GitLab

Connecting GitLab

OpenAnalyst connects to GitLab using personal access tokens or OAuth. Both GitLab.com (cloud) and self-hosted GitLab instances are supported. Self-hosted GitLab is available on Max and Enterprise plans.

Connecting GitLab.com via OAuth

1. In the sidebar, navigate to Integrations.
2. Find GitLab in the integrations list and click Connect.
3. Select GitLab.com (OAuth) as the connection method.
4. You will be redirected to GitLab to authorize OpenAnalyst. Click Authorize.
5. After authorization, select the groups and projects you want to analyze and click Save configuration.

Connecting Self-Hosted GitLab via Access Token

1. In your GitLab instance, go to your user profile and navigate to Preferences > Access Tokens.
2. Create a new personal access token with the following scopes: read_api, read_user, read_repository.
3. Copy the token value — it is only shown once.
4. In OpenAnalyst Integrations, choose GitLab (Self-Hosted) and enter your GitLab instance URL (for example, https://gitlab.yourcompany.com) and the access token.
5. Click Test connection to verify, then click Save.

Analyzing GitLab Data

After connecting, OpenAnalyst syncs data from your selected GitLab projects. The following data types are available for analysis:

All synced data is available in the Data Explorer and the AI Chat interface. Example natural-language queries you can ask:

• "What is our average pipeline duration trend over the past 60 days?"
• "Which pipelines failed most frequently last week and in which stage?"
• "Show me merge request cycle time by project for this quarter."

CI/CD Pipeline Analytics

GitLab CI/CD pipeline data is one of the most powerful aspects of the OpenAnalyst GitLab integration. The platform tracks every pipeline run and surfaces metrics such as:

• Pipeline success rate — Percentage of successful pipelines over time, broken down by branch or project.
• Average duration — How long pipelines take to complete, with trend analysis to detect slowdowns.
• Failure hotspots — Which jobs or stages fail most often, helping teams prioritize reliability improvements.
• Queue time — Time jobs spend waiting for available runners, useful for capacity planning.
• Flaky job detection — Jobs that intermittently fail and succeed without code changes are flagged for investigation.

Pre-built CI/CD analytics dashboard templates are available under Dashboards > New Dashboard > From Template > GitLab.

Self-Hosted GitLab Support

OpenAnalyst fully supports self-hosted GitLab instances (GitLab CE and EE) running version 14.0 or later. When connecting a self-hosted instance:

• Ensure the GitLab instance is reachable from the internet or configure a network tunnel. OpenAnalyst connects outbound to your instance's API endpoint.
• If your instance uses a self-signed TLS certificate, contact OpenAnalyst support to whitelist the certificate fingerprint.
• For instances behind a VPN, use the OpenAnalyst agent (available on Enterprise plans) which can be deployed on-premises to proxy API calls securely.

Setting Up Access Tokens

For long-running integrations, OpenAnalyst recommends creating a dedicated service account in GitLab rather than using a personal access token tied to an individual user. This prevents the integration from breaking if the individual's account is deactivated.

1. Create a new GitLab user account for the OpenAnalyst service (for example, openanalyst-bot).
2. Add the service account to each project you want to analyze with at least Reporter role access.
3. Log in as the service account and create a personal access token with read_api scope.
4. Use this token when configuring the OpenAnalyst integration.

Alternatively, if your GitLab instance supports group access tokens (GitLab 15.7+), you can create a group access token scoped to an entire group rather than managing project-level access individually:

# GitLab API: Create group access token
curl -X POST "https://gitlab.yourcompany.com/api/v4/groups/YOUR_GROUP_ID/access_tokens" \
  -H "PRIVATE-TOKEN: your_admin_token" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "OpenAnalyst Integration",
    "scopes": ["read_api", "read_repository"],
    "access_level": 20,
    "expires_at": "2026-12-31"
  }'