[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":793},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/moving-to-headless-chrome":3,"navigation-en-us":38,"banner-en-us":438,"footer-en-us":448,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Mike Greiling":690,"blog-related-posts-en-us-moving-to-headless-chrome":704,"assessment-promotions-en-us":744,"next-steps-en-us":783},{"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__":37},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/moving-to-headless-chrome.yml","Moving To Headless Chrome",[7],"mike-greiling",null,"engineering",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"moving-to-headless-chrome",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"How GitLab switched to Headless Chrome for testing","A detailed explanation with examples of how GitLab made the switch to headless Chrome.",[18],"Mike Greiling","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749680270/Blog/Hero%20Images/headless-chrome-cover.jpg","2017-12-19","GitLab recently switched from PhantomJS to headless Chrome for both our\nfrontend tests and our RSpec feature tests. In this post we will detail the\nreasons we made this transition, the challenges we faced, and the solutions we\ndeveloped. We hope this will benefit others making the switch.\n\n\u003C!-- more -->\n\nWe now have a truly accurate way to test GitLab within a real, modern browser.\nThe switch has improved our ability to write tests and debug them while running\nthem directly in Chrome. Plus the change forced us to confront and clean up a\nnumber of hacks we had been using in our tests.\n\n## Switching to headless Chrome from PhantomJS: background\n\n[PhantomJS](http://phantomjs.org) has been a part of GitLab's test framework\n[for almost five years](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/commit/ba25b2dc84cc25e66d6fa1450fee39c9bac002c5).\nIt has been an immensely useful tool for running browser integration tests in a\nheadless environment at a time when few options were available. However, it\nhad some shortcomings:\n\nThe most recent version of PhantomJS (v2.1.1) is compiled with a three-year-old\nversion of [QtWebKit](https://trac.webkit.org/wiki/QtWebKit) (a fork of WebKit\nv538.1 according to the user-agent string). This puts it on par with something\nlike Safari 7 on macOS 10.9. It resembles a real modern browser, but it's not\nquite there. It has a different JavaScript engine, an older rendering engine,\nand a host of missing features and quirks.\n\nAt this time, GitLab supports [the current and previous major\nrelease](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/install/requirements.html#supported-web-browsers) of\nFirefox, Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge/IE. This puts PhantomJS and its\ncapabilities somewhere near or below our lowest common denominator. Many modern\nbrowser features either [do not work](http://phantomjs.org/supported-web-standards.html),\nor [require vendor prefixes](http://phantomjs.org/tips-and-tricks.html) and\npolyfills that none of our supported browsers require. We could selectively\nadd these polyfills, prefixes, and other workarounds just within our test\nenvironment, but doing so would increase technical debt, cause confusion, and\nmake the tests less representative of a true production environment. In most\ncases we had opted to simply omit them or hack around them (more on this\n[later](#trigger-method)).\n\nHere's a screenshot of the way PhantomJS renders a page from GitLab, followed\nby the same page rendered in Google Chrome:\n\n![Page Rendered by PhantomJS](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-to-headless-chrome/render-phantomjs.png){: .shadow.center}\n\n![Page Rendered by Google Chrome](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-to-headless-chrome/render-chrome.png){: .shadow.center}\n\nYou can see in PhantomJS the filter tabs are rendered horizontally, the icons\nin the sidebar render on their own lines, the global search field is\noverflowing off the navbar, etc.\n\nWhile it looks ugly, in most cases we could still use this to run functional\ntests, so long as elements of the page remain visible and clickable, but this\ndisparity with the way GitLab rendered in a real browser did introduce several\nedge cases.\n\n## What is headless Chrome\n\nIn April of this year, [news spread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14101233)\nthat Chrome 59 would support a [native, cross-platform headless\nmode](https://www.chromestatus.com/features/5678767817097216). It was\npreviously possible to simulate a headless Chrome browser in CI/CD [using\nvirtual frame buffer](https://gist.github.com/addyosmani/5336747), but this\nrequired a lot of memory and extra complexities. A native headless mode is a\ngame changer. It is now possible to run integration tests in a headless\nenvironment on a real, modern web browser that our users actually use!