth()
You can also use configuration files to create gitlab.Gitlab
objects:
gl = gitlab.Gitlab.from_config('somewhere', ['/tmp/gl.cfg'])
See the Configuration section for more information about configuration files.
Warning
If the GitLab server you are using redirects requests from http to https,
make sure to use the https://
protocol in the URL definition.
Note on password authentication¶
The /session
API endpoint used for username/password authentication has
been removed from GitLab in version 10.2, and is not available on gitlab.com
anymore. Personal token authentication is the preferred authentication method.
If you need username/password authentication, you can use cookie-based
authentication. You can use the web UI form to authenticate, retrieve cookies,
and then use a custom requests.Session
object to connect to the GitLab API.
The following code snippet demonstrates how to automate this:
https://gist.github.com/gpocentek/bd4c3fbf8a6ce226ebddc4aad6b46c0a.
See issue 380 for a detailed discussion.
Managers¶
The gitlab.Gitlab
class provides managers to access the GitLab resources.
Each manager provides a set of methods to act on the resources. The available
methods depend on the resource type.
Examples:
# list all the projects
projects = gl.projects.list()
for project in projects:
print(project)
# get the group with id == 2
group = gl.groups.get(2)
for project in group.projects.list():
print(project)
# create a new user
user_data = {'email': 'jen@foo.com', 'username': 'jen', 'name': 'Jen'}
user = gl.users.create(user_data)
print(user)
You can list the mandatory and optional attributes for object creation and
update with the manager’s get_create_attrs()
and get_update_attrs()
methods. They return 2 tuples, the first one is the list of mandatory
attributes, the second one is the list of optional attribute:
# v4 only
print(gl.projects.get_create_attrs())
(('name',), ('path', 'namespace_id', ...))
The attributes of objects are defined upon object creation, and depend on the
GitLab API itself. To list the available information associated with an object
use the attributes
attribute:
project = gl.projects.get(1)
print(project.attributes)
Some objects also provide managers to access related GitLab resources:
# list the issues for a project
project = gl.projects.get(1)
issues = project.issues.list()
python-gitlab allows to send any data to the GitLab server when making queries. In case of invalid or missing arguments python-gitlab will raise an exception with the GitLab server error message:
>>> gl.projects.list(sort='invalid value')
...
GitlabListError: 400: sort does not have a valid value
You can use the query_parameters
argument to send arguments that would
conflict with python or python-gitlab when using them as kwargs:
gl.user_activities.list(from='2019-01-01') ## invalid
gl.user_activities.list(query_parameters={'from': '2019-01-01'}) # OK
Gitlab Objects¶
You can update or delete a remote object when it exists locally:
# update the attributes of a resource
project = gl.projects.get(1)
project.wall_enabled = False
# don't forget to apply your changes on the server:
project.save()
# delete the resource
project.delete()
Some classes provide additional methods, allowing more actions on the GitLab resources. For example:
# star a git repository
project = gl.projects.get(1)
project.star()
Base types¶
The gitlab
package provides some base types.
gitlab.Gitlab
is the primary class, handling the HTTP requests. It holds the GitLab URL and authentication information.gitlab.base.RESTObject
is the base class for all the GitLab v4 objects. These objects provide an abstraction for GitLab resources (projects, groups, and so on).gitlab.base.RESTManager
is the base class for v4 objects managers, providing the API to manipulate the resources and their attributes.
Lazy objects¶
To avoid useless API calls to the server you can create lazy objects. These objects are created locally using a known ID, and give access to other managers and methods.
The following example will only make one API call to the GitLab server to star a project (the previous example used 2 API calls):
# star a git repository
project = gl.projects.get(1, lazy=True) # no API call
project.star() # API call
Pagination¶
You can use pagination to iterate over long lists. All the Gitlab objects
listing methods support the page
and per_page
parameters:
ten_first_groups = gl.groups.list(page=1, per_page=10)
Warning
The first page is page 1, not page 0.
