Architecture Design Documents

Design documents are the primary artifact that the architecture design workflow revolves around. A design document describes a technical vision and a set of principles that will guide feature implementation, as we move forward. It acts as guardrails to keep team aligned.

They are version controlled documents that are constantly updated with new insights and knowledge, after every iteration, to become even more useful with time.

Contributing

At GitLab, everyone can contribute, including to our design documents. If you would like to contribute to any of these documents, feel free to:

  1. Go to the source files in the repository and select the design document you wish to contribute to.
  2. Create a merge request.
  3. @ message both an author and a coach assigned to the design document, as listed below.
Status Title Authors Coach Owning Stage Created
ongoing Secret Detection as a platform-wide experience theoretick vbhat161 ahmed.hemdan theoretick devops application security testing 2024-12-10
ongoing Siphon ahegyi andrewn abrandl devops monitor 2024-11-20
ongoing Rearchitect Approval Rules ghinfey jtapiab jwoodwardgl j.seto devops create 2024-11-05
proposed Security Analyzer Configuration Profiles theoretick ahmed.hemdan sec security risk management 2024-10-31
proposed GitLab Query Language (GLQL) himkp ntepluhina devops plan 2024-09-25
ongoing Internal releases for GitLab SaaS single tenant instances mayra-cabrera cmiskell devops platforms 2024-09-24
ongoing Simplifying Rate Limiting Configuration sarahwalker donnaalexandra andrewn devops platforms 2024-09-24
ongoing Reftable rollout in Gitaly knayakgl devops systems 2024-09-19
ongoing Linux OS Patching mmiller jarv 2024-09-12
ongoing AI Context Abstraction Layer dgruzd shekharpatnaik devops foundations 2024-09-11
proposed CustomersDot revenue impacting error monitoring & improvements shreyasagarwal aish.sub vshumilo devops fulfillment 2024-09-02
ongoing Dependency graph export only dependency scanning analyzer hacks4oats hacks4oats devops secure 2024-08-14
proposed KEV Support onaaman theoretick devops secure 2024-08-11
implemented Container Scanning for Registry atiwari71 devops secure 2024-07-31
ongoing Consolidating Evaluation Tooling tle_gitlab achueshev eduardobonet devops ai-powered 2024-07-22
ongoing Compliance Adherence Reporting nrosandich huzaifaiftikhar1 theoretick govern compliance 2024-07-08
proposed Iterate on the design of object pools pks-gitlab devops systems 2023-03-30
Logging Blueprint for GitLab
proposed Package Artifact Ingestion idawson devops application security testing 2024-09-25
proposed Low-Privilege CI Job Tokens mokhax grzesiek fabiopitino govern authorization 2024-08-08
ongoing Rails Upgrade igor.drozdov section dev 2024-07-28
ongoing Prompts Migration igor.drozdov shekharpatnaik devops ai-powered 2024-07-22
proposed Next Generation Service-Catalog reprazent andrewn devops platforms 2024-07-11
proposed Workload mutual authentication daveyleach sxuereb devops <stage> 2024-07-01
ongoing SAST IDE Integration erran jleasure julianthome theoretick theoretick devops secure 2024-06-21
ongoing EPSS Support YashaRise theoretick devops secure 2024-06-19
ongoing Backup and Restore GitLab aakriti.gupta brodock ibaum kyetter devops systems 2024-06-04
ongoing Pipeline Mini Graph bsandlin ntepluhina devops verify 2024-05-27
ongoing GitLab Duo Workflow DylanGriffith mikolaj_wawrzyniak devops create 2024-05-17
ongoing Repository X-Ray RAG mikolaj_wawrzyniak devops create 2024-04-23
proposed Self-Hosted Model Deployment sean_carroll eduardobonet jessieay devops ai-powered 2024-03-29
ongoing Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) for GitLab maddievn mikolaj_wawrzyniak dgruzd stanhu devops data stores 2024-02-20
