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Storage management automation (FREE ALL)

You can manage your storage through the GitLab UI and the API. This page describes how to automate storage analysis and cleanup to manage your usage quota. You can also manage your storage usage by making your pipelines more efficient. For more information, see pipeline efficiency.

You can also use the GitLab community forum and Discord to ask for help with API automation.

API requirements

To automate storage management, your GitLab.com SaaS or self-managed instance must have access to the GitLab REST API.

API authentication scope

You must use the following scopes to authenticate with the API:

  • Storage analysis:
    • Read API access with the read_api scope.
    • At least the Developer role on all projects.
  • Storage clean up:
    • Full API access with the api scope.
    • At least the Maintainer role on all projects.

You can use command line tools or a programming language to interact with the REST API.

Command line

You must install the following tools to send API requests:

Example with curl and jq:

export GITLAB_TOKEN=xxx

curl --silent --header "Authorization: Bearer $GITLAB_TOKEN" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/user" | jq

Example with the GitLab CLI:

glab auth login

glab api groups/YOURGROUPNAME/projects

Using the GitLab CLI

Some API endpoints require pagination and subsequent page fetches to retrieve all results. The GitLab CLI provides the flag --paginate.

Requests that require sending a POST body formatted as JSON data can be written as key=value pairs passed to the --raw-field parameter.

For more information, see the GitLab CLI endpoint documentation.

API client libraries

The storage management and cleanup automation methods described in this page use the python-gitlab library in programmatic example. The python-gitlab library provides a feature-rich programming interface. For more information about use cases for the python-gitlab library, see Efficient DevSecOps workflows: Hands-on python-gitlab API automation.

For more information about other API client libraries, see Third-party clients.

NOTE: Use GitLab Duo Code Suggestions to write code more efficiently.

Strategies for storage analysis

Identify the storage types

The projects API endpoint provides statistics for projects in your GitLab instance. To use the projects API endpoint, set the statistics key to boolean true. This data provides insight into storage consumption of the project by the following storage types:

  • storage_size: Overall storage
  • lfs_objects_size: LFS objects storage
  • job_artifacts_size: Job artifacts storage
  • packages_size: Packages storage
  • repository_size: Git repository storage
  • snippets_size: Snippets storage
  • uploads_size: Uploads storage
  • wiki_size: Wiki storage

Additional queries are required for detailed storage statistics for job artifacts, the container registry, the package registry and dependency proxy. It is explained later in this how-to.

Example that uses curl and jq on the command line:

curl --silent --header "Authorization: Bearer $GITLAB_TOKEN" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID?statistics=true" | jq --compact-output '.id,.statistics' | jq
48349590
{
  "commit_count": 2,
  "storage_size": 90241770,
  "repository_size": 3521,
  "wiki_size": 0,
  "lfs_objects_size": 0,
  "job_artifacts_size": 90238249,
  "pipeline_artifacts_size": 0,
  "packages_size": 0,
  "snippets_size": 0,
  "uploads_size": 0
}

Example that uses the GitLab CLI:

export GL_PROJECT_ID=48349590
glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID --field 'statistics=true' | jq --compact-output '.id,.statistics' | jq
48349590
{
  "commit_count": 2,
  "storage_size": 90241770,
  "repository_size": 3521,
  "wiki_size": 0,
  "lfs_objects_size": 0,
  "job_artifacts_size": 90238249,
  "pipeline_artifacts_size": 0,
  "packages_size": 0,
  "snippets_size": 0,
  "uploads_size": 0
}

Example using the python-gitlab library:

project_obj = gl.projects.get(project.id, statistics=True)

print("Project {n} statistics: {s}".format(n=project_obj.name_with_namespace, s=json.dump(project_obj.statistics, indent=4)))

You can find an example implementation in the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py which is located in the GitLab API with Python project. Export the GL_GROUP_ID environment variable and run the script to see the project statistics printed in the terminal.

export GL_TOKEN=xxx
export GL_GROUP_ID=56595735

pip3 install python-gitlab
python3 get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py

Project Developer Evangelism and Technical Marketing at GitLab  / playground / Artifact generator group / Gen Job Artifacts 4 statistics: {
    "commit_count": 2,
    "storage_size": 90241770,
    "repository_size": 3521,
    "wiki_size": 0,
    "lfs_objects_size": 0,
    "job_artifacts_size": 90238249,
    "pipeline_artifacts_size": 0,
    "packages_size": 0,
    "snippets_size": 0,
    "uploads_size": 0
}

Analyzing multiple subgroups and projects

You can use automation to analyze multiple projects and groups. For example, you can start at the top namespace level, and recursively analyze all subgroups and projects. You can also analyze different storage types.

