[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":795},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab":3,"navigation-en-us":39,"banner-en-us":439,"footer-en-us":449,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Pedro Moreira da Silva":691,"blog-related-posts-en-us-future-merge-requests-realtime-collab":706,"assessment-promotions-en-us":746,"next-steps-en-us":785},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":26,"isFeatured":12,"meta":27,"navigation":28,"path":29,"publishedDate":20,"seo":30,"stem":34,"tagSlugs":35,"__hash__":38},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab.yml","Future Merge Requests Realtime Collab",[7],"pedro-moreira-da-silva",null,"engineering",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"future-merge-requests-realtime-collab",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"The future of merge requests: Real-time collaboration","We want to hear your thoughts on the future of merge requests and code review.",[18],"Pedro Moreira da Silva","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749666775/Blog/Hero%20Images/cover.jpg","2019-12-19","\n\nThis blog post was originally published on the GitLab Unfiltered blog. It was reviewed and republished on 2019-12-20.\n\n\nWe want to share some of the work we’ve been doing in the [Source Code](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/product/categories/#source-code-group) part of the product and get feedback on what could be the future of [merge requests](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/) and [code review](/direction/create/code_review_workflow/).\n\n**Perhaps the best way is to walk you through a short visual story. You can** [**watch the recording (28 min)**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpdvIU6hv94) **or** [**jump to its text version**](#context) **below. In the end, if you’d like to share your thoughts, you can do so on the** [**feedback issue**][feedback-issue].\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\">\n  \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/KpdvIU6hv94\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\"> \u003C/iframe>\n\u003C/figure>\n\n## Context\n\nIf you haven’t been following along our work on merge requests, let’s set the scene:\n1. In the next releases of GitLab, we’re shipping [**performance**](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/1417) **and** [**navigation**](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/issues/33813) **improvements**, based on the user experience research we’ve been doing.\n1. We have also an exciting [**new Sourcegraph integration**](/blog/sourcegraph-code-intelligence-integration-for-gitlab/) which levels up the merge request interface allowing you to navigate code, jumping to definitions or finding references.\n1. **Other improvements** we’ve shipped over the past year include [multiple assignees](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/creating_merge_requests.html#multiple-assignees), [multiple approval rules](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/approvals/rules.html#multiple-approval-rules), [code owners](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/codeowners/), and [suggest changes][suggest-changes] – all of these were based on research and user feedback (your feedback).\n\nThese are nice improvements but they are iterating on what we already have and are not substantially changing the code review workflow. Today’s merge request experience is pretty similar to what it was five years ago – we’ve improved it a lot but its fundamental structure is the same.\n\nWe’ve been hearing feedback from users and customers about how we might improve merge requests to solve harder problems and that may require rethinking what we’ve come to accept as the default. **The merge request is a significant place, where people collaborate, where knowledge is shared, where people grow in their skills, where code quality is ensured and improved.** As a result, significant time is spent in the merge request interface. So, we’ve been asking ourselves:\n\n> _How can we significantly decrease the cycle time, increase the efficiency of code review, and create better ways of collaborating?_\n\nTo simplify our approach, we have defined **three key questions** that have also surfaced through research and our own usage:\n1. **Catch up**: Understanding where the merge request is since I last looked at it, what needs my attention, what’s changed, and helping me review that difference more efficiently after first reviewing it.\n1. **Real time collaboration**: Many teams are in the same location or same time zone and have significant overlap. Even here at GitLab, an [all-remote company](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/), most people who work together share a few of hours of overlap and are sometimes looking at the same things. So if people are coming to the same merge request, and working on it at the same time, how can we make that more efficient?\n1. **External discussions**: Working remotely, through [asynchronous communication](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#introduction), is how we mainly communicate at GitLab. It’s something that we do quite well, but sometimes it’s better to work synchronously by just getting on a call and solve confusions, communicate, sketch things out, and then document those decisions. But unfortunately, the merge request doesn’t provide a natural way to do that. We use Zoom, we use Google Docs, and then we try to summarize in merge requests or issues. What if we could integrate all of that into the merge request?\n\nTo explain what we’ve been thinking about and how we could answer these questions, here is a **short visual story**. The following images are very low-fidelity mockups so that we can focus on ideas rather than dwelling on the details.\n\n## 1. Catch up\n\n> The story starts with me, as a reviewer, coming into a merge request and looking at my personal area at the top right corner.