\n\nSoon after this was revealed, Vitaly Slobodin, PhantomJS's chief developer,\nannounced that the project [would no longer be\nmaintained](https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/issues/15105#issuecomment-322850178):\n\n\u003Cdiv class=\"center\">\n\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-cards=\"hidden\" data-lang=\"en\">\u003Cp lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This is the end - \u003Ca href=\"https://t.co/GVmimAyRB5\">https://t.co/GVmimAyRB5\u003C/a>\u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/phantomjs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#phantomjs\u003C/a> 2.5 will not be released. Sorry, guys!\u003C/p>— Vitaly Slobodin (@Vitalliumm) \u003Ca href=\"https://twitter.com/Vitalliumm/status/852450027318464513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 13, 2017\u003C/a>\u003C/blockquote>\n\u003Cscript async src=\"https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\">\u003C/script>\n\n\u003C/div>\n\nIt became clear that we would need to make the transition away from PhantomJS at\nsome point, so we [opened up an issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/30876),\ndownloaded the Chrome 59 beta, and started looking at options.\n\n### Frontend tests (Karma)\n\nOur frontend test suite utilizes the [Karma](http://karma-runner.github.io/)\ntest runner, and updating this to work with Google Chrome was surprisingly\nsimple ([here's the merge request](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/12036)).\nThe [karma-chrome-launcher](https://github.com/karma-runner/karma-chrome-launcher)\nplugin was very quickly updated to support headless mode starting from\n[version 2.1.0](https://github.com/karma-runner/karma-chrome-launcher/releases/tag/v2.1.0),\nand it was essentially a drop-in replacement for the PhantomJS launcher. Once\nwe [re-built our CI/CD build images](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-build-images/merge_requests/41)\nto include Google Chrome 59 (and fiddled around with some pesky timeout\nsettings), it worked!  We were also able to remove some rather ugly\nPhantomJS-specific hacks that Jasmine required to spy on some built-in browser\nfunctions.\n\n### Backend feature tests (RSpec + Capybara)\n\nOur feature tests use RSpec and [Capybara](https://github.com/teamcapybara/capybara)\nto perform full end-to-end integration testing of database, backend, and\nfrontend interactions. Before switching to headless Chrome, we had used\n[Poltergeist](https://github.com/teampoltergeist/poltergeist) which is a\nPhantomJS driver for Capybara. It would spin up a PhantomJS browser instance\nand direct it to browse, fill out forms, and click around on pages to verify\nthat everything behaved as it should.\n\nSwitching from PhantomJS to Google Chrome required a change in drivers from\nPoltergeist to Selenium and [ChromeDriver](https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/).\nSetting this up was pretty straightforward. You can install ChromeDriver on\nmacOS with `brew install chromedriver` and the process is similar on any given\npackage manager in Linux. After this we added the `selenium-webdriver` gem to\nour test dependencies and configured Capybara like so:\n\n```ruby\nrequire 'selenium-webdriver'\n\nCapybara.register_driver :chrome do |app|\n  options = Selenium::WebDriver::Chrome::Options.new(\n    args: %w[headless disable-gpu no-sandbox]\n  )\n  Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, browser: :chrome, options: options)\nend\n\nCapybara.javascript_driver = :chrome\n```\n\nGoogle says the [`disable-gpu` option is necessary for the time\nbeing](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome#cli)\nuntil some bugs are resolved. The `no-sandbox` option also appears to be\nnecessary to get Chrome running inside a Docker container for [GitLab's CI/CD\nenvironment](/topics/ci-cd/). Google provides a [useful guide for working with headless Chrome\nand Selenium](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/04/headless-chrome).\n\nIn our final implementation we changed this to conditionally add the `headless`\noption unless you have `CHROME_HEADLESS=false` in your environment. This makes\nit easy to disable headless mode while debugging or writing tests. It's also\npretty fun to watch tests execute on the browser window in real time:\n\n```shell\nexport CHROME_HEADLESS=false\nbundle exec rspec spec/features/merge_requests/filter_merge_requests_spec.rb\n```\n\n![Tests Executing in Chrome](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-to-headless-chrome/headlessless-chrome-tests.gif){: .shadow.center}\n\n### What is the differences between Poltergeist and Selenium?