Here's an example of an algorithm that analyzes multiple subgroups and projects:

  1. Fetch the top-level namespace ID. You can copy the ID value from the namespace/group overview.
  2. Fetch all subgroups from the top-level group, and save the IDs in a list.
  3. Loop over all groups and fetch all projects from each group and save the IDs in a list.
  4. Identify the storage type to analyze, and collect the information from project attributes, like project statistics, and job artifacts.
  5. Print an overview of all projects, grouped by group, and their storage information.

Example with the GitLab CLI:

export GROUP_NAME="gitlab-de"

# Return sub group IDs
glab api groups/$GROUP_NAME/subgroups | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id'
12034712
67218622
67162711
67640130
16058698
12034604

# Loop over all subgroups to get subgroups, until the result set is empty. Example group: 12034712
glab api groups/12034712/subgroups | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id'
56595735
70677315
67218606
70812167

# Lowest group level
glab api groups/56595735/subgroups | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id'
# empty result, return and continue with analysis

# Fetch projects from all collected groups. Example group: 56595735
glab api groups/56595735/projects | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id'
48349590
48349263
38520467
38520405

# Fetch storage types from a project (ID 48349590): Job artifacts in the `artifacts` key
glab api projects/48349590/jobs | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id, .artifacts'
4828297946
[{"file_type":"archive","size":52444993,"filename":"artifacts.zip","file_format":"zip"},{"file_type":"metadata","size":156,"filename":"metadata.gz","file_format":"gzip"},{"file_type":"trace","size":3140,"filename":"job.log","file_format":null}]
4828297945
[{"file_type":"archive","size":20978113,"filename":"artifacts.zip","file_format":"zip"},{"file_type":"metadata","size":157,"filename":"metadata.gz","file_format":"gzip"},{"file_type":"trace","size":3147,"filename":"job.log","file_format":null}]
4828297944
[{"file_type":"archive","size":10489153,"filename":"artifacts.zip","file_format":"zip"},{"file_type":"metadata","size":158,"filename":"metadata.gz","file_format":"gzip"},{"file_type":"trace","size":3146,"filename":"job.log","file_format":null}]
4828297943
[{"file_type":"archive","size":5244673,"filename":"artifacts.zip","file_format":"zip"},{"file_type":"metadata","size":157,"filename":"metadata.gz","file_format":"gzip"},{"file_type":"trace","size":3145,"filename":"job.log","file_format":null}]
4828297940
[{"file_type":"archive","size":1049089,"filename":"artifacts.zip","file_format":"zip"},{"file_type":"metadata","size":157,"filename":"metadata.gz","file_format":"gzip"},{"file_type":"trace","size":3140,"filename":"job.log","file_format":null}]

While the shell approach with glab works for smaller analysis, you should consider a script that uses the API client libraries. This improves readability, storing data, flow control, testing, and reusability.

You can also implement this algorithm with a Python script that uses the python-gitlab library:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import datetime
import gitlab
import os
import sys

GITLAB_SERVER = os.environ.get('GL_SERVER', 'https://gitlab.com')
GITLAB_TOKEN = os.environ.get('GL_TOKEN') # token requires developer permissions
PROJECT_ID = os.environ.get('GL_PROJECT_ID') #optional
GROUP_ID = os.environ.get('GL_GROUP_ID') #optional

if __name__ == "__main__":
    if not GITLAB_TOKEN:
        print("🤔 Please set the GL_TOKEN env variable.")
        sys.exit(1)

    gl = gitlab.Gitlab(GITLAB_SERVER, private_token=GITLAB_TOKEN, pagination="keyset", order_by="id", per_page=100)

    # Collect all projects, or prefer projects from a group id, or a project id
    projects = []

    # Direct project ID
    if PROJECT_ID:
        projects.append(gl.projects.get(PROJECT_ID))
    # Groups and projects inside
    elif GROUP_ID:
        group = gl.groups.get(GROUP_ID)

        for project in group.projects.list(include_subgroups=True, get_all=True):
            manageable_project = gl.projects.get(project.id , lazy=True)
            projects.append(manageable_project)

    for project in projects:
        jobs = project.jobs.list(pagination="keyset", order_by="id", per_page=100, iterator=True)
        for job in jobs:
            print("DEBUG: ID {i}: {a}".format(i=job.id, a=job.attributes['artifacts']))

The script outputs the project job artifacts in a JSON formatted list:

[
    {
        "file_type": "archive",
        "size": 1049089,
        "filename": "artifacts.zip",
        "file_format": "zip"
    },
    {
        "file_type": "metadata",
        "size": 157,
        "filename": "metadata.gz",
        "file_format": "gzip"
    },
    {
        "file_type": "trace",
        "size": 3146,
        "filename": "job.log",
        "file_format": null
    }
]

The full script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py with specific examples for automating storage management and cleanup is located is located in the GitLab API with Python project. To ensure the script doesn't reach API rate limits, the example code is not optimized for parallel API requests.

