GitLab Setup Checklist for Engineering Teams (2026)

Design your structure first — moving projects after the fact breaks URLs and CI/CD configurations. Common patterns: by team function (engineering/backend, engineering/frontend, engineering/devops) or by product area (platform, mobile, data).

Group-level milestones and labels cascade down to all subgroups and projects automatically. If you create them at the project level, they stay isolated. Set them up at the top group first.

Go to Group → Settings → CI/CD → Variables. Store shared secrets (registry credentials, shared API keys) at the group level so all projects inherit them. Override at the project level only where needed.

Create a project (e.g., engineering/ci-templates) with shared .gitlab-ci.yml templates. All other projects include these templates with the include: keyword. Keeps CI configuration DRY and centralised.

Group → Settings → General → Permissions and group features → Require two-factor authentication. Members without 2FA enabled will be unable to access the group after 1 week.

Developers can push to non-protected branches, create merge requests, run CI/CD pipelines, and manage environments. This is the right default for most engineers. They cannot change project settings or branch protection rules.

Maintainers can manage protected branches, MR settings, project members, and CI/CD configuration. They can also push directly to protected branches if the protection settings allow it. Don't give this to everyone.

Product managers, QA, and business stakeholders who need to see project progress, create issues, and generate reports — but not push code — should have the Reporter role. They see code but cannot modify it.

Grant access at the subgroup level and let it cascade to all projects below. Per-project permission management is time-consuming and error-prone. Only grant individual project access when a user needs it for a single project with a different access level.

GitLab doesn't automatically revoke access when someone changes roles. Review group membership quarterly and immediately when someone leaves. Remove or downgrade access promptly.

Project → Settings → Repository → Protected branches → Add. Set: Allowed to merge: Maintainers, Allowed to push and merge: No one. This forces all changes through merge requests reviewed by a Maintainer.

Force push is off by default on protected branches — ensure it stays off. A force push rewrites history and can destroy your colleagues' work without warning.

Protected branches → enable Require approval from code owners. This makes CODEOWNERS reviews mandatory before a merge, routing the right reviewers to each PR automatically based on the files changed.

Add a protected branch rule with pattern release/* to automatically protect all release branches with consistent settings. You don't need to add new rules for each release.

Group → Settings → Repository → Protected branches. Group-level rules cascade to all projects in the group and cannot be overridden at the project level. Use for org-wide policies like protecting main.

Project → Settings → Merge requests → Approvals → Add approval rule. Name it 'Peer Review', set Required approvals to 1, and set eligible approvers to your developer group or team. This is the baseline.

Settings → Merge requests → Approvals → Prevent approval by author. Without this, engineers can approve their own MRs. Enable it — this is off by default in GitLab.

Settings → Merge requests → Approvals → Prevent approvals by users who add commits. Closes the loophole where a reviewer adds a tiny fix commit to a PR and then approves it.

Settings → Merge requests → Approvals → Remove all approvals when commits are added to the source branch. If new code is pushed after approval, previous approvals are cleared. Prevents approved-but-then-modified code from slipping through.

Settings → Merge requests → Approvals → Prevent editing approval rules in merge requests. Without this, anyone opening an MR can reduce the approval count to 0 for their specific MR.

GitLab checks ./CODEOWNERS, ./docs/CODEOWNERS, and ./.gitlab/CODEOWNERS. The syntax is identical to GitHub: /path/ @group/subgroup or @username. Paths are case-sensitive.

Reference groups with @group-name or @parent-group/subgroup-name instead of @username. Groups survive when individual members change — the review assignment stays correct even after re-orgs.

Enable 'Require approval from code owners' on your protected main branch settings. This is what turns CODEOWNERS from informational into mandatory. Without it, assigned reviewers are suggestions.

Add a stages: block at the top: [build, test, security, deploy]. Jobs in earlier stages must pass before later stages run. This is how you gate deployments behind passing tests.

The only/except keywords are deprecated. Use rules: with if, changes, and exists conditions. Example: rules: - if: '$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == main' to run a deploy job only on the main branch.

By default, GitLab can run both a branch pipeline and an MR pipeline simultaneously. Add workflow: rules: - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'merge_request_event' - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH to prevent duplicates.

Instead of waiting for an entire stage to finish, needs: lets a job start as soon as its specific dependencies complete. Significantly speeds up pipelines in large projects.

Production deployment jobs should have when: manual so they require human approval before running. Staging can auto-deploy on merge to main; production should be a deliberate action.

Use the environment: keyword with name and url in your deploy jobs. This creates an Environments page showing deployment history, who deployed what and when, and lets you track rollbacks.

Use cache: with paths: [node_modules/, .npm/] and a key based on the lockfile hash. Avoids re-installing dependencies on every pipeline run. Reduces pipeline time by 30-60% for most projects.

Add include: - template: Jobs/SAST.gitlab-ci.yml to your .gitlab-ci.yml. GitLab auto-selects the right analyser for your language. Results appear as a Security tab on every MR. Free on all plans.

Add include: - template: Jobs/Secret-Detection.gitlab-ci.yml. Scans commits for accidentally committed credentials, API keys, and tokens. Runs on every push and reports findings in the MR security widget.

Add include: - template: Jobs/Dependency-Scanning.v2.gitlab-ci.yml. Scans your package-lock.json, Gemfile.lock, requirements.txt etc. for known vulnerable dependencies. Reports in the MR security widget.

Project → Secure → Security Configuration shows which scanners are enabled and which aren't, with one-click enablement via the UI. Use this to audit your current scanner coverage.

Go to app.gitmore.io → Add Integration → Authenticate with GitLab. Connect all active projects — including infrastructure repos. Gitmore uses webhooks and never reads your source code.

Set up a morning Slack report for your #engineering channel. Gitmore summarises yesterday's commits, merged MRs, open reviews waiting, and blocked items — replacing the status-update portion of your standup.

Schedule a weekly report for your manager, PM, or client. Gitmore translates GitLab activity into plain English — 'Payment processing refactored, 4 bugs fixed, 2 features in review' — without requiring any git knowledge.