Instance template repository (PREMIUM ONLY)

Introduced in GitLab Premium 11.3.

In hosted systems, enterprises often have a need to share their own templates across teams. This feature allows an administrator to pick a project to be the instance-wide collection of file templates. These templates are then exposed to all users via the web editor while the project remains secure.

Configuration

As an administrator, navigate to Admin Area > Settings > Templates and select the project to serve as the custom template repository.

Once a project has been selected, you can add custom templates to the repository, and they will appear in the appropriate places in the frontend and API.

Templates must be added to a specific subdirectory in the repository, corresponding to the kind of template. The following types of custom templates are supported:

Each template must go in its respective subdirectory, have the correct extension and not be empty. So, the hierarchy should look like this:

|-- README.md
|-- Dockerfile
    |-- custom_dockerfile.dockerfile
    |-- another_dockerfile.dockerfile
|-- gitignore
    |-- custom_gitignore.gitignore
    |-- another_gitignore.gitignore
|-- gitlab-ci
    |-- custom_gitlab-ci.yml
    |-- another_gitlab-ci.yml
|-- LICENSE
    |-- custom_license.txt
    |-- another_license.txt
|-- metrics-dashboards
    |-- custom_metrics-dashboard.yml
    |-- another_metrics-dashboard.yml

Once this is established, the list of custom templates will be included when creating a new file and the template type is selected. These will appear at the top of the list.

If this feature is disabled or no templates are present, there will be no "Custom" section in the selection dropdown.