Helper functions

You may need to convert timestamp seconds into a duration format, or print raw bytes in a more representative format. You can use the following helper functions to transform values for improved readability:

# Current Unix timestamp
date +%s

# Convert `created_at` date time with timezone to Unix timestamp
date -d '2023-08-08T18:59:47.581Z' +%s

Example with Python that uses the python-gitlab API library:

def render_size_mb(v):
    return "%.4f" % (v / 1024 / 1024)

def render_age_time(v):
    return str(datetime.timedelta(seconds = v))

# Convert `created_at` date time with timezone to Unix timestamp
def calculate_age(created_at_datetime):
    created_at_ts = datetime.datetime.strptime(created_at_datetime, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ')
    now = datetime.datetime.now()
    return (now - created_at_ts).total_seconds()

Managing storage in CI/CD pipelines

WARNING: Deleting job log and artifacts is a destructive action that cannot be reverted. Use with caution. Deleting certain files, including report artifacts, job logs, and metadata files, affects GitLab features that use these files as data sources.

Job artifacts consume most of the pipeline storage, and job logs can also generate several hundreds of kilobytes. You should delete the unnecessary job artifacts first and then clean up job logs after analysis.

Analyze pipeline storage

The following example shows a response from a query for job artifacts in a project:

[
    {
        "file_type": "archive",
        "size": 1049089,
        "filename": "artifacts.zip",
        "file_format": "zip"
    },
    {
        "file_type": "metadata",
        "size": 157,
        "filename": "metadata.gz",
        "file_format": "gzip"
    },
    {
        "file_type": "trace",
        "size": 3146,
        "filename": "job.log",
        "file_format": null
    }
]

The Job API endpoint returns the job artifacts file_type key in the artifacts attribute. The the job artifacts file_type key provides insights into the specific artifact type:

  • archive is used for the generated job artifacts as a zip file.
  • metadata is used for additional metadata in a Gzip file.
  • trace is used for the job.log as a raw file.

These three types are relevant for storage counting, and should be collected for a later summary. Based on the example code for fetching all projects, you can extend the Python script to do more analysis.

The Python code loops over all projects, and fetches a project_obj object variable that contains all attributes. Because there can be many pipelines and jobs, fetching the list of jobs can be expensive in one call. Therefore, this is done using keyset pagination. The remaining step is to fetch the artifacts attribute from the job object.

Based on how you implement the script, you could either:

  • Collect all job artifacts and print a summary table at the end of the script.
  • Print the information immediately.

Collecting the job artifacts provides a data structure that can be written as a cache file to disk for example, which you can use when testing the implementation.

In the following example, the job artifacts are collected in the ci_job_artifacts list.

   ci_job_artifacts = []

    for project in projects:
        project_obj = gl.projects.get(project.id)

        jobs = project.jobs.list(pagination="keyset", order_by="id", per_page=100, iterator=True)

        for job in jobs:
            artifacts = job.attributes['artifacts']
            #print("DEBUG: ID {i}: {a}".format(i=job.id, a=json.dumps(artifacts, indent=4)))
            if not artifacts:
                continue

            for a in artifacts:
                data = {
                    "project_id": project_obj.id,
                    "project_web_url": project_obj.name,
                    "project_path_with_namespace": project_obj.path_with_namespace,
                    "job_id": job.id,
                    "artifact_filename": a['filename'],
                    "artifact_file_type": a['file_type'],
                    "artifact_size": a['size']
                }

                ci_job_artifacts.append(data)

    print("\nDone collecting data.")

    if len(ci_job_artifacts) > 0:
        print("|Project|Job|Artifact name|Artifact type|Artifact size|\n|-|-|-|-|-|") #Start markdown friendly table
        for artifact in ci_job_artifacts:
            print('| [{project_name}]({project_web_url}) | {job_name} | {artifact_name} | {artifact_type} | {artifact_size} |'.format(project_name=artifact['project_path_with_namespace'], project_web_url=artifact['project_web_url'], job_name=artifact['job_id'], artifact_name=artifact['artifact_filename'], artifact_type=artifact['artifact_file_type'], artifact_size=render_size_mb(artifact['artifact_size'])))
    else:
        print("No artifacts found.")

At the end of the script, the job artifacts are printed as a Markdown formatted table. You can copy the table content into a new issue comment or description, or populate a Markdown file in a GitLab repository.