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step1.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n> I can immediately see what has happened since I last reviewed the merge request: Two files with new changes to review and one comment that needs my attention. This comment may be someone that mentioned me, someone that replied to one of my comments, or maybe someone that resolved a thread I’m participating in.\n\n## 2. Smarter suggestions\n\n> I click the speech bubble icon to jump to that comment, where Katherine, the merge request author, and James, another reviewer, are participating. Hmm, this discussion is getting a bit convoluted... but since they are in other timezones, I’ll reply with my thoughts so they can read them in their own time. It also looks like we need specific expertise here. When I start @-mentioning, I see that André was the person who last changed this line of code (and he’s also a code owner of this file). He might have an idea why this was changed, so I’ll mention him in my comment.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step2.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nToday in GitLab we already suggest people who are involved in the merge request or conversation, but this idea brings in new data and more clearly highlights why people are relevant.\n\n## 3. Real time collaboration\n\n> Meanwhile, I notice that Katherine and James are **looking at this merge request right now**, by seeing their avatars popping up at the top of the merge request – _very similar to how you would see someone in Google Docs looking at the same document that you are_. I also get a notification saying that Katherine mentioned me in a comment and that James is now replying to one of my comments.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step3.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nI can see people interacting with the merge request in real time, I can notice their presence, but I’m not seeing what they’re typing or collaborating directly with them – we’re just going about doing our tasks separately. **The way we work may change if we expect an immediate response.** For example, if you notice someone is online, you might ask more open-ended questions because you know that the other person can respond more quickly versus writing a longer response that seeks to conclude the discussion faster. And this is helpful not only for people that work distributed and asynchronously but also for people that work in the same time zone, in the same location, in the same office, or even in the same room.\n\n**These presence indicators create certain expectations and give a sense of progress to the merge requests as well.** When you’re waiting on a code review, you don’t know if someone has looked at it or if the reviewers are close to finishing the review. This can save people from interrupting one another. This provides a sense of progress without needing someone to take an active measure to find out if progress is being made. This is important because progress is one of those things that we all want to feel when we’re waiting on someone or something else.\n\n> Back to the story... This is great timing! Since we’re all online maybe it’s time we jump on a call to clear up the discussions together and get back on track.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step4.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n> By using this dropdown button next to the avatars, I can immediately start a shared session or invite the other participants to a video call, using Zoom (one of our favorite tools here at GitLab). Starting a Zoom meeting also starts a collaborative shared session in the merge request. **In the shared session we can follow each other and write comments together in real time.** I can now follow James and Katherine and see which files they are looking at, in which lines they’re commenting, and also what they’re writing, in real time. I can also ask to be followed if I want to focus all of the participants’ attention to a specific comment or file. I can even copy a link to this shared session and share it via our chat tool or email so that others can join without having to find the merge request.\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step5.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nBut the most important thing is the ability to **co-author and collaborate in real time on comments in the merge request**. Not only commenting on the changes but also in the merge request overview (comments that are not attached to specific lines). You can collaborate while you’re in a video call, on the phone, or just in the office next to each other.\n\n## 4. External discussions\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step6.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\n> Collaborating in real time on the merge request allowed us to quickly reach a consensus. **And we could easily record everything we discussed in GitLab, instead of using separate tools.** Before ending the shared session, we add a joint comment with a summary and next steps.\n\nWe know that some teams do code reviews in meeting rooms, projecting the changes and all reviewing it together. Everyone’s got their laptops but they’re sort of looking at the same thing, but not quite. These abilities would allow everyone to take notes collaboratively, creating an interesting way of documenting. This is just one use case, there are likely many more use cases that we can solve here.\n\nYou'll notice that it looks a lot like a Google Doc, but on a merge request in GitLab. From a user experience standpoint, we must try to use metaphors and patterns that people have seen and used in other common tools. **Looking and behaving like Google Docs is a good thing because people can immediately relate and understand what these cursors and avatars mean.