[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":791},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/understanding-and-improving-total-blocking-time":3,"navigation-en-us":37,"banner-en-us":437,"footer-en-us":447,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Jacques Erasmus":689,"blog-related-posts-en-us-understanding-and-improving-total-blocking-time":703,"assessment-promotions-en-us":742,"next-steps-en-us":781},{"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__":36},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/understanding-and-improving-total-blocking-time.yml","Understanding And Improving Total Blocking Time",[7],"jacques-erasmus",null,"engineering",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"understanding-and-improving-total-blocking-time",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"Total Blocking Time - The metric to know for faster website performance","Learn how to identify and fix some root causes for high Total Blocking Time.",[18],"Jacques Erasmus","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749682637/Blog/Hero%20Images/tbt_cover_image.jpg","2023-02-14","\n\nOur world overwhelms us with information that is more accessible than ever. The increasing rates of content production and consumption are gifts that keep on giving. We can't seem to keep up with the information thrown at us. We're limited by our cognitive limitations and time constraints, and a [recent study](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09311-w) concluded the result is a shortening of attention spans. Websites are no exception.\n\nUsers who interact with your website want feedback, and want it fast. Preferably immediately! Website performance has become an important factor in keeping users engaged. But how do you measure how unresponsive a page is before it becomes fully interactive?\n\nMany [performance metrics](https://web.dev/vitals/) exist, but this blog post focuses on Total Blocking Time (TBT).\n\n## What is Total Blocking Time?\n\nTBT measures the total amount of time tasks were blocking your browser's main thread. This metric represents the total amount of time that a user could not interact with your website. It's measured between [First Contentful Paint (FCP)](https://web.dev/fcp/) and [Time to Interactive (TTI)](https://web.dev/tti/), and represents the combined blocking time for all long tasks.\n\n## What is a long task?\n\nA long task is a process that runs on the main thread for longer than 50 milliseconds (ms). After a task starts, a browser can't interrupt it, and a single long-running task can block the main thread. The result: a website that is unresponsive to user input until the task completes.\n\nAfter the first 50 ms, all time spent on a task is counted as _blocking time_. This diagram shows five tasks, two of which block the main thread for 140 ms:\n\n![A diagram containing five tasks, two of which are blocking the main thread. The TBT for these tasks adds up to 140 ms.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/tbt/tasks_diagram.png)\n\n## How can we measure TBT?\n\nMany tools measure TBT, but here we’ll use [Chrome DevTools](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/devtools/evaluate-performance/) to analyze runtime performance.\n\nAs an example: We recently improved performance on GitLab's [**View Source** page](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/.gitlab-ci.yml). This screenshot, taken before the performance improvement, shows eight long-running tasks containing a TBT of **2388.16 ms**. That's more than **two seconds**:\n\n![A screenshot indicating that there are eight long-running tasks. The TBT of these tasks adds up to 2388.16 ms.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/tbt/summary_before.png)\n\n## How can we improve TBT?\n\nAs you might have guessed by now, reducing the time needed to complete long-running tasks reduces TBT.\n\nBy selecting one of the tasks from the previous screenshot, we can get a breakdown of how the browser executed it. This **Bottom-Up** view shows that much time is spent on rendering content in the Document Object Model (DOM):\n\n![A screenshot of the Bottom-Up view of one of tasks from the previous screenshot. It indicates that most of the time is being spent on rendering content in the DOM.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/tbt/task_7_before.png)\n\nThis page has a lot of content that is below the fold – not immediately visible. The browser is spending a lot of resources upfront to render content that is not even visible to the user yet!\n\nSo what can we do? Some ideas:\n\n- **Change the UX.**\n  - Add a Show More button, paging, or virtual scrolling for long lists.\n- **Lazy-load images.**\n  ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/65745))\n    - Lazy-loading images reduces page weight, allowing the browser to spend resources on more important tasks.\n- **Lazy-load long lists.**\n  ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/71633))\n    - Similar to lazy-loading images, this approach allows the browser to spend resources on more important tasks.\n- **Reduce excessive HTML.**\n  ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/65835))\n    - For example, when loading large pages consider removing unnecessary content. Or, consider rendering some content (like icons) with CSS instead.\n- **Defer rendering when possible.**\n    - The [`content-visibility: auto;`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/content-visibility) CSS property ensures the rendering of off-screen elements (and thus irrelevant to the user) is skipped without affecting the page layout. ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/67050))\n    - The [Intersection Observer API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Intersection_Observer_API) allows you to observe when elements intersect with the viewport. This information can be used to show or hide certain elements. ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/71633))\n    - The global [`requestIdleCallback` method](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/requestIdleCallback?qs=requestIdleCallback) can be used to render content after the browser goes into an idle state.\n  ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/101942/diffs#7eed73783787184e5b1c029b9668e48638f3a6e8_64_78))\n\nFrameworks such as VueJS and React are already heavily optimized. However, be mindful of how you use these frameworks to avoid expensive tasks.\n\n### Change VueJS usage to improve TBT\n\nThis screenshot shows the **Bottom-Up** view of a task. Much of the task time is spent on activities from third-party code in the VueJS framework:\n\n![A screenshot of the Bottom-Up view of one of tasks. It indicates that a lot of the time is being spent on activities in the third-party VueJS framework.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/tbt/task_6_before.png)\n\nWhat improvements can we make?