$ python3 get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py

|Project|Job|Artifact name|Artifact type|Artifact size|
|-|-|-|-|-|
| [gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4](Gen Job Artifacts 4) | 4828297946 | artifacts.zip | archive | 50.0154 |
| [gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4](Gen Job Artifacts 4) | 4828297946 | metadata.gz | metadata | 0.0001 |
| [gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4](Gen Job Artifacts 4) | 4828297946 | job.log | trace | 0.0030 |
| [gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4](Gen Job Artifacts 4) | 4828297945 | artifacts.zip | archive | 20.0063 |
| [gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4](Gen Job Artifacts 4) | 4828297945 | metadata.gz | metadata | 0.0001 |
| [gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4](Gen Job Artifacts 4) | 4828297945 | job.log | trace | 0.0030 |

The full example of the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py is located in the GitLab API with Python project. To ensure the script doesn't hit API rate limits, the example code is not optimized for parallel API requests.

Delete job artifacts

You can use a filter to select the types of job artifacts to delete in bulk. A typical request:

  • Deletes job artifacts older than the specified number of days.
  • Deletes job artifacts that exceed a specified amount of storage. For example, 100 MB.

You can use a Python script to implement this type of filter. You can filter the API queries results, and compare the created_at value to calculate the artifact age.

You can also loop over all job artifacts and compare their size attribute to see whether they match the size threshold. When a matching job has been found, it is marked for deletion. Because of the analysis that happens when the script loops through job attributes, the job can be marked as deleted only. When the collection loops remove the object locks, all marked as deleted jobs can actually be deleted.

   for project in projects:
        project_obj = gl.projects.get(project.id)

        jobs = project.jobs.list(pagination="keyset", order_by="id", per_page=100, iterator=True)

        for job in jobs:
            artifacts = job.attributes['artifacts']
            if not artifacts:
                continue

            # Advanced filtering: Age and Size
            # Example: 90 days, 10 MB threshold (TODO: Make this configurable)
            threshold_age = 90 * 24 * 60 * 60
            threshold_size = 10 * 1024 * 1024

            # job age, need to parse API format: 2023-08-08T22:41:08.270Z
            created_at = datetime.datetime.strptime(job.created_at, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ')
            now = datetime.datetime.now()
            age = (now - created_at).total_seconds()
            # Shorter: Use a function
            # age = calculate_age(job.created_at)

            for a in artifacts:
                # ... removed analysis collection code for readability

                # Advanced filtering: match job artifacts age and size against thresholds
                if (float(age) > float(threshold_age)) or (float(a['size']) > float(threshold_size)):
                    # mark job for deletion (cannot delete inside the loop)
                    jobs_marked_delete_artifacts.append(job)

    print("\nDone collecting data.")

    # Advanced filtering: Delete all job artifacts marked to being deleted.
    for job in jobs_marked_delete_artifacts:
        # delete the artifact
        print("DEBUG", job)
        job.delete_artifacts()

    # Print collection summary (removed for readability)

The full example of the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py is located in the GitLab API Python project.

Delete all job artifacts for a project

If you do not need the project's job artifacts, you can use the following command to delete them all. This action cannot be reverted.

Job artifact deletion happens asynchronously in GitLab and can take a while to complete in the background. Subsequent analysis queries against the API can still return the artifacts as a false-positive result. Artifact deletion can take minutes or hours, depending on the artifacts to delete. To avoid confusion with results, do not run immediate additional API requests.

The artifacts for the most recent successful jobs are also kept by default.

Example with curl:

export GL_PROJECT_ID=48349590

curl --silent --header "Authorization: Bearer $GITLAB_TOKEN" --request DELETE "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/artifacts"

Example with the GitLab CLI:

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/jobs | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id, .artifacts'

glab api --method DELETE projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/artifacts

Example with the python-gitlab library:

        project.artifacts.delete()

Delete job logs

When you delete a job log you also erase the entire job.

Example with the GitLab CLI:

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/jobs | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id'

4836226184
4836226183
4836226181
4836226180

glab api --method POST projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/jobs/4836226180/erase | jq --compact-output '.name,.status'
"generate-package: [1]"
"success"

In the python-gitlab API library, you must use job.erase() instead of job.delete_artifacts(). To avoid this API call from being blocked, set the script to sleep for a short amount of time between calls that delete the job artifact.

    for job in jobs_marked_delete_artifacts:
        # delete the artifacts and job log
        print("DEBUG", job)
        #job.delete_artifacts()
        job.erase()
        # Sleep for 1 second
        time.sleep(1)

The full example of the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py is located in the GitLab API with Python project.

Support for creating a retention policy for job logs is proposed in issue 374717.

Inventory of job artifacts expiry settings

To manage artifact storage, you can update or configure when an artifact expires. The expiry setting for artifacts are configured in each job configuration in the .gitlab-ci.yml.