** But it’s about understanding these paradigms, not accepting them blindly. We strive to study and see if they fit into the situation at hand and if the users recall using this metaphor for this purpose. Using [boring solutions](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#boring-solutions) is part of our values at GitLab.\n\nToday we use Google Docs to take notes during our meetings but maybe this can replace the need to have all of these different tools open simultaneously while we’re on a video call. You can use your preferred tools, like a projector, to collaborate better depending on your work setting and what works best for you and your team, but in the end **everything is recorded in the same tool, in the same integrated environment that is GitLab.** There is no data duplication and it stops teams from using tools like Google Docs to record information that then gets replicated in merge requests and issues, instead the information can go directly into the single source of truth where the decision and discussion are relevant. If we can work out how to do this properly on merge requests we can perhaps apply it to issues and epics as well.\n\n## 5. Record decisions\n\n> Finally, in the shared session we realized that one of the changes must be documented for posterity so that we can prevent mistakes and clarify our decision. So I come back to the comment to commit it to the code base. **This adds the comment directly to the source file as a code comment.**\n\n![](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/future-merge-requests-realtime-collab/step7.png){: .shadow.medium.center}\n\nOne thing that we see happening a lot at GitLab and in other companies is people explaining a decision or why we shouldn’t touch this specific part of the code, in writing. This valuable content is usually left in comments, emails, or chat messages, when it should be a _code comment_. **Code comments allow explanations, decisions, and rationale to be left for posterity so that future authors can be aware of them.**\n\nOur [suggest changes feature][suggest-changes] in merge requests allows you to include suggestions as part of your line comments. These suggestions can then be applied directly to the file where the comment was made, replacing its contents with the suggestion. With the idea of \"Commit as file comment,\" this is slightly different, as you’d be applying the comment to the file itself, as a code comment.\n\nMoving the explanation into the actual file rather than leaving it as a comment in the merge request **makes it accessible wherever the code goes**. It’s in the Git repository, it has a timestamp, it’s part of the repository history, and it’s even in your desktop IDE. It means that if you refactor your repository, split this module out into another repository, the comment follows that line of code.\n\n## Conclusion\n\n**We’re not entirely sure how these ideas will be executed, if all of them are viable, or if they’re even good ideas.** That is why we’d love to hear your thoughts on the [**feedback issue**][feedback-issue]. Share with us what you like, what you don’t like, and what other ideas you have for code review. This short story doesn’t mean that we’re going through with these ideas but that we think they are possible directions to solve those big problems that we’ve been seeing with code review at GitLab.\n\nIf you visualize the communication tools as a spectrum, right now GitLab’s merge requests are similar to email: you’re sending \"emails\" you’re receiving \"emails\" and it’s not a real time discussion, you’re not seeing what other people are typing, you don’t know when you’re going to get a response. On the other end of the spectrum is Google Docs: You see exactly what people are typing in real time, and expectations are more clear. Somewhere closer to Google Docs, you have Slack, which as a chat tool is very much focused on synchronous communication (although it can also be used for asynchronous communication). **We want to be in the middle of this communication tools spectrum, not like a Google Doc, always on, always real time, but we also don’t want to stay as an \"email client for collaborating on code.\"** We want to be smarter than that, enabling collaboration at the right moments.\n\nOne question that has been raised is **privacy**: People feel concerned about revealing when they’re looking at a merge request. Privacy is also a big concern in the sense of \"peer pressure,\" people changing their behaviors because they know they can be observed by others. We have to find some middle ground between people that opt to be more private and quietly observe things, versus people that opt for maximum efficiency and prefer collaborating in real time when everyone is in the merge request. Another concern is how to **avoid interrupting** people's flow. We anticipate that these are some of the interesting challenges we will have to wrestle with and balance against helping teams work most efficiently.\n\nThese concerns are one of the main reasons why we are sharing our ideas. We realized that these are some of our blind spots and that there could be others, so **we need** [**your feedback**][feedback-issue]. There also might be other, even more amazing, crazy ideas that we haven’t thought of yet which would take merge requests to an exciting new place. **So don’t limit your feedback to the ideas that we’ve come up with, feel free instead to share ideas that you think would make the merge request an even better place to work and get your job done.**\n\nIf you’re interested in our macro strategy and plans of how we’re going to help you better manage, plan, and create in GitLab, take a look at our [Dev strategy](/blog/dev-strategy-review/).