Project features and permissions (FREE ALL)

Configure project features and permissions

To configure features and permissions for a project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. To allow users to request access to the project, select the Users can request access checkbox.
5. To enable or disable features in the project, use the feature toggles.
6. Select Save changes.

When you disable a feature, the following additional features are also disabled:

• If you disable the Issues feature, project users cannot use:

  • Issue Boards
  • Service Desk
  • Project users can still access Milestones from merge requests.

• If you disable Issues and Merge Requests, project users cannot use:

  • Labels
  • Milestones

• If you disable Repository, project users cannot access:

  • Merge requests
  • CI/CD
  • Git Large File Storage
  • Packages

• The metrics dashboard requires read access to project environments and deployments. Users with access to the metrics dashboard can also access environments and deployments.

Enable and disable project features

Enabled project features are visible and accessible to project members. You can disable specific project features, so that they are not visible and accessible to project members, regardless of their role.

To enable or disable individual features in a project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. To enable a feature, turn on the toggle. To disable a feature, turn off the toggle.
5. Select Save changes.

Disable project analytics

By default, analytics for a project are displayed under the Analyze item in the left sidebar. To disable this feature and remove the Analyze item from the left sidebar:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. Turn off the Analytics toggle.
5. Select Save changes.

Disable CVE identifier request in issues (FREE SAAS)

Introduced in GitLab 13.4, only for public projects on GitLab.com.

In some environments, users can submit a CVE identifier request in an issue.

To disable the CVE identifier request option in issues in your project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. Under Issues, turn off the CVE ID requests in the issue sidebar toggle.
5. Select Save changes.

Disable project email notifications

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role for the project.

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. Clear the Disable email notifications checkbox.

Configure merge request settings for a project

Configure your project's merge request settings:

• Set up the merge request method (merge commit, fast-forward merge).
• Add merge request description templates.
• Enable:
  • Merge request approvals.
  • Status checks.
  • Merge only if pipeline succeeds.
  • Merge only when all threads are resolved.
  • Required associated issue from Jira.
  • GitLab Duo Suggested Reviewers
  • Delete source branch when merge request is accepted option by default.
• Configure:
  • Suggested changes commit messages.
  • Merge and squash commit message templates.
  • Default target project for merge requests coming from forks.

Delete the source branch on merge by default

In merge requests, you can change the default behavior so that the Delete the source branch checkbox is always selected.

To set this default:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > Merge requests.
3. Select Enable "Delete source branch" option by default.
4. Select Save changes.

Project topics

Topics are labels that you can assign to projects to help you organize and find them. A topic is typically a short name that describes the content or purpose of a project. You can assign a topic to several projects.

For example, you can create and assign the topics python and hackathon to all projects that use Python and are intended for Hackathon contributions.

Topics assigned to a project are listed in the Project overview, below the project name and activity information.

Only users with access to the project can see the topics assigned to that project, but everyone (including unauthenticated users) can see the topics available on the GitLab instance. Do not include sensitive information in the name of a topic.

Explore topics

To explore project topics:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to.
2. Select Explore.
3. On the left sidebar, select Topics.
4. To view projects associated with a topic, select a topic.

The Explore topics page shows a list of projects with this topic.

Filter and sort topics

You can filter the list of projects that have a certain topic by:

• Name
• Language
• Owner
• Archive status
• Visibility

You can sort the projects by:

• Date created
• Date updated
• Name
• Number of stars

Subscribe to a topic

If you want to know when new projects are added to a topic, you can use its RSS feed.

You can do this either from the Explore topics page or a project with topics.

To subscribe to a topic:

• From the Explore topics page:

  1. On the left sidebar, expand the top-most chevron ({chevron-down}).
  2. Select Explore.
  3. Select Topics.
  4. Select the topic you want to subscribe to.
  5. In the upper-right corner, select Subscribe to the new projects feed ({rss}).

• From a project:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. In the Project overview page, from the Topics list select the topic you want to subscribe to.
  3. In the upper-right corner, select Subscribe to the new projects feed ({rss}).

The results are displayed as an RSS feed in Atom format. The URL of the result contains a feed token and the list of projects that have the topic. You can add this URL to your feed reader.

Assign topics to a project

To assign topics to a project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. In the Topics text box, enter the project topics. Popular topics are suggested as you type.
4. Select Save changes.

NOTE: The assigned topics are visible only to users with access to the project, but everyone can see which topics exist on the GitLab instance. Do not include sensitive information in the name of a topic.

Administer topics

Instance administrators can administer all project topics from the Admin Area's Topics page.