If you have multiple projects, and depending on how job definitions are organized in the CI/CD configuration, it may be difficult to locate the expiry setting. You can use a script to search the entire CI/CD configuration. This includes access to objects that are resolved after inheriting values, like extends or !reference. The script retrieves merged CI/CD configuration files and searches for the artifacts key to:

  • Identify the jobs that don't have an expiry setting.
  • Return the expiry setting for jobs that have the artifact expiry configured.

The following process describes how the script searches for the artifact expiry setting:

  1. To generate a merged CI/CD configuration, the script loops over all projects and calls the ci_lint() method.
  2. The yaml_load function loads the merged configuration into Python data structures for more analysis.
  3. A dictionary that also has the key script identifies itself as a job definition, where the artifacts key might exists.
  4. If yes, the script parses the sub key expire_in and stores the details to print later in a Markdown table summary.
    ci_job_artifacts_expiry = {}

    # Loop over projects, fetch .gitlab-ci.yml, run the linter to get the full translated config, and extract the `artifacts:` setting
    # https://python-gitlab.readthedocs.io/en/stable/gl_objects/ci_lint.html
    for project in projects:
            project_obj = gl.projects.get(project.id)
            project_name = project_obj.name
            project_web_url = project_obj.web_url
            try:
                lint_result = project.ci_lint.get()
                if lint_result.merged_yaml is None:
                    continue

                ci_pipeline = yaml.safe_load(lint_result.merged_yaml)
                #print("Project {p} Config\n{c}\n\n".format(p=project_name, c=json.dumps(ci_pipeline, indent=4)))

                for k in ci_pipeline:
                    v = ci_pipeline[k]
                    # This is a job object with `script` attribute
                    if isinstance(v, dict) and 'script' in v:
                        print(".", end="", flush=True) # Get some feedback that it is still looping
                        artifacts = v['artifacts'] if 'artifacts' in v else {}

                        print("Project {p} job {j} artifacts {a}".format(p=project_name, j=k, a=json.dumps(artifacts, indent=4)))

                        expire_in = None
                        if 'expire_in' in artifacts:
                            expire_in = artifacts['expire_in']

                        store_key = project_web_url + '_' + k
                        ci_job_artifacts_expiry[store_key] = { 'project_web_url': project_web_url,
                                                        'project_name': project_name,
                                                        'job_name': k,
                                                        'artifacts_expiry': expire_in}

            except Exception as e:
                 print(f"Exception searching artifacts on ci_pipelines: {e}".format(e=e))

    if len(ci_job_artifacts_expiry) > 0:
        print("|Project|Job|Artifact expiry|\n|-|-|-|") #Start markdown friendly table
        for k, details in ci_job_artifacts_expiry.items():
            if details['job_name'][0] == '.':
                continue # ignore job templates that start with a '.'
            print(f'| [{ details["project_name"] }]({details["project_web_url"]}) | { details["job_name"] } | { details["artifacts_expiry"] if details["artifacts_expiry"] is not None else "❌ N/A" } |')

The script generates a Markdown summary table with project name and URL, job name, and the artifacts:expire_in setting, or N/A if not existing. It does not print job templates starting with a . character which are not instantiated as runtime job objects that would generate artifacts.

export GL_GROUP_ID=56595735

# Script requires pyyaml too.
pip3 install python-gitlab pyyaml

python3 get_all_cicd_config_artifacts_expiry.py

|Project|Job|Artifact expiry|
|-|-|-|
| [Gen Job Artifacts 4](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-4) | generator | 30 days |
| [Gen Job Artifacts with expiry and included jobs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-expiry-included-jobs) | included-job10 | 10 days |
| [Gen Job Artifacts with expiry and included jobs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-expiry-included-jobs) | included-job1 | 1 days |
| [Gen Job Artifacts with expiry and included jobs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-expiry-included-jobs) | included-job30 | 30 days |
| [Gen Job Artifacts with expiry and included jobs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-expiry-included-jobs) | generator | 30 days |
| [Gen Job Artifacts 2](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-2) | generator | ❌ N/A |
| [Gen Job Artifacts 1](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-1) | generator | ❌ N/A |

The get_all_cicd_config_artifacts_expiry.py script is located in the GitLab API with Python project.

Alternatively, you can use advanced search with API requests. The following example uses the scope: blobs to searches for the string artifacts in all *.yml files:

# https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/artifact-gen-group/gen-job-artifacts-expiry-included-jobs
export GL_PROJECT_ID=48349263

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/search --field "scope=blobs" --field "search=expire_in filename:*.yml"

For more information about the inventory approach, see How GitLab can help mitigate deletion of open source container images on Docker Hub.