proposed AutoFlow - workflows for automation ash2k ntepluhina timofurrer grzesiek devops deploy 2024-02-16
proposed Automate CustomersDot Plan management vshumilo vitallium devops fulfillment 2024-02-07
ongoing Disaster Recovery jarv 2024-01-29
proposed Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) for GitLab Duo on self-managed shinya.maeda mikolaj_wawrzyniak stanhu devops ai-powered 2024-01-25
ongoing CI/CD Build Speed grzesiek grzesiek 2024-01-12
ongoing Partitioning the notes table engwan euko devops plan 2023-12-22
ongoing Delegating CSS utility classes generation to Tailwind CSS peterhegman svedova pgascouvaillancourt devops manage 2023-12-21
ongoing Database read model for Security policies mcavoj sashi_kumar theoretick devops security risk management 2023-12-07
proposed Support GCP Secrets Manager for CI External Secrets alberts-gitlab grzesiek devops verify 2023-11-29
ongoing Pipeline Execution Policy Andysoiron g.hickman mcavoj fabiopitino devops govern 2023-11-23
proposed Feature Flags usage in GitLab development and operations rymai DylanGriffith devops non_devops 2023-11-01
proposed GitLab Observability - Logging vespian_gl mappelman monitor observability 2023-10-29
ongoing Google Cloud Platform Integration sgoldstein jessieay grzesiek section ops 2023-10-26
implemented GitLab Housekeeper - automating merge requests DylanGriffith devops tenant scale 2023-10-18
proposed Align CustomersDot Orders with Zuora Orders tyleramos fabiopitino devops fulfillment 2023-10-12
proposed Reusable Rapid Diffs (RRD) patrickbajao igor.drozdov jerasmus iamphill slashmanov psjakubowska thomasrandolph ntepluhina devops create 2023-10-10
implemented Cloud Connector architecture evolution mkaeppler ayufan devops data stores 2023-09-28
proposed ActivityPub support oelmekki jpcyiza tkuah 2023-09-12
implemented Capacity planning for GitLab Dedicated abrandl andrewn 2023-09-11
ongoing GitLab Observability in GitLab.com and Self-Managed GitLab Instances mappelman devops monitor 2023-09-11
proposed Transfer data vyaklushin andrewn grzesiek group source_code 2023-09-07
proposed Google Artifact Registry Integration jdrpereira 10io grzesiek devops package 2023-08-31
proposed Step Runner for executing GitLab Steps ayufan josephburnett grzesiek devops verify 2023-08-23
proposed Services nagyv-gitlab grzesiek devops deploy 2023-08-18
proposed GitLab Secrets Manager alberts-gitlab iamricecake cipherboy-gitlab grzesiek fabiopitino sec govern 2023-08-07
proposed Utilize bundle-uri to reduce Gitaly CPU load toon devops systems 2023-08-04
ongoing Runway: A PaaS for GitLab igorwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ggillies andrewn 2023-07-31
ongoing SSH certificates igor.drozdov stanhu devops create 2023-07-28
ongoing AI-gateway reprazent andrewn stanhu devops modelops 2023-07-14
proposed Distributed Tracing Feature mappelman devops monitor 2023-06-20
proposed Gitaly - Handle upload-pack traffic in a pure HTTP/2 server qmnguyen0711 devops enablement 2023-06-15
proposed Container registry self-managed database rollout hswimelar grzesiek devops package 2023-06-09
proposed Replace mail_room email ingestion with scheduled Sidekiq jobs msaleiko stanhu devops plan 2023-06-05
proposed AI Context Management dmishunov jessieay devops data-stores 2023-06-03
proposed Gitaly Adaptive Concurrency Limit qmnguyen0711 devops enablement 2023-05-30
ongoing Transaction management in Gitaly samihiltunen devops enablement 2023-05-30
proposed GitLab Modular Monolith grzesiek fabiopitino 2023-05-22
proposed Offload data to cheaper storage jcai-gitlab toon devops systems 2023-05-19
proposed Future of CI Pipeline Processing furkanayhan ayufan devops verify 2023-05-15
