GitLab Generic Packages Repository (CORE)

• Introduced in GitLab 13.5.
• It's deployed behind a feature flag, enabled by default.
• It's enabled on GitLab.com.
• It's able to be enabled or disabled per-project.
• It's recommended for production use.
• For GitLab self-managed instances, GitLab administrators can opt to disable it.

CAUTION: Warning: This feature might not be available to you. Check the version history note above for details.

Publish generic files, like release binaries, in your project’s Package Registry. Then, install the packages whenever you need to use them as a dependency.

Authenticate to the Package Registry

To authenticate to the Package Registry, you need either a personal access token or CI job token.

Publish a package file

When you publish a package file, if the package does not exist, it is created.

Prerequisites:

• You need to authenticate with the API.

PUT /projects/:id/packages/generic/:package_name/:package_version/:file_name

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
id	integer/string	yes	The ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
package_name	string	yes	The package name. It can contain only lowercase letters (a-z), uppercase letter (A-Z), numbers (0-9), dots (.), hyphens (-), or underscores (_).
package_version	string	yes	The package version. It can contain only numbers (0-9), and dots (.). Must be in the format of X.Y.Z, i.e. should match /\A\d+\.\d+\.\d+\z/ regular expresion.
file_name	string	yes	The file name. It can contain only lowercase letters (a-z), uppercase letter (A-Z), numbers (0-9), dots (.), hyphens (-), or underscores (_).

Provide the file context in the request body.

Example request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     --upload-file path/to/file.txt \
     https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/24/packages/generic/my_package/0.0.1/file.txt

Example response:

{
  "message":"201 Created"
}

Download package file

Install a package file.

Prerequisites:

• You need to authenticate with the API.

GET /projects/:id/packages/generic/:package_name/:package_version/:file_name

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
id	integer/string	yes	The ID or URL-encoded path of the project.
package_name	string	yes	The package name.
package_version	string	yes	The package version.
file_name	string	yes	The file name.

The file context is served in the response body. The response content type will be application/octet-stream.

Example request that uses a personal access token:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
     https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4/projects/24/packages/generic/my_package/0.0.1/file.txt

Publish a generic package by using CI/CD

To work with generic packages in GitLab CI/CD, you can use CI_JOB_TOKEN in place of the personal access token in your commands.

For example:

image: curlimages/curl:latest

stages:
  - upload
  - download

upload:
  stage: upload
  script:
    - 'curl --header "JOB-TOKEN: $CI_JOB_TOKEN" --upload-file path/to/file.txt ${CI_API_V4_URL}/projects/${CI_PROJECT_ID}/packages/generic/my_package/0.0.1/file.txt'

download:
  stage: download
  script:
    - 'wget --header="JOB-TOKEN: $CI_JOB_TOKEN" ${CI_API_V4_URL}/projects/${CI_PROJECT_ID}/packages/generic/my_package/0.0.1/file.txt'

Enable or disable generic packages in the Package Registry

Support for generic packages is under development but ready for production use. It is deployed behind a feature flag that is enabled by default. GitLab administrators with access to the GitLab Rails console can opt to disable it.

To enable it:

# For the instance
Feature.enable(:generic_packages)
# For a single project
Feature.enable(:generic_packages, Project.find(<project id>))

To disable it:

# For the instance
Feature.disable(:generic_packages)
# For a single project
Feature.disable(:generic_packages, Project.find(<project id>))

Generic package sample project

The Write CI-CD Variables in Pipeline project contains a working example you can use to create, upload, and download generic packages in GitLab CI/CD.

It also demonstrates how to manage a semantic version for the generic package: storing it in a CI/CD variable, retrieving it, incrementing it, and writing it back to the CI/CD variable when tests for the download work correctly.