\n\nThe process of switching drivers here was not nearly as straightforward as\nit was with the frontend test suite. Dozens of tests started failing as soon\nas we changed our Capybara configuration, and this was due to some major\ndifferences in the way Selenium/ChromeDriver implemented Capybara's driver API\ncompared to Poltergeist/PhantomJS. Here are some of the challenges we ran into:\n\n1.  **JavaScript modals are no longer accepted automatically**\n\n    We often use JavaScript `confirm(\"Are you sure you want to do X?\");` click\n    events when performing a destructive action such as deleting a branch or\n    removing a user from a group. Under Poltergeist a `.click` action would\n    automatically accept modals like `alert()` and `confirm()`, but under\n    Selenium, you now need to wrap these with one of `accept_alert`,\n    `accept_confirm`, or `dismiss_confirm`. e.g.:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    page.within('.some-selector') do\n      click_link 'Delete'\n    end\n\n    # After\n    page.within('.some-selector') do\n      accept_confirm { click_link 'Delete' }\n    end\n    ```\n\n1.  **Selenium `Element.visible?` returns false for empty elements**\n\n    If you have an empty `div` or `span` that you want to access in your test,\n    Selenium does not consider these \"visible.\" This is not much of an issue\n    unless you set `Capybara.ignore_hidden_elements = true` as we do in our\n    feature tests. Where `find('.empty-div')` would have worked fine in\n    Poltergeist, we now need to use `visible: :any` to\n    select such elements.\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    find('.empty-div')\n\n    # After\n    find('.empty-div', visible: :any)\n    # or\n    find('.empty-div', visible: false)\n    ```\n\n    More on [Capybara and hidden elements](https://makandracards.com/makandra/7617-change-how-capybara-sees-or-ignores-hidden-elements).\n\n1.  {:#trigger-method} **Poltergeist's `Element.trigger('click')` method does not exist in Selenium**\n\n    In Capybara, when you use `find('.some-selector').click`, the element you\n    are clicking must be both visible and unobscured by any overlapping\n    element. Situations where links could not be clicked would sometimes occur\n    with Poltergeist/PhantomJS due to its poor CSS support sans-prefixes.\n    Here's one example:\n\n    ![Overlapping elements](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/moving-to-headless-chrome/overlapping-element.png)\n\n    The broken layout of the search form here was actually placing an invisible\n    element over the top of the \"Update all\" button, making it unclickable.\n    Poltergeist offers a `.trigger('click')` method to work around this.\n    Rather than actually clicking the element, this method would trigger a DOM\n    event to simulate a click. Utilizing this method was a bad practice, but\n    we ran into similar issues so often that many developers formed a habit\n    of using it everywhere. This began to lead to some lazy and sloppy test\n    writing. For instance, someone might use `.trigger` as a shortcut to click\n    on an link that was obscured behind an open dropdown menu, when a properly\n    written test should `.click` somewhere to close the dropdown, and _then_\n    `.click` on the item behind it.\n\n    Selenium does not support the `.trigger` method. Now that we were using a\n    more accurate rendering engine that won't break our layouts, many of these\n    instances could be resolved by simply replacing `.trigger('click')` with\n    `.click`, but due to some of the bad practice uses mentioned above, this\n    didn't always work.\n\n    There are of course some ways to hack a `.trigger` replacement. You could\n    simulate a click by focusing on an element and hitting the \"return\" key,\n    or use JavaScript to trigger a click event, but in most cases we decided to\n    take the time and actually correct these poorly implemented tests so that a\n    normal `.click` could again be used. After all, if our tests are meant to\n    simulate a real user interacting with the page, we should limit ourselves\n    to the actions a real user would be expected to use.