\n\n{::options parse_block_html=\"true\" /}\n\n\u003Ci class=\"fab fa-gitlab\" style=\"color:rgb(107,79,187); font-size:.85em\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003C/i>  \nHelp shape the future of code review - [Share your feedback][feedback-issue]\n  \u003Ci class=\"fab fa-gitlab\" style=\"color:rgb(107,79,187); font-size:.85em\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\u003C/i>\n\n\nCover image by [Mitchell Luo](https://unsplash.com/@mitchel3uo) on 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statement",{"items":681},[682,685,688],{"text":683,"config":684},"Terms",{"href":509,"dataGaName":510,"dataGaLocation":457},{"text":686,"config":687},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":519,"dataGaLocation":457,"id":520,"isOneTrustButton":28},{"text":689,"config":690},"Privacy",{"href":514,"dataGaName":515,"dataGaLocation":457},[692],{"id":693,"title":694,"body":8,"config":695,"content":697,"description":8,"extension":26,"meta":701,"navigation":28,"path":702,"seo":703,"stem":704,"__hash__":705},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/pedro-moreira-da-silva.yml","Pedro Moreira Da Silva",{"template":696},"BlogAuthor",{"name":18,"config":698},{"headshot":699,"ctfId":700},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749666783/Blog/Author%20Headshots/pedroms-headshot.jpg","pedroms",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/pedro-moreira-da-silva",{},"en-us/blog/authors/pedro-moreira-da-silva","vBhyKrixulW2B8a47YTLf-zcplqiMLS807ssnWP7IPY",[707,722,735],{"content":708,"config":720},{"title":709,"description":710,"authors":711,"heroImage":713,"date":714,"body":715,"category":9,"tags":716},"How to use GitLab Container Virtual Registry with Docker Hardened Images","Learn how to simplify container image management with this step-by-step guide.",[712],"Tim Rizzi","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772111172/mwhgbjawn62kymfwrhle.png","2026-03-12","If you're a platform engineer, you've probably had this conversation:\n  \n*\"Security says we need to use hardened base images.\"*\n\n*\"Great, where do I configure credentials for yet another registry?\"*\n\n*\"Also, how do we make sure everyone actually uses them?\"*\n\nOr this one:\n\n*\"Why are our builds so slow?\"*\n\n*\"We're pulling the same 500MB image from Docker Hub in every single job.\"*\n\n*\"Can't we just cache these somewhere?\"*\n\nI've been working on [Container Virtual Registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/virtual_registry/container/) at GitLab specifically to solve these problems. It's a pull-through cache that sits in front of your upstream registries — Docker Hub, dhi.io (Docker Hardened Images), MCR, and Quay — and gives your teams a single endpoint to pull from. Images get cached on the first pull. Subsequent pulls come from the cache. Your developers don't need to know or care which upstream a particular image came from.\n\nThis article shows you how to set up Container Virtual Registry, specifically with Docker Hardened Images in mind, since that's a combination that makes a lot of sense for teams concerned about security and not making their developers' lives harder.\n\n## What problem are we actually solving?\n\nThe Platform teams I usually talk to manage container images across three to five registries:\n\n* **Docker Hub** for most base images\n* **dhi.io** for Docker Hardened Images (security-conscious workloads)\n* **MCR** for .NET and Azure tooling\n* **Quay.io** for Red Hat ecosystem stuff\n* **Internal registries** for proprietary images\n\nEach one has its own:\n\n* Authentication mechanism\n* Network latency characteristics\n* Way of organizing image paths\n\nYour CI/CD configs end up littered with registry-specific logic. Credential management becomes a project unto itself. And every pipeline job pulls the same base images over the network, even though they haven't changed in weeks.\n\nContainer Virtual Registry consolidates this. One registry URL. One authentication flow (GitLab's). Cached images are served from GitLab's infrastructure rather than traversing the internet each time.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe model is straightforward:\n\n```text\nYour pipeline pulls:\n  gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/1000016/python:3.13\n\nVirtual registry checks:\n  1. Do I have this cached? → Return it\n  2. No? → Fetch from upstream, cache it, return it\n\n```\n\nYou configure upstreams in priority order. When a pull request comes in, the virtual registry checks each upstream until it finds the image. The result gets cached for a configurable period (default 24 hours).\n\n```text\n┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n│                    CI/CD Pipeline                       │\n│                          │                              │\n│                          ▼                              │\n│   gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/\u003Cid>/image   │\n└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n                           │\n                           ▼\n┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n│            Container Virtual Registry                   │\n│                                                         │\n│  Upstream 1: Docker Hub ────────────────┐               │\n│  Upstream 2: dhi.io (Hardened) ────────┐│               │\n│  Upstream 3: MCR ─────────────────────┐││               │\n│  Upstream 4: Quay.io ────────────────┐│││               │\n│                                      ││││               │\n│                    ┌─────────────────┴┴┴┴──┐            │\n│                    │        Cache          │            │\n│                    │  (manifests + layers) │            │\n│                    └───────────────────────┘            │\n└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n```\n\n## Why this matters for Docker Hardened Images\n\n[Docker Hardened Images](https://docs.docker.com/dhi/) are great because of the minimal attack surface, near-zero CVEs, proper software bills of materials (SBOMs), and SLSA provenance. If you're evaluating base images for security-sensitive workloads, they should be on your list.\n\nBut adopting them creates the same operational friction as any new registry:\n\n* **Credential distribution**: You need to get Docker credentials to every system that pulls images from dhi.io.\n* **CI/CD changes**: Every pipeline needs to be updated to authenticate with dhi.io.