Set the default expiry for job artifacts in projects

Based on the output of the get_all_cicd_config_artifacts_expiry.py script, you can define the default artifact expiration in your .gitlab-ci.yml configuration.

default:
    artifacts:
        expire_in: 1 week

Delete old pipelines

Pipelines do not add to the overall storage consumption, but if you want to delete them you can use the following methods.

Example using the GitLab CLI:

export GL_PROJECT_ID=48349590

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/pipelines | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id,.created_at'
960031926
"2023-08-08T22:09:52.745Z"
959884072
"2023-08-08T18:59:47.581Z"

glab api --method DELETE projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/pipelines/960031926

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/pipelines | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id,.created_at'
959884072
"2023-08-08T18:59:47.581Z"

The created_at key must be converted from a timestamp to Unix epoch time, for example with date -d '2023-08-08T18:59:47.581Z' +%s. In the next step, the age can be calculated with the difference between now, and the pipeline creation date. If the age is larger than the threshold, the pipeline should be deleted.

The following example uses a Bash script that expects jq and the GitLab CLI installed, and authorized, and the exported environment variable GL_PROJECT_ID.

The full script get_cicd_pipelines_compare_age_threshold_example.sh is located in the GitLab API with Linux Shell project.

#/bin/bash

CREATED_AT_ARR=$(glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/pipelines | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.created_at' | jq --raw-output @sh)

for row in ${CREATED_AT_ARR[@]}
do
    stripped=$(echo $row | xargs echo)
    #echo $stripped #DEBUG

    CREATED_AT_TS=$(date -d "$stripped" +%s)
    NOW=$(date +%s)

    AGE=$(($NOW-$CREATED_AT_TS))
    AGE_THRESHOLD=$((90*24*60*60)) # 90 days

    if [ $AGE -gt $AGE_THRESHOLD ];
    then
        echo "Pipeline age $AGE older than threshold $AGE_THRESHOLD, should be deleted."
        # TODO call glab to delete the pipeline. Needs an ID collected from the glab call above.
    else
        echo "Pipeline age $AGE not older than threshold $AGE_THRESHOLD. Ignore."
    fi
done

You can use the python-gitlab API library and the created_at attribute to implement a similar algorithm that compares the job artifact age:

        # ...

        for pipeline in project.pipelines.list(iterator=True):
            pipeline_obj = project.pipelines.get(pipeline.id)
            print("DEBUG: {p}".format(p=json.dumps(pipeline_obj.attributes, indent=4)))

            created_at = datetime.datetime.strptime(pipeline.created_at, '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ')
            now = datetime.datetime.now()
            age = (now - created_at).total_seconds()

            threshold_age = 90 * 24 * 60 * 60

            if (float(age) > float(threshold_age)):
                print("Deleting pipeline", pipeline.id)
                pipeline_obj.delete()

The full example of the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py is located in the GitLab API with Python project.

Automatically deleting old pipelines in GitLab is tracked in this feature proposal.

Manage storage for Container Registries

Container registries are available in a project or in a group. Both locations require analysis and cleanup strategies.

The following example uses using curl and jq for a project:

export GL_PROJECT_ID=48057080

curl --silent --header "Authorization: Bearer $GITLAB_TOKEN" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/registry/repositories" | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id,.location' | jq
4435617
"registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/container-package-gen-group/docker-alpine-generator"

curl --silent --header "Authorization: Bearer $GITLAB_TOKEN" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/registry/repositories/4435617?size=true" | jq --compact-output '.id,.location,.size'
4435617
"registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/container-package-gen-group/docker-alpine-generator"
3401613

The following example uses the GitLab CLI for a project:

export GL_PROJECT_ID=48057080

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/registry/repositories | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id,.location'
4435617
"registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/container-package-gen-group/docker-alpine-generator"

glab api --method GET registry/repositories/4435617 --field='size=true' | jq --compact-output '.id,.location,.size'
4435617
"registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/container-package-gen-group/docker-alpine-generator"
3401613

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/registry/repositories/4435617/tags | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.name'
"latest"

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/registry/repositories/4435617/tags/latest | jq --compact-output '.name,.created_at,.total_size'
"latest"
"2023-08-07T19:20:20.894+00:00"
3401613

A similar automation shell script is created in the delete old pipelines section.

The python-gitlab API library provides bulk deletion interfaces explained in the next section.

Delete container images in bulk

When you delete container image tags in bulk, you can configure:

  • The matching regular expressions for tag names and images to keep (name_regex_keep) or delete (name_regex_delete)
  • The number of image tags to keep matching the tag name (keep_n)
  • The number of days before an image tag can be deleted (older_than)

WARNING: On GitLab.com, due to the scale of the Container Registry, the number of tags deleted by this API is limited. If your Container Registry has a large number of tags to delete, only some of them are deleted. You might need to call the API multiple times. To schedule tags for automatic deletion, use a cleanup policy instead.