\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    find('.obscured-link').trigger('click')\n\n    # After\n\n    # bad\n    find('.obscured-link').send_keys(:return)\n\n    # bad\n    execute_script(\"document.querySelector('.obscured-link').click();\")\n\n    # good\n    # do something to make link accessible, then\n    find('.link').click\n    ```\n\n1.  **`Element.send_keys` only works on focus-able elements**\n\n    We had a few places in our code where we would test out our keyboard\n    shortcuts using something like `find('.boards-list').native.send_keys('i')`.\n    It turns out Chrome will not allow you to `send_keys` to any element that\n    cannot be \"focused\", e.g. links, form elements, the document body, or\n    presumably anything with a tab index.\n\n    In all of the cases where we were doing this, triggering `send_keys` on the\n    body element would work since that's ultimately where our event handler was\n    listening anyway:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    find('.some-div').native.send_keys('i')\n\n    # After\n    find('body').native.send_keys('i')\n    ```\n\n1.  **`Element.send_keys` does not support non-BMP characters (like emoji)**\n\n    In a few tests, we needed to fill out forms with emoji characters. With\n    Poltergeist we would do this like so:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    find('#note-body').native.send_keys('@💃username💃')\n    ```\n\n    In Selenium we would get the following error message:\n\n    ```text\n    Selenium::WebDriver::Error::UnknownError:\n        unknown error: ChromeDriver only supports characters in the BMP\n    ```\n\n    To work around this, we added [a JavaScript method to our test bundle that\n    would simulate input and fire off the same DOM events](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/a8b9852837/app/assets/javascripts/test_utils/simulate_input.js)\n    that an actual keyboard input would generate on every keystroke, then\n    wrapped this with a [ruby helper](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/a8b9852837/spec/support/input_helper.rb)\n    method that could be called like so:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # After\n    include InputHelper\n\n    simulate_input('#note-body', \"@💃username💃\")\n    ```\n\n1.  **Setting cookies is much more complicated**\n\n    It's quite common to want to set some cookies before `visit`ing a page that\n    you intend to test, whether it's to mock a user session, or toggle a\n    setting. With Poltergeist, this process is really simple. You can use\n    `page.driver.set_cookie`, provide a simple key/value pair, and it will just\n    work as expected, setting a cookie with the correct domain and scope.\n\n    Selenium is quite a bit more strict. The method is now\n    `page.driver.browser.manage.add_cookie`, and it comes with two caveats:\n\n    - You cannot set cookies until you `visit` a page in the domain you intend\n      to scope your cookies to.\n    - Annoyingly, you cannot alter the `path` parameter (or at least we could\n      never get this to work), so it is best to set cookies at the root path.\n\n    Before you `visit` your page, Chrome's url is technically sitting at\n    something like `about:blank;`. When you attempt to set a cookie there, it\n    will refuse because there is no hostname, and you cannot coerce one by\n    providing a domain as an argument. The [Selenium\n    documentation](http://docs.seleniumhq.org/docs/03_webdriver.jsp#cookies)\n    suggests that you do the following:\n\n    > If you are trying to preset cookies before you start interacting with a\n    > site and your homepage is large / takes a while to load, an alternative is\n    > to find a smaller page on the site (typically the 404 page is small, e.g.\n    > `http://example.com/some404page`).\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    before do\n      page.driver.set_cookie('name', 'value')\n    end\n\n    # After\n    before do\n      visit '/some-root-path'\n      page.driver.browser.manage.add_cookie(name: 'name', value: 'value')\n    end\n    ```\n\n1.  **Page request/response inspection methods are missing**\n\n    Poltergeist very conveniently implemented methods like `page.status_code`\n    and `page.response_headers` which are also present in Capybara's default\n    `RackTest` driver, making it easy to inspect the raw response from the\n    server, in addition to the way that response is rendered by the browser. It\n    also allowed you to inject headers into the requests made to the server,\n    e.g.:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # Before\n    before do\n      page.driver.add_header('Accept', '*/*')\n    end\n\n    it 'returns a 404 page'\n      visit some_path\n\n      expect(page.status_code).to eq(404)\n      expect(page).to