\n\n- **Use [Server-side rendering (SSR)](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/215365) or [streaming](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/frontend/rfcs/-/issues/101)** for pages that are sensitive to page load performance.\n- **If you don't _need_ Vue, don't use it.**\n  Component instances are a lot more expensive than using plain DOM nodes. Try to avoid unnecessary component abstractions.\n- **Optimize component [props](https://vuejs.org/guide/components/props.html).**\n  Child components in Vue update when at least one of their received props are being updated. Analyze the data that you pass to components. You may find that you can avoid unnecessary updates by making changes to your props strategy.\n- **Use [v-memo](https://vuejs.org/api/built-in-directives.html#v-memo) to skip updates.**\n    - In Vue versions 3.2 and later, `v-memo` enables you to cache parts of your template. The cached template updates and re-renders only if one of its provided dependencies changes.\n- **Use [v-once](https://vuejs.org/api/built-in-directives.html#v-once) for data** that does not need to be reactive after the initial load.\n  ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/101942))\n    - `v-once` ensures the element and component are only rendered once. Any future updates will be skipped.\n- **Reduce expensive tasks in your Vue components.**\n  Even a small script may take a long time to finish if it’s not optimized enough. Some suggestions:\n    - By using [`requestIdleCallback`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/requestIdleCallback?qs=requestIdleCallback) you can defer the execution of the non-critical tasks. ([example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/101942/diffs#7eed73783787184e5b1c029b9668e48638f3a6e8_64_78))\n    - By executing expensive scripts in [WebWorkers](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Using_web_workers) you can unblock the main thread.\n\n### Results and methods\n\nBy using three of the methods suggested above, we reduced TBT from about **3 seconds** to approximately **500 ms**:\n\n![A chart indicating a drop in TBT from ~3 seconds to ~500 milliseconds.](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/tbt/chart_after.png)\n\nWhat did we do?\n\n- Deferred rendering by using the [`content-visibility: auto;`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/content-visibility) CSS property.\n- Deferred rendering by using the [Intersection Observer API](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Intersection_Observer_API).\n- Used [v-once](https://vuejs.org/api/built-in-directives.html#v-once) for content that didn't need to be reactive after rendering.\n\nRemember, the size of the decrease always depends on how optimized your app already is to begin with.\n\nThere is a lot more we can do to improve TBT. 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statement",{"items":679},[680,683,686],{"text":681,"config":682},"Terms",{"href":507,"dataGaName":508,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":684,"config":685},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":517,"dataGaLocation":455,"id":518,"isOneTrustButton":28},{"text":687,"config":688},"Privacy",{"href":512,"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":455},[690],{"id":691,"title":18,"body":8,"config":692,"content":694,"description":8,"extension":26,"meta":698,"navigation":28,"path":699,"seo":700,"stem":701,"__hash__":702},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/jacques-erasmus.yml",{"template":693},"BlogAuthor",{"name":18,"config":695},{"headshot":696,"ctfId":697},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749682633/Blog/Author%20Headshots/jerasmus-headshot.png","jerasmus",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/jacques-erasmus",{},"en-us/blog/authors/jacques-erasmus","TjV8YmHjrtjtCNLw7qQ-556YJvca-CZOVmsXnq5m8nU",[704,718,731],{"content":705,"config":716},{"title":706,"description":707,"authors":708,"heroImage":710,"date":711,"body":712,"category":9,"tags":713},"How to use GitLab Container Virtual Registry with Docker Hardened Images","Learn how to simplify container image management with this step-by-step guide.",[709],"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/)",[25,714,715],"product","features",{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":717},"using-gitlab-container-virtual-registry-with-docker-hardened-images",{"content":719,"config":729},{"title":720,"description":721,"authors":722,"heroImage":724,"date":725,"category":9,"tags":726,"body":728},"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.",[723],"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",[259,611,727],"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":730,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-iit-bombay-students-code-future-with-gitlab",{"content":732,"config":740},{"title":733,"description":734,"authors":735,"heroImage":736,"date":737,"category":9,"tags":738,"body":739},"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.",[723],"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",[611,259,714],"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":741,"featured":28,"template":13},"artois-university-elevates-curriculum-with-gitlab-ultimate-for-education",{"promotions":743},[744,758,769],{"id":745,"categories":746,"header":748,"text":749,"button":750,"image":755},"ai-modernization",[747],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":751,"config":752},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":753,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":241},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":756},{"src":757},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":759,"categories":760,"header":761,"text":749,"button":762,"image":766},"devops-modernization",[714,557],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":763,"config":764},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":765,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":241},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":767},{"src":768},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":770,"categories":771,"header":773,"text":749,"button":774,"image":778},"security-modernization",[772],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":775,"config":776},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":777,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":241},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":779},{"src":780},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":782,"blurb":783,"button":784,"secondaryButton":789},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":785,"config":786},"Get your free trial",{"href":787,"dataGaName":48,"dataGaLocation":788},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":493,"config":790},{"href":52,"dataGaName":53,"dataGaLocation":788},1773350852675]