The following example uses the python-gitlab API library to fetch a list of tags, and calls the delete_in_bulk() method with filter parameters.

        repositories = project.repositories.list(iterator=True, size=True)
        if len(repositories) > 0:
            repository = repositories.pop()
            tags = repository.tags.list()

            # Cleanup: Keep only the latest tag
            repository.tags.delete_in_bulk(keep_n=1)
            # Cleanup: Delete all tags older than 1 month
            repository.tags.delete_in_bulk(older_than="1m")
            # Cleanup: Delete all tags matching the regex `v.*`, and keep the latest 2 tags
            repository.tags.delete_in_bulk(name_regex_delete="v.+", keep_n=2)

The full example of the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py is located in the GitLab API with Python project.

Cleanup policy for containers

Use the project REST API endpoint to create cleanup policies. The following example uses the GitLab CLI to create a cleanup policy.

To send the attributes as a body parameter, you must:

  • Use the --input - parameter to read from the standard input.
  • Set the Content-Type header.
export GL_PROJECT_ID=48057080

echo '{"container_expiration_policy_attributes":{"cadence":"1month","enabled":true,"keep_n":1,"older_than":"14d","name_regex":".*","name_regex_keep":".*-main"}}' | glab api --method PUT --header 'Content-Type: application/json;charset=UTF-8' projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID --input -

...

  "container_expiration_policy": {
    "cadence": "1month",
    "enabled": true,
    "keep_n": 1,
    "older_than": "14d",
    "name_regex": ".*",
    "name_regex_keep": ".*-main",
    "next_run_at": "2023-09-08T21:16:25.354Z"
  },

After you set up the cleanup policy, all container images that match your specifications are deleted automatically. You do not need additional API automation scripts.

Optimize container images

You can optimize container images to reduce the image size and overall storage consumption in the container registry. Learn more in the pipeline efficiency documentation.

Manage storage for Package Registry

Package registries are available in a project or in a group.

List packages and files

The following example shows fetching packages from a defined project ID using the GitLab CLI. The result set is an array of dictionary items that can be filtered with the jq command chain.

# https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/playground/container-package-gen-group/generic-package-generator
export GL_PROJECT_ID=48377643

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/packages | jq --compact-output '.[]' | jq --compact-output '.id,.name,.package_type'
16669383
"generator"
"generic"
16671352
"generator"
"generic"
16672235
"generator"
"generic"
16672237
"generator"
"generic"

Use the package ID to inspect the files and their size in the package.

glab api --method GET projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/packages/16669383/package_files | jq --compact-output '.[]' |
 jq --compact-output '.package_id,.file_name,.size'

16669383
"nighly.tar.gz"
10487563

A similar automation shell script is created in the delete old pipelines section.

The following script example uses the python-gitlab library to fetch all packages in a loop, and loops over its package files to print the file_name and size attributes.

        packages = project.packages.list(order_by="created_at")

        for package in packages:

            package_files = package.package_files.list()
            for package_file in package_files:
                print("Package name: {p} File name: {f} Size {s}".format(
                    p=package.name, f=package_file.file_name, s=render_size_mb(package_file.size)))

Delete packages

Deleting a file in a package can corrupt the package. You should delete the package when performing automated cleanup maintenance.

To delete a package, use the GitLab CLI to change the --method parameter to DELETE:

glab api --method DELETE projects/$GL_PROJECT_ID/packages/16669383

To calculate the package size and compare it against a size threshold, you can use the python-gitlab library to extend the code described in the list packages and files section.

The following code example also calculates the package age and deletes the package when the conditions match:

        packages = project.packages.list(order_by="created_at")
        for package in packages:
            package_size = 0.0

            package_files = package.package_files.list()
            for package_file in package_files:
                print("Package name: {p} File name: {f} Size {s}".format(
                    p=package.name, f=package_file.file_name, s=render_size_mb(package_file.size)))

                package_size =+ package_file.size

            print("Package size: {s}\n\n".format(s=render_size_mb(package_size)))

            threshold_size = 10 * 1024 * 1024

            if (package_size > float(threshold_size)):
                print("Package size {s} > threshold {t}, deleting package.".format(
                    s=render_size_mb(package_size), t=render_size_mb(threshold_size)))
                package.delete()

            threshold_age = 90 * 24 * 60 * 60
            package_age = created_at = calculate_age(package.created_at)

            if (float(package_age > float(threshold_age))):
                print("Package age {a} > threshold {t}, deleting package.".format(
                    a=render_age_time(package_age), t=render_age_time(threshold_age)))
                package.delete()

The code generates the following output that you can use for further analysis:

Package name: generator File name: nighly.tar.gz Size 10.0017
Package size: 10.0017
Package size 10.0017 > threshold 10.0000, deleting package.