have_css('.some-selector')\n    end\n    ```\n\n    Selenium does not implement these methods, and [the authors do not intend\n    to add support for them](https://github.com/seleniumhq/selenium-google-code-issue-archive/issues/141#issuecomment-191404986),\n    so we needed to develop a workaround. Several people have suggested running\n    a proxy alongside ChromeDriver that would intercept all traffic to and from\n    the server, but this seemed to us like overkill. Instead, we opted to\n    create a [lightweight Rack middleware](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/a8b9852837/lib/gitlab/testing/request_inspector_middleware.rb)\n    and a corresponding [helper class](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/a8b9852837/spec/support/inspect_requests.rb)\n    that would intercept the traffic for inspection. This is similar to our\n    [RequestBlockerMiddleware](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/lib/gitlab/testing/request_blocker_middleware.rb)\n    that we were already using to intelligently `wait_for_requests` to complete\n    within our tests. It works like this:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # After\n    it 'returns a 404 page'\n      requests = inspect_requests do\n        visit some_path\n      end\n\n      expect(requests.first.status_code).to eq(404)\n      expect(page).to have_css('.some-selector')\n    end\n    ```\n\n    Within the `inspect_requests` block, the Rack middleware will log all\n    requests and responses, and return them as an array for inspection. This\n    will include the page being `visit`ed as well as the subsequent XHR and\n    asset requests, but the initial path request will be the first in the array.\n\n    You can also inject headers using the same helper like so:\n\n    ```ruby\n    # After\n    inspect_requests(inject_headers: { 'Accept' => '*/*' }) do\n      visit some_path\n    end\n    ```\n\n    This middleware should be injected early in the stack to ensure any other\n    middleware that might intercept or modify the request/response will be\n    seen by our tests. We include this line in our test environment config:\n\n    ```ruby\n    config.middleware.insert_before('ActionDispatch::Static', 'Gitlab::Testing::RequestInspectorMiddleware')\n    ```\n\n1.  **Browser console output is no longer output to the terminal**\n\n    Poltergeist would automatically output any `console` messages directly into\n    the terminal in real time as tests were run. If you had a bug in the frontend\n    code that caused a test to fail, this feature would make debugging much\n    easier as you could inspect the terminal output of the test for an error\n    message or a stack trace, or inject your own `console.log()` into the\n    JavaScript to see what is going on. With Selenium this is sadly no longer the\n    case.\n\n    You can, however, collect browser logs by configuring Capybara like so:\n\n    ```ruby\n    capabilities = Selenium::WebDriver::Remote::Capabilities.chrome(\n      loggingPrefs: {\n        browser: \"ALL\",\n        client: \"ALL\",\n        driver: \"ALL\",\n        server: \"ALL\"\n      }\n    )\n\n    # ...\n\n    Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(\n      app,\n      browser: :chrome,\n      desired_capabilities: capabilities,\n      options: options\n    )\n    ```\n\n    This will allow you to access logs with the following, i.e. in the event of\n    a test failure:\n\n    ```ruby\n    page.driver.manage.get_log(:browser)\n    ```\n\n    This is far more cumbersome than it was in Poltergeist, but it's the best\n    method we've found so far. Thanks to [Larry Reid's blog post](http://technopragmatica.blogspot.com/2017/10/switching-to-headless-chrome-for-rails_31.html)\n    for the tip!\n\n## Results\n\nRegarding performance, we attempted to quantify the change with a\nnon-scientific analysis of 10 full-suite RSpec test runs _before_ this change,\nand 10 more runs from _after_ this change, factoring out any tests that were\nadded or removed between these pipelines. The end result was:\n\n**Before:** 5h 18m 52s\n**After:** 5h 12m 34s\n\nA savings of about six minutes, or roughly 2 percent of the total compute time, is\nstatistically insignificant, so I'm not going to claim we improved our test\nspeed with this change.\n\nWhat we did improve was test accuracy, and we vastly improved the tools at our\ndisposal to write and debug tests. Now, all of the Capybara screenshots\ngenerated when a CI/CD job fails look exactly as they do on your own browser\nrather than resembling the broken PhantomJS screenshot above. Inspecting a\nfailing test locally can now be done interactively by turning off headless\nmode, dropping a `byebug` line into the spec file, and watching the browser\nwindow as you type commands into the prompt. This technique proved extremely\nuseful while working on this project.