\n* **Developer friction**: People need to remember to use the hardened variants.\n* **Visibility gap**: It's difficulat to tell if teams are actually using hardened images vs. regular ones.\n\nVirtual registry addresses each of these:\n\n**Single credential**: Teams authenticate to GitLab. The virtual registry handles upstream authentication. You configure Docker credentials once, at the registry level, and they apply to all pulls.\n\n**No CI/CD changes per-team**: Point pipelines at your virtual registry. Done. The upstream configuration is centralized.\n\n**Gradual adoption**: Since images get cached with their full path, you can see in the cache what's being pulled. If someone's pulling `library/python:3.11` instead of the hardened variant, you'll know.\n\n**Audit trail**: The cache shows you exactly which images are in active use. Useful for compliance, useful for understanding what your fleet actually depends on.\n\n## Setting it up\n\nHere's a real setup using the Python client from this demo project.\n\n### Create the virtual registry\n\n```python\nfrom virtual_registry_client import VirtualRegistryClient\n\nclient = VirtualRegistryClient()\n\nregistry = client.create_virtual_registry(\n    group_id=\"785414\",  # Your top-level group ID\n    name=\"platform-images\",\n    description=\"Cached container images for platform teams\"\n)\n\nprint(f\"Registry ID: {registry['id']}\")\n# You'll need this ID for the pull URL\n```\n\n### Add Docker Hub as an upstream\n\nFor official images like Alpine, Python, etc.:\n\n```python\ndocker_upstream = client.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://registry-1.docker.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hub\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Add Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io)\n\nDocker Hardened Images are hosted on `dhi.io`, a separate registry that requires authentication:\n\n```python\ndhi_upstream = client.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://dhi.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hardened Images\",\n    username=\"your-docker-username\",\n    password=\"your-docker-access-token\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Add other upstreams\n\n```python\n# MCR for .NET teams\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://mcr.microsoft.com\",\n    name=\"Microsoft Container Registry\",\n    cache_validity_hours=48\n)\n\n# Quay for Red Hat stuff\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://quay.io\",\n    name=\"Quay.io\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Update your CI/CD\n\nHere's a `.gitlab-ci.yml` that pulls through the virtual registry:\n\n```yaml\nvariables:\n  VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID: \u003Cyour_virtual_registry_ID>\n\n  \nbuild:\n  image: docker:24\n  services:\n    - docker:24-dind\n  before_script:\n    # Authenticate to GitLab (which handles upstream auth for you)\n    - echo \"${CI_JOB_TOKEN}\" | docker login -u gitlab-ci-token --password-stdin gitlab.com\n  script:\n    # All of these go through your single virtual registry\n    \n    # Official Docker Hub images (use library/ prefix)\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/library/alpine:latest\n    \n    # Docker Hardened Images from dhi.io (no prefix needed)\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/python:3.13\n    \n    # .NET from MCR\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/dotnet/sdk:8.0\n```\n\n### Image path formats\n\nDifferent registries use different path conventions:\n\n| Registry | Pull URL Example |\n|----------|------------------|\n| Docker Hub (official) | `.../library/python:3.11-slim` |\n| Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io) | `.../python:3.13` |\n| MCR | `.../dotnet/sdk:8.0` |\n| Quay.io | `.../prometheus/prometheus:latest` |\n\n### Verify it's working\n\nAfter some pulls, check your cache:\n\n```python\nupstreams = client.list_registry_upstreams(registry['id'])\nfor upstream in upstreams:\n    entries = client.list_cache_entries(upstream['id'])\n    print(f\"{upstream['name']}: {len(entries)} cached entries\")\n\n```\n\n## What the numbers look like\n\nI ran tests pulling images through the virtual registry:\n\n| Metric | Without Cache | With Warm Cache |\n|--------|---------------|-----------------|\n| Pull time (Alpine) | 10.3s | 4.2s |\n| Pull time (Python 3.13 DHI) | 11.6s | ~4s |\n| Network roundtrips to upstream | Every pull | Cache misses only |\n\n\n\n\nThe first pull is the same speed (it has to fetch from upstream). Every pull after that, for the cache validity period, comes straight from GitLab's storage. No network hop to Docker Hub, dhi.io, MCR, or wherever the image lives.\n\nFor a team running hundreds of pipeline jobs per day, that's hours of cumulative build time saved.\n\n## Practical considerations\nHere are some considerations to keep in mind:\n\n### Cache validity\n\n24 hours is the default. For security-sensitive images where you want patches quickly, consider 12 hours or less:\n\n```python\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://dhi.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hardened Images\",\n    username=\"your-username\",\n    password=\"your-token\",\n    cache_validity_hours=12\n)\n```\n\nFor stable, infrequently-updated images (like specific version tags), longer validity is fine.\n\n### Upstream priority\n\nUpstreams are checked in order. If you have images with the same name on different registries, the first matching upstream wins.\n\n### Limits\n\n* Maximum of 20 virtual registries per group\n* Maximum of 20 upstreams per virtual registry\n\n## Configuration via UI\n\nYou can also configure virtual registries and upstreams directly from the GitLab UI—no API calls required. Navigate to your group's **Settings > Packages and registries > Virtual Registry** to:\n\n* Create and manage virtual registries\n* Add, edit, and reorder upstream registries\n* View and manage the cache\n* Monitor which images are being pulled\n\n## What's next\n\nWe're actively developing:\n\n* **Allow/deny lists**: Use regex to control which images can be pulled from specific upstreams.\n\nThis is beta software. It works, people are using it in production, but we're still iterating based on feedback.\n\n## Share your feedback\n\nIf you're a platform engineer dealing with container registry sprawl, I'd like to understand your setup:\n\n* How many upstream registries are you managing?\n* What's your biggest pain point with the current state?\n* Would something like this help, and if not, what's missing?\n\nPlease share your experiences in the [Container Virtual Registry feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/work_items/589630).\n## Related resources\n- [New GitLab metrics and registry features help reduce CI/CD bottlenecks](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/new-gitlab-metrics-and-registry-features-help-reduce-ci-cd-bottlenecks/#container-virtual-registry)\n- [Container Virtual Registry documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/virtual_registry/container/)\n- [Container Virtual Registry API](https://docs.gitlab.com/api/container_virtual_registries/)",[717,718,719],"tutorial","product","features",{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":721},"using-gitlab-container-virtual-registry-with-docker-hardened-images",{"content":723,"config":733},{"title":724,"description":725,"authors":726,"heroImage":728,"date":729,"category":9,"tags":730,"body":732},"How IIT Bombay students are coding the future with GitLab","At GitLab, we often talk about how software accelerates innovation. But sometimes, you have to step away from the Zoom calls and stand in a crowded university hall to remember why we do this.",[727],"Nick Veenhof","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099013/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2814%29_6VTUA8mUhOZNDaRVNPeKwl_1750099012960.png","2026-01-08",[261,613,731],"open source","The GitLab team recently had the privilege of judging the **iHack Hackathon** at **IIT Bombay's E-Summit**. The energy was electric, the coffee was flowing, and the talent was undeniable. But what struck us most wasn't just the code — it was the sheer determination of students to solve real-world problems, often overcoming significant logistical and financial hurdles to simply be in the room.\n\n\nThrough our [GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/), we aim to empower the next generation of developers with tools and opportunity. Here is a look at what the students built, and how they used GitLab to bridge the gap between idea and reality.\n\n## The challenge: Build faster, build securely\n\nThe premise for the GitLab track of the hackathon was simple: Don't just show us a product; show us how you built it. We wanted to see how students utilized GitLab's platform — from Issue Boards to CI/CD pipelines — to accelerate the development lifecycle.\n\nThe results were inspiring.\n\n## The winners\n\n### 1st place: Team Decode — Democratizing Scientific Research\n\n**Project:** FIRE (Fast Integrated Research Environment)\n\nTeam Decode took home the top prize with a solution that warms a developer's heart: a local-first, blazing-fast data processing tool built with [Rust](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/secure-rust-development-with-gitlab/) and Tauri. They identified a massive pain point for data science students: existing tools are fragmented, slow, and expensive.\n\nTheir solution, FIRE, allows researchers to visualize complex formats (like NetCDF) instantly. What impressed the judges most was their \"hacker\" ethos. They didn't just build a tool; they built it to be open and accessible.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** Since the team lived far apart, asynchronous communication was key. They utilized **GitLab Issue Boards** and **Milestones** to track progress and integrated their repo with Telegram to get real-time push notifications. As one team member noted, \"Coordinating all these technologies was really difficult, and what helped us was GitLab... the Issue Board really helped us track who was doing what.\"\n\n![Team Decode](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/epqazj1jc5c7zkgqun9h.jpg)\n\n### 2nd place: Team BichdeHueDost — Reuniting to Solve Payments\n\n**Project:** SemiPay (RFID Cashless Payment for Schools)\n\nThe team name, BichdeHueDost, translates to \"Friends who have been set apart.\" It's a fitting name for a group of friends who went to different colleges but reunited to build this project. They tackled a unique problem: handling cash in schools for young children. Their solution used RFID cards backed by a blockchain ledger to ensure secure, cashless transactions for students.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** They utilized [GitLab CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/ci-cd/) to automate the build process for their Flutter application (APK), ensuring that every commit resulted in a testable artifact. This allowed them to iterate quickly despite the \"flaky\" nature of cross-platform mobile development.\n\n![Team BichdeHueDost](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/pkukrjgx2miukb6nrj5g.jpg)\n\n### 3rd place: Team ZenYukti — Agentic Repository Intelligence\n\n**Project:** RepoInsight AI (AI-powered, GitLab-native intelligence platform)\n\nTeam ZenYukti impressed us with a solution that tackles a universal developer pain point: understanding unfamiliar codebases. What stood out to the judges was the tool's practical approach to onboarding and code comprehension: RepoInsight-AI automatically generates documentation, visualizes repository structure, and even helps identify bugs, all while maintaining context about the entire codebase.