By default GitLab does not return the complete list of items. Use the all
parameter to get all the items when using listing methods:
all_groups = gl.groups.list(all=True)
all_owned_projects = gl.projects.list(owned=True, all=True)
You can define the per_page
value globally to avoid passing it to every
list()
method call:
gl = gitlab.Gitlab(url, token, per_page=50)
Gitlab allows to also use keyset pagination. You can supply it to your project listing,
but you can also do so globally. Be aware that GitLab then also requires you to only use supported
order options. At the time of writing, only order_by="id"
works.
gl = gitlab.Gitlab(url, token, pagination="keyset", order_by="id", per_page=100)
gl.projects.list()
Reference: https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/api/README.html#keyset-based-pagination
list()
methods can also return a generator object which will handle the
next calls to the API when required. This is the recommended way to iterate
through a large number of items:
items = gl.groups.list(as_list=False)
for item in items:
print(item.attributes)
The generator exposes extra listing information as received from the server:
current_page
: current page number (first page is 1)prev_page
: ifNone
the current page is the first onenext_page
: ifNone
the current page is the last oneper_page
: number of items per pagetotal_pages
: total number of pages availabletotal
: total number of items in the list
Sudo¶
If you have the administrator status, you can use sudo
to act as another
user. For example:
p = gl.projects.create({'name': 'awesome_project'}, sudo='user1')
Advanced HTTP configuration¶
python-gitlab relies on requests
Session
objects to perform all the
HTTP requests to the Gitlab servers.
You can provide your own Session
object with custom configuration when
you create a Gitlab
object.
Context manager¶
You can use Gitlab
objects as context managers. This makes sure that the
requests.Session
object associated with a Gitlab
instance is always
properly closed when you exit a with
block:
with gitlab.Gitlab(host, token) as gl:
gl.projects.list()
Warning
The context manager will also close the custom Session
object you might
have used to build the Gitlab
instance.
Proxy configuration¶
The following sample illustrates how to define a proxy configuration when using python-gitlab:
import gitlab
import requests
session = requests.Session()
session.proxies = {
'https': os.environ.get('https_proxy'),
'http': os.environ.get('http_proxy'),
}
gl = gitlab.gitlab(url, token, api_version=4, session=session)
Reference: https://2.python-requests.org/en/master/user/advanced/#proxies
SSL certificate verification¶
python-gitlab relies on the CA certificate bundle in the certifi package that comes with the requests library.
If you need python-gitlab to use your system CA store instead, you can provide the path to the CA bundle in the REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE environment variable.
Reference: https://2.python-requests.org/en/master/user/advanced/#ssl-cert-verification
Client side certificate¶
The following sample illustrates how to use a client-side certificate:
import gitlab
import requests
session = requests.Session()
session.cert = ('/path/to/client.cert', '/path/to/client.key')
gl = gitlab.gitlab(url, token, api_version=4, session=session)
Reference: https://2.python-requests.org/en/master/user/advanced/#client-side-certificates
Rate limits¶
python-gitlab obeys the rate limit of the GitLab server by default. On receiving a 429 response (Too Many Requests), python-gitlab sleeps for the amount of time in the Retry-After header that GitLab sends back. If GitLab does not return a response with the Retry-After header, python-gitlab will perform an exponential backoff.
If you don’t want to wait, you can disable the rate-limiting feature, by
supplying the obey_rate_limit
argument.
import gitlab
import requests
gl = gitlab.gitlab(url, token, api_version=4)
gl.projects.list(all=True, obey_rate_limit=False)
If you do not disable the rate-limiting feature, you can supply a custom value
for max_retries
; by default, this is set to 10. To retry without bound when
throttled, you can set this parameter to -1. This parameter is ignored if
obey_rate_limit
is set to False
.
import gitlab
import requests
gl = gitlab.gitlab(url, token, api_version=4)
gl.projects.list(all=True, max_retries=12)
Warning
You will get an Exception, if you then go over the rate limit of your GitLab instance.
Transient errors¶
GitLab server can sometimes return a transient HTTP error.
python-gitlab can automatically retry in such case, when
retry_transient_errors
argument is set to True
. When enabled,
HTTP error codes 500 (Internal Server Error), 502 (502 Bad Gateway),
503 (Service Unavailable), and 504 (Gateway Timeout) are retried. By
default an exception is raised for these errors.
import gitlab
import requests
gl = gitlab.gitlab(url, token, api_version=4)
gl.projects.list(all=True, retry_transient_errors=True)
Timeout¶
python-gitlab will by default use the timeout
option from it’s configuration
for all requests. This is passed downwards to the requests
module at the
time of making the HTTP request. However if you would like to override the
global timeout parameter for a particular call, you can provide the timeout
parameter to that API invocation:
import gitlab
gl = gitlab.gitlab(url, token, api_version=4)
gl.projects.import_github(ACCESS_TOKEN, 123456, "root", timeout=120.0)