Package name: generator File name: 1-nightly.tar.gz Size 1.0004
Package size: 1.0004

Package name: generator File name: 10-nightly.tar.gz Size 10.0018
Package name: generator File name: 20-nightly.tar.gz Size 20.0033
Package size: 20.0033
Package size 20.0033 > threshold 10.0000, deleting package.

The full example of the script get_all_projects_top_level_namespace_storage_analysis_cleanup_example.py is located in the GitLab API with Python project.

Dependency Proxy

Review the cleanup policy and how to purge the cache using the API

Community resources

These resources are not officially supported. Ensure to test scripts and tutorials before running destructive cleanup commands that may not be reverted.

Testing for storage management automation

To test storage management automation, you might need to generate test data, or populate storage to verify that the analysis and deletion works as expected. The following sections provide tools and tips about testing and generating storage blobs in a short amount of time.

Generate job artifacts

Create a test project to generate fake artifact blobs using CI/CD job matrix builds. Add a CI/CD pipeline to generate artifacts on a daily basis

  1. Create a new project.

  2. Add the following snippet to .gitlab-ci.yml to include the job artifact generator configuration.

    include:
    - remote: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/use-cases/efficiency/job-artifact-generator/-/raw/main/.gitlab-ci.yml

  3. Configure pipeline schedules.

  4. Trigger the pipeline manually.

Alternatively, reduce the 86 MB daily generated MB to different values in the MB_COUNT variable.

include:
    - remote: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-de/use-cases/efficiency/job-artifact-generator/-/raw/main/.gitlab-ci.yml

generator:
    parallel:
        matrix:
            - MB_COUNT: [1, 5, 10, 20, 50]

For more information, see the Job Artifact Generator README, with an example group.

Generate job artifacts with expiry

The project CI/CD configuration specifies job definitions in:

  • The main .gitlab-ci.yml configuration file.
  • The artifacts:expire_in setting.
  • Project files and templates.

To test the analysis scripts, the gen-job-artifacts-expiry-included-jobs project provides an example configuration.

# .gitlab-ci.yml
include:
    - include_jobs.yml

default:
  artifacts:
      paths:
          - '*.txt'

.gen-tmpl:
    script:
        - dd if=/dev/urandom of=${$MB_COUNT}.txt bs=1048576 count=${$MB_COUNT}

generator:
    extends: [.gen-tmpl]
    parallel:
        matrix:
            - MB_COUNT: [1, 5, 10, 20, 50]
    artifacts:
        untracked: false
        when: on_success
        expire_in: 30 days

# include_jobs.yml
.includeme:
    script:
        - dd if=/dev/urandom of=1.txt bs=1048576 count=1

included-job10:
    script:
        - echo "Servus"
        - !reference [.includeme, script]
    artifacts:
        untracked: false
        when: on_success
        expire_in: 10 days

included-job1:
    script:
        - echo "Gruezi"
        - !reference [.includeme, script]
    artifacts:
        untracked: false
        when: on_success
        expire_in: 1 days

included-job30:
    script:
        - echo "Grias di"
        - !reference [.includeme, script]
    artifacts:
        untracked: false
        when: on_success
        expire_in: 30 days

Generate container images

The example group container-package-gen-group provides projects that:

  • Use a base image in Dockerfile to build a new image.
  • Include the Docker.gitlab-ci.yml template to build images on GitLab.com SaaS.
  • Configure pipeline schedules to generate new images daily.

Example projects available to fork:

Generate generic packages

The example project generic-package-generator provides projects that:

  • Generate a random text blob, and create a tarball with the current Unix timestamp as release version.
  • Upload the tarball into the generic package registry, using the Unix timestamp as release version.

To generate generic packages, you can use this standalone .gitlab-ci.yml configuration:

generate-package:
  parallel:
    matrix:
      - MB_COUNT: [1, 5, 10, 20]
  before_script:
    - apt update && apt -y install curl
  script:
    - dd if=/dev/urandom of="${MB_COUNT}.txt" bs=1048576 count=${MB_COUNT}
    - tar czf "generated-$MB_COUNT-nighly-`date +%s`.tar.gz" "${MB_COUNT}.txt"
    - 'curl --header "JOB-TOKEN: $CI_JOB_TOKEN" --upload-file "generated-$MB_COUNT-nighly-`date +%s`.tar.gz" "${CI_API_V4_URL}/projects/${CI_PROJECT_ID}/packages/generic/generator/`date +%s`/${MB_COUNT}-nightly.tar.gz"'

  artifacts:
    paths:
      - '*.tar.gz'

Generate storage usage with forks

Use the following projects to test storage usage with cost factors for forks: