@gitbeaker/rest

What is @gitbeaker/rest?

@gitbeaker/rest is an npm package that provides a comprehensive and easy-to-use interface for interacting with the GitLab REST API. It allows developers to perform a wide range of actions on GitLab, such as managing projects, issues, users, and more.

What are @gitbeaker/rest's main functionalities?

Project Management

This feature allows you to manage projects on GitLab. The code sample demonstrates how to create a new project using the GitLab REST API.

const { Gitlab } = require('@gitbeaker/rest');
const api = new Gitlab({ token: 'your_access_token' });

async function createProject() {
  const project = await api.Projects.create({ name: 'new-project' });
  console.log(project);
}

createProject();

Issue Management

This feature allows you to manage issues on GitLab. The code sample demonstrates how to create a new issue in a project using the GitLab REST API.

const { Gitlab } = require('@gitbeaker/rest');
const api = new Gitlab({ token: 'your_access_token' });

async function createIssue() {
  const issue = await api.Issues.create(1, { title: 'New Issue', description: 'Issue description' });
  console.log(issue);
}

createIssue();

User Management

This feature allows you to manage users on GitLab. The code sample demonstrates how to list all users using the GitLab REST API.

const { Gitlab } = require('@gitbeaker/rest');
const api = new Gitlab({ token: 'your_access_token' });

async function listUsers() {
  const users = await api.Users.all();
  console.log(users);
}

listUsers();

Repository Management

This feature allows you to manage repositories on GitLab. The code sample demonstrates how to list all files in a repository using the GitLab REST API.

const { Gitlab } = require('@gitbeaker/rest');
const api = new Gitlab({ token: 'your_access_token' });

async function listRepositoryFiles() {
  const files = await api.Repositories.tree(1);
  console.log(files);
}

listRepositoryFiles();

Other packages similar to @gitbeaker/rest

node-gitlab

node-gitlab is another npm package for interacting with the GitLab API. It provides similar functionalities to @gitbeaker/rest, such as project and issue management. However, @gitbeaker/rest is more comprehensive and actively maintained.

gitlab

gitlab is a simple wrapper around the GitLab API. It offers basic functionalities for interacting with GitLab, but it lacks the extensive feature set and ease of use provided by @gitbeaker/rest.

README

---

^{My open source work is supported by the community}

^{Special thanks to:}

---

A Typed GitLab SDK for Browsers, Node.js, and Deno.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Usage
• API Client
  • Expanded Payloads
  • Pagination
  • Rate Limits
  • Error Handling
• Examples
• Testing
• FAQ
• Contributors
• Changelog

Features

• Complete - All features of Gitlab's exposed APIs are covered up to version 16.5. See here for the full list.
• Universal - Works in all modern browsers, Node.js, and Deno.
• Tested - All libraries have > 80% test coverage.
• Typed - All libraries have extensive TypeScript declarations.

Usage

Browsers	Load @gitbeaker/rest directly from esm.sh <script type="module"> import { Gitlab } from 'https://esm.sh/@gitbeaker/rest'; </script>
Deno	Load @gitbeaker/rest directly from esm.sh import { Gitlab } from 'https://esm.sh/@gitbeaker/rest?dts';
Node 18+	Install with npm install @gitbeaker/rest, or yarn add @gitbeaker/rest import { Gitlab } from '@gitbeaker/rest';

API Client

Instantiate the library using a basic token created in your Gitlab Profile

const api = new Gitlab({
  token: 'personaltoken',
});

Available instantiating options:

Name	Optional	Default	Description
host	Yes	https://gitlab.com	Gitlab Instance Host URL
token	Yes*	N/A	Personal Token. Recommended (one of the three tokens are recommended)
oauthToken	Yes*	N/A	OAuth Token. Recommended (one of the three tokens are recommended)
jobToken	Yes*	N/A	CI Job Token. Recommended (one of the three tokens are recommended)
rejectUnauthorized	Yes	true	Http Certificate setting, Only applies to non-browser releases and HTTPS hosts urls
sudo	Yes	false	Sudo query parameter
camelize	Yes	false	Camelizes all response body keys
requesterFn	No	@gitbeaker/rest & @gitbeaker/cli : fetch-based, The @gitbeaker/core package does not have a default and thus must be set explicitly	Request Library Wrapper
queryTimeout	Yes	300000	Query Timeout in ms
profileToken	Yes	N/A	Requests Profiles Token
profileMode	Yes	execution	Requests Profiles Token
rateLimits	No	DEFAULT_RATE_LIMITS	Global and endpoint specific adjustable rate limits

*One of these options should be supplied, as most API requests require authentication.

Expanded Payloads

For simplicity, only the response body is returned from the API methods. However, seeing additional response fields, such as the status, headers, etc., may be helpful. For this purpose, an additional optional parameter, showExpanded can be passed for most API methods.

