Instance template repository

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

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In hosted systems, enterprises often have a need to share their own templates across teams. This feature allows an administrator to pick a project to be the instance-wide collection of file templates. These templates are then exposed to all users through the Web Editor while the project remains secure.

Configuration

To select a project to serve as the custom template repository:

1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
2. Select Settings > Templates.
3. Expand Templates
4. From the dropdown list, select the project to use as the template repository.
5. Select Save changes.
6. Add custom templates to the selected repository.

After you add templates, you can use them for the entire instance. They are available in the Web Editor and through the API settings.

These templates cannot be used as a value of the include:template key in .gitlab-ci.yml.

Supported file types and locations

GitLab supports Markdown files for issue and merge request templates and other file type templates.

The following Markdown description templates are supported:

For more information, see description templates.

Other supported file type templates include:

Each template must be in its respective subdirectory, have the correct extension, and not be empty. The hierarchy should look like this:

|-- README.md
    |-- issue_templates
        |-- feature_request.md
    |-- merge_request_templates
        |-- default.md
|-- Dockerfile
    |-- custom_dockerfile.dockerfile
    |-- another_dockerfile.dockerfile
|-- gitignore
    |-- custom_gitignore.gitignore
    |-- another_gitignore.gitignore
|-- gitlab-ci
    |-- custom_gitlab-ci.yml
    |-- another_gitlab-ci.yml
|-- LICENSE
    |-- custom_license.txt
    |-- another_license.txt

Your custom templates are displayed in the dropdown list when a new file is added through the GitLab UI:

If this feature is disabled or no templates are present, no Custom section displays in the selection dropdown list.