proposed Repository Backups proglottis DylanGriffith devops systems 2023-04-26
proposed GitLab Service-Integration: AI and Beyond andrewn grzesiek 2023-04-13
ongoing Organization lohrc alexpooley ayufan devops data stores 2023-04-05
proposed GitLab CI Events furkanayhan grzesiek devops verify 2023-03-15
proposed Permissions Changes required to enable Custom Roles jessieay jarka grzesiek devops manage 2023-03-10
proposed GitLab Runner Admissions Controller ajwalker johnwparent ayufan devops <stage> 2023-03-07
proposed GitLab Events Platform grzesiek fabiopitino ayufan devops ops section 2023-03-06
proposed Merge Model experiments into Model registry eduardobonet shekharpatnaik devops data science 2023-03-04
proposed Consider an abstraction layer to interact with ClickHouse or alternatives mikolaj_wawrzyniak jdrpereira pskorupa DylanGriffith workinggroup clickhouse 2023-02-23
proposed Automated Query Analysis mattkasa jon_jenkins DylanGriffith devops data stores 2023-02-08
proposed ClickHouse Usage at GitLab nhxnguyen grzesiek devops data stores 2023-02-02
proposed Gitaly Plugins samihiltunen devops enablement 2023-02-01
proposed CI Builds and Runner Fleet metrics database architecture pedropombeiro vshushlin grzesiek 2023-01-25
proposed Scalable data ingestion abstraction for ClickHouse ankitbhatnagar ahegyi mikolaj_wawrzyniak grzesiek workinggroup clickhouse 2023-01-10
ongoing Use Zoekt For code search dgruzd DylanGriffith DylanGriffith devops enablement 2022-12-28
implemented View and manage resources deployed by GitLab agent For Kubernetes shinya.maeda DylanGriffith devops deploy 2022-11-23
ongoing Remote development workspaces vtak grzesiek devops create 2022-11-15
proposed GitLab Observability - Metrics ankitbhatnagar mappelman monitor observability 2022-11-09
ongoing Next GitLab Runner Token Architecture pedropombeiro tmaczukin ayufan devops verify 2022-10-27
accepted Work Items ntepluhina ayufan devops plan 2022-09-28
implemented CI/CD Catalog ayufan fabiopitino grzesiek ayufan grzesiek devops verify 2022-09-14
accepted Next Rate Limiting Architecture grzesiek marshall007 fabiopitino hswimelar andrewn devops enablement 2022-09-08
ongoing Cells ayufan fzimmer DylanGriffith lohrc tkuah ayufan devops data stores 2022-09-07
ongoing Next Runner Auto-scaling Architecture grzesiek tmaczukin josephburnett ayufan grzesiek devops verify 2022-01-19
accepted Object storage: direct_upload consolidation nolith glopezfernandez devops data stores 2021-11-18
ongoing CI/CD data time decay grzesiek ayufan grzesiek devops verify 2021-09-10
accepted Database Scalability: Limit on-disk table size to < 100 GB for GitLab.com abrandl tkuah devops data stores 2021-06-23
rejected Composable GitLab Codebase ayufan mkaeppler glopezfernandez devops non_devops 2021-05-19
implemented Database Testing abrandl glopezfernandez devops data stores 2021-02-08
ongoing Consolidating Groups and Projects alexpooley ifarkas grzesiek devops data stores 2021-02-07
ongoing CI/CD Scaling grzesiek grzesiek devops verify 2021-01-21
accepted GraphQL API grzesiek ayufan grzesiek devops manage 2021-01-07
implemented GitLab to Kubernetes communication ash2k andrewn devops configure 2020-12-03
implemented Image resizing for avatars and content images craig-gomes ayufan devops non_devops 2020-10-21
implemented Container registry metadata database jdrpereira glopezfernandez devops package 2020-09-29
implemented Cloud Native Build Logs grzesiek ayufan grzesiek devops release 2020-08-26
implemented Development Feature Flags Architecture ayufan glopezfernandez devops non_devops 2020-06-10
implemented GitLab Pages New Architecture grzesiek ayufan grzesiek devops release 2019-05-16