Rate limits on pipeline creation

{{< details >}}

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

{{< /details >}}

{{< history >}}

• Introduced in GitLab 15.0 with a flag named ci_enforce_throttle_pipelines_creation. Disabled by default. Enabled on GitLab.com
• Enabled by default in 18.3.

{{< /history >}}

You can set limits so that users and processes can't request more than a certain number of pipelines each minute. These limits can help save resources and improve stability.

GitLab enforces two types of rate limits for pipeline creation:

• Per project, commit, and user: Limits pipelines created for the same combination of project, commit SHA, and user. Disabled by default.
• Per user: Limits total pipelines created by a user across all projects. Disabled by default.

For example, if you set a per-user limit of 100, and a user sends 101 pipeline creation requests to the trigger API within one minute across different projects, the 101st request is blocked. Access to the endpoint is allowed again after one minute.

These limits are not applied per IP address.

Requests that exceed the limits are logged in the application_json.log file.

Set pipeline request limits

Prerequisites:

• Administrator access.

To limit the number of pipeline requests:

1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
2. Select Settings > Network.
3. Expand Pipelines Rate Limits.
4. Under Max requests per minute per project, user, and commit, enter a value greater than 0 to limit pipelines for the same project, commit, and user combination.
5. Under Max requests per minute per user, enter a value greater than 0 to limit total pipelines created by each user. Set to 0 for unlimited requests per minute.
6. Select Save changes.

How the limits work together

Both rate limits are evaluated independently:

• A user creating multiple pipelines for the same commit SHA in a project is subject to the per project, user, and commit limit.
• A user creating pipelines across different projects or commits is subject to the per user limit.
• If either limit is exceeded, the pipeline creation request is blocked.