\n\nYou can find all of the changes we made in [the original merge request page\non GitLab.com](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/12244).\n\n## What are some additional uses for headless Chrome?\n\nWe have also been utilizing headless Chrome to analyze frontend performance, and have found it to be useful in detecting issues.\n\nWe'd like to make it easier for other companies to embrace as well, so as part of the upcoming 10.3 release of GitLab we are releasing [Browser Performance Testing](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/browser_performance_testing.html). Leveraging [GitLab CI/CD](/solutions/continuous-integration/), headless Chrome is launched against a set of pages and an overall performance score is calculated. Then for each merge request the scores are compared between the source and target branches, making it easier detect performance regressions prior to merge.\n\n## Acknowledgements\n\nI sincerely hope this information will prove useful to anybody else looking to\nmake the switch from PhantomJS to headless Chrome for their Rails application.\n\nThanks to the Google team for their very helpful documentation, thanks to the\nmany bloggers out there who shared their own experiences with hacking headless\nChrome in the early days of its availability, and special thanks to Vitaly\nSlobodin and the rest of the contributors to PhantomJS who provided us with an\nextremely useful tool that served us for many years. 🙇‍\n\n\u003Cstyle>\n\n.center {\n  text-align: center;\n  display: block;\n  margin-right: auto;\n  margin-left: auto;\n}\n\ncode, kbd {\n  font-size: 80%;\n}\n\n\u003C/style>\n",[23,24,25],"inside 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to simplify container image management with this step-by-step guide.",[710],"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/)",[715,716,717],"tutorial","product","features",{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":719},"using-gitlab-container-virtual-registry-with-docker-hardened-images",{"content":721,"config":731},{"title":722,"description":723,"authors":724,"heroImage":726,"date":727,"category":9,"tags":728,"body":730},"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.",[725],"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",[260,612,729],"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":732,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-iit-bombay-students-code-future-with-gitlab",{"content":734,"config":742},{"title":735,"description":736,"authors":737,"heroImage":738,"date":739,"category":9,"tags":740,"body":741},"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.",[725],"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",[612,260,716],"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":743,"featured":28,"template":13},"artois-university-elevates-curriculum-with-gitlab-ultimate-for-education",{"promotions":745},[746,760,771],{"id":747,"categories":748,"header":750,"text":751,"button":752,"image":757},"ai-modernization",[749],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":753,"config":754},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":755,"dataGaName":756,"dataGaLocation":242},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":758},{"src":759},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":761,"categories":762,"header":763,"text":751,"button":764,"image":768},"devops-modernization",[716,558],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":765,"config":766},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":767,"dataGaName":756,"dataGaLocation":242},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":769},{"src":770},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":772,"categories":773,"header":775,"text":751,"button":776,"image":780},"security-modernization",[774],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":777,"config":778},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":779,"dataGaName":756,"dataGaLocation":242},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":781},{"src":782},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":784,"blurb":785,"button":786,"secondaryButton":791},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":787,"config":788},"Get your free trial",{"href":789,"dataGaName":49,"dataGaLocation":790},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":494,"config":792},{"href":53,"dataGaName":54,"dataGaLocation":790},1773350846848]