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** The team built a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline that showcased GitLab's security and DevOps capabilities. They integrated [GitLab's Security Templates](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/Security) (SAST, Dependency Scanning, and Secret Detection), and utilized [GitLab Container Registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/container_registry/) to manage their Docker images for backend and frontend components. They created an AI auto-review bot that runs on merge requests, demonstrating an \"agentic workflow\" where AI assists in the development process itself.\n\n![Team ZenYukti](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/ymlzqoruv5al1secatba.jpg)\n\n## Beyond the code: A lesson in inclusion\n\nWhile the code was impressive, the most powerful moment of the event happened away from the keyboard.\n\nDuring the feedback session, we learned about the journey Team ZenYukti took to get to Mumbai. They traveled over 24 hours, covering nearly 1,800 kilometers. Because flights were too expensive and trains were booked, they traveled in the \"General Coach,\" a non-reserved, severely overcrowded carriage.\n\nAs one student described it:\n\n*\"You cannot even imagine something like this... there are no seats... people sit on the top of the train. This is what we have endured.\"*\n\nThis hit home. [Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/inclusion/) are core values at GitLab. We realized that for these students, the barrier to entry wasn't intellect or skill, it was access.\n\nIn that moment, we decided to break that barrier. We committed to reimbursing the travel expenses for the participants who struggled to get there. It's a small step, but it underlines a massive truth: **talent is distributed equally, but opportunity is not.**\n\n![hackathon class together](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380252/o5aqmboquz8ehusxvgom.jpg)\n\n### The future is bright (and automated)\n\nWe also saw incredible potential in teams like Prometheus, who attempted to build an autonomous patch remediation tool (DevGuardian), and Team Arrakis, who built a voice-first job portal for blue-collar workers using [GitLab Duo](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/) to troubleshoot their pipelines.\n\nTo all the students who participated: You are the future. Through [GitLab for Education](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/), we are committed to providing you with the top-tier tools (like GitLab Ultimate) you need to learn, collaborate, and change the world — whether you are coding from a dorm room, a lab, or a train carriage. **Keep shipping.**\n\n> :bulb: Learn more about the [GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/).\n",{"slug":734,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-iit-bombay-students-code-future-with-gitlab",{"content":736,"config":744},{"title":737,"description":738,"authors":739,"heroImage":740,"date":741,"category":9,"tags":742,"body":743},"Artois University elevates research and curriculum with GitLab Ultimate for Education","Artois University's CRIL leveraged the GitLab for Education program to gain free access to Ultimate, transforming advanced research and computer science curricula.",[727],"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099203/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2820%29_2bJGC5ZP3WheoqzlLT05C5_1750099203484.png","2025-12-10",[613,261,718],"Leading academic institutions face a critical challenge: how to provide thousands of students and researchers with industry-standard, **full-featured DevSecOps tools** without compromising institutional control. Many start with basic version control, but the modern curriculum demands integrated capabilities for planning, security, and advanced CI/CD.\n\nThe **GitLab for Education program** is designed to solve this by providing access to **GitLab Ultimate** for qualifying institutions, allowing them to scale their operations and elevate their academic offerings. \n\nThis article showcases a powerful success story from the **Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens (CRIL)**, a joint laboratory of **Artois University** and CNRS in France. After years of relying solely on GitLab Community Edition (CE), the university's move to GitLab Ultimate through the GitLab for Education program immediately unlocked advanced capabilities, transforming their teaching, research, and contribution workflows virtually overnight. This story demonstrates why GitLab Ultimate is essential for institutions seeking to deliver advanced computer science and research curricula.\n\n## GitLab Ultimate unlocked: Managing scale and driving academic value\n\n**Artois University's** self-managed GitLab instance is a large-scale operation, supporting nearly **3,000 users** across approximately **19,000 projects**, primarily serving computer science students and researchers. While GitLab Community Edition was robust, the upgrade to GitLab Ultimate provided the sophisticated tooling necessary for managing this scale and facilitating advanced university-level work.\n\n***\"We can see the difference,\" says Daniel Le Berre, head of research at CRIL and the instance maintainer. \"It's a completely different product. Each week reveals new features that directly enhance our productivity and teaching.\"***\n\nThe institution joined the GitLab for Education program specifically because it covers both **instructional and non-commercial research use cases** and offers full access to Ultimate's features, removing significant cost barriers.\n\n### Key GitLab Ultimate benefits for students and researchers\n\n* **Advanced project management at scale:** Master's students now benefit from **GitLab Ultimate's project planning features**. This enables them to structure, track, and manage complex, long-term research projects using professional methodologies like portfolio management and advanced issue tracking that seamlessly roll up across their thousands of projects.