For methods that return non-paginated results, the payload has this structure:

type ResponseBodyTypes =
  | Record<string, unknown>
  | Record<string, unknown>[]
  | ReadableStream
  | Blob
  | string
  | string[]
  | number
  | void
  | null;

interface FormattedResponse<T extends ResponseBodyTypes = ResponseBodyTypes> {
  body: T;
  headers: Record<string, string>;
  status: number;
}

For methods that return paginated results, the payload also includes paginated information outlined in the Pagination documentation

Pagination

Available pagination options:

Name	Keyset	Offset	Type	Default	Description
pagination	X	X	'offset' or 'keyset'	'offset'	Defines which pagination type should be used
perPage	X	X	Number	20	Amount of results per request
orderBy	X		String		What field the results should be ordered by
sort	X		'asc' or 'desc'	'asc'	The direction of sort for the results
maxPages		X	Number	N/A	Maximum amount of requests that should be made
page		X	Number	N/A	Specific page to be retrieved
showExpanded		X	Boolean	false	Returns with the pagination information in addition to the data

Offset Pagination

For any .all() function on a resource, it will return all the items from Gitlab. This can be troublesome if there are many items, as the request itself can take a while to be fulfilled. As such, a maxPages option can be passed to limit the scope of the all function.

import { Gitlab } from '@gitbeaker/rest';

const api = new Gitlab({
  host: 'http://example.com',
  token: 'personaltoken',
});

let projects = await api.Projects.all({ maxPages: 2 });

You can also use this in conjunction with the perPage argument which would override the default of 30 per page set by Gitlab:

import { Gitlab } from '@gitbeaker/rest';

const api = new Gitlab({
  host: 'http://example.com',
  token: 'personaltoken',
});

let projects = await api.Projects.all({ maxPages: 2, perPage: 40 });

Additionally, if you would like to get back the pagination information, to know how many total pages there are for example, pass the option showExpanded. If there are multiple results the pagination property will be included as shown below:

...
const { data, paginationInfo } = await api.Projects.all({
  perPage:40,
  maxPages:2,
  showExpanded: true
});
...

This will result in a response in this format:

data: [
...
],
paginationInfo: {
  next: 4,
  current: 2,
  previous: 1,
  perPage: 3,
}

Note: Supplying any pagination restrictions is call intensive. Some resources will require many requests which can put a significant load on the Gitlab Server. The general best practice would be setting the page request option to only return the first page if all results are not required.

Keyset Pagination

Similarly, support for Keyset pagination can be toggled on by passing a pagination parameter as a query option

const { data } = await api.Projects.all({
  pagination: 'keyset',
  sort: 'asc',
  orderBy: 'created_at',
});

Rate Limits

Rate limits are completely customizable, and are used to limit the request rate between consecutive API requests within the library. By default, all non-specified endpoints use a 3000 rps rate limit, while some endpoints have much smaller rates as dictated by the Gitlab Docs. See below for the default values:

const DEFAULT_RATE_LIMITS = Object.freeze({
  // Default rate limit
  '**': 3000,

  // Import/Export
  'projects/import': 6,
  'projects/*/export': 6,
  'projects/*/download': 1,
  'groups/import': 6,
  'groups/*/export': 6,
  'groups/*/download': 1,

  // Note creation
  'projects/*/issues/*/notes': {
    method: 'post',
    limit: 300,
  },
  'projects/*/snippets/*/notes': {
    method: 'post',
    limit: 300,
  },
  'projects/*/merge_requests/*/notes': {
    method: 'post',
    limit: 300,
  },
  'groups/*/epics/*/notes': {
    method: 'post',
    limit: 300,
  },

  // Repositories - get file archive
  'projects/*/repository/archive*': 5,

  // Project Jobs
  'projects/*/jobs': 600,

  // Member deletion
  'projects/*/members': 60,
  'groups/*/members': 60,
});

Rate limits can be overridden when instantiating a API wrapper. For ease of use, these limits are configured using glob patterns, and can be formatted in two ways.

1. The glob for the endpoint with the corresponding rate per second
2. The glob for the endpoint, with an object specifying the specific method for the endpoint and the corresponding rate limit

const api = new Gitlab({
  token: 'token',
  rateLimits: {
    '**': 30,
    'projects/import/*': 40,
    'projects/*/issues/*/notes': {
      method: 'post',
      limit: 300,
    },
  },
});

Error Handling

Request errors are returned back within a plain Error instance, using the cause to hold the original response and a text description of the error pulled from the response's error or message fields if JSON, or its plain text value:

class GitbeakerError extends Error {
  constructor(
    message: string,
    options?: {
      cause: {
        description: string;
        request: Request;
        response: Response;
      };
    },
  ) {
    super(message, options);
    this.name = 'GitbeakerError';
  }
}

Note, the message is assigned to the Response's statusText, and the Request and Response types are from the NodeJS API.

Examples

Once you have your library instantiated, you can utilize many of the API's functionality:

Using the await/async method

import { Gitlab } from '@gitbeaker/rest';

const api = new Gitlab({
  host: 'http://example.com',
  token: 'personaltoken',
});

// Listing users
let users = await api.Users.all();

// Or using Promise-Then notation
api.Projects.all().then((projects) => {
  console.log(projects);
});

A general rule about all the function parameters:

• If it's a required parameter, it is a named argument in the functions
• If it's an optional parameter, it is defined in a options object following the named arguments

ie.

import { Projects } from '@gitbeaker/rest';

const projectsAPI = new Projects({
  host: 'http://example.com',
  token: 'personaltoken',
});

projectsAPI.create({
  //options defined in the Gitlab API documentation
});

Contributors

This started as a fork from node-gitlab-legacy but I ended up rewriting much of the code. Here are the original work's contributors.