\n\n* **Enhanced visibility:** Features like improved dashboards and code previews directly in Markdown files dramatically streamline tracking and documentation review, reducing administrative friction for both instructors and students managing large project loads.\n\n## Comprehensive curriculum: From concepts to continuous delivery\n\nGitLab Ultimate is deeply integrated into the computer science curriculum, moving students beyond simple `git` commands to practical **DevSecOps implementation**.\n\n* **Git fundamentals:** Students begin by visualizing concepts using open-source tools to master Git concepts.\n\n* **Full CI/CD implementation:** Students use GitLab CI for rigorous **Test-Driven Development (TDD)** in their software projects. They learn to build, test, and perform quality assurance using unit and integration testing pipelines—core competency made seamless by the integrated platform.\n\n* **DevSecOps for research and documentation:** The university teaches students that DevSecOps principles are vital for all collaborative work. Inspired by earlier work in Delft, students manage and produce critical research documentation (PDFs from Markdown files) using GitLab, incorporating quality checks like linters and spell checks directly in the CI pipeline. This ensures high-quality, reproducible research output.\n\n* **Future-proofing security skills:** The GitLab Ultimate platform immediately positions the institution to incorporate advanced DevSecOps features like SAST and DAST scanning as their research and development code projects grow, ensuring students are prepared for industry security standards.\n\n## Accelerating open source contributions with GitLab Duo\n\nAccess to the full GitLab platform, including our AI capabilities, has empowered students to make impactful contributions to the wider open source community faster than ever before.\n\nTwo Master's students recently completed direct contributions to the GitLab product, adding the **ORCID identifier** into user profiles. Working on GitLab.com, they leveraged **GitLab Duo's AI chat and code suggestions** to navigate the codebase efficiently.\n\n***\"This would not have been possible without GitLab Duo,\" Daniel Le Berre notes. \"The AI features helped students, who might have lacked deep codebase knowledge, deliver meaningful contributions in just two weeks.\"***\n\nThis demonstrates how providing students with cutting-edge tools **accelerates their learning and impact**, allowing them to translate classroom knowledge into real-world contributions immediately.\n\n## Empowering open research and institutional control\n\nThe stability of the self-managed instance at Artois University is key to its success. This model guarantees **institutional control and stability** — a critical factor for long-term research preservation.\n\nThe institution's expertise in this area was recently highlighted in a major 2024 study led by CRIL, titled: \"[Higher Education and Research Forges in France - Definition, uses, limitations encountered and needs analysis](https://hal.science/hal-04208924v4)\" ([Project on GitLab](https://gitlab.in2p3.fr/coso-college-codes-sources-et-logiciels/forges-esr-en)). The research found that the vast majority of public forges in French Higher Education and Research relied on **GitLab**. This finding underscores the consensus among academic leaders that self-hosted solutions are essential for **data control and longevity**, especially when compared to relying on external, commercial forges.\n\n## Unlock GitLab Ultimate for your institution today\n\nThe success story of **Artois University's CRIL** proves the transformative power of the GitLab for Education program. By providing **free access to GitLab Ultimate**, we enable large-scale institutions to:\n\n1.  **Deliver a modern, integrated DevSecOps curriculum.**\n\n2.  **Support advanced, collaborative research projects with Ultimate planning features.**\n\n3.  **Empower students to make AI-assisted open source contributions.**\n\n4.  **Maintain institutional control and data longevity.**\n\nIf your academic institution is ready to equip its students and researchers with the complete DevSecOps platform and its most advanced features, we invite you to join the program.\n\nThe program provides **free access to GitLab Ultimate** for qualifying instructional and non-commercial research use cases.\n\n**Apply now [online](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/join/).**\n",{"slug":745,"featured":28,"template":13},"artois-university-elevates-curriculum-with-gitlab-ultimate-for-education",{"promotions":747},[748,762,773],{"id":749,"categories":750,"header":752,"text":753,"button":754,"image":759},"ai-modernization",[751],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":755,"config":756},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":757,"dataGaName":758,"dataGaLocation":243},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":760},{"src":761},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":763,"categories":764,"header":765,"text":753,"button":766,"image":770},"devops-modernization",[718,559],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":767,"config":768},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":769,"dataGaName":758,"dataGaLocation":243},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":771},{"src":772},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":774,"categories":775,"header":777,"text":753,"button":778,"image":782},"security-modernization",[776],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":779,"config":780},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":781,"dataGaName":758,"dataGaLocation":243},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":783},{"src":784},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":786,"blurb":787,"button":788,"secondaryButton":793},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":789,"config":790},"Get your free trial",{"href":791,"dataGaName":50,"dataGaLocation":792},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":495,"config":794},{"href":54,"dataGaName":55,"dataGaLocation":792},1773350811189]