GitLab container registry

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

You can use the integrated container registry to store container images for each GitLab project.

To enable the container registry for your GitLab instance, see the administrator documentation.

NOTE: If you pull container images from Docker Hub, you can use the GitLab Dependency Proxy to avoid rate limits and speed up your pipelines.

View the container registry

You can view the container registry for a project or group.

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project or group.
2. Select Deploy > Container Registry.

You can search, sort, filter, and delete your container images. You can share a filtered view by copying the URL from your browser.

View the tags of a specific container image in the container registry

You can use the container registry Tag Details page to view a list of tags associated with a given container image:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project or group.
2. Select Deploy > Container Registry.
3. Select your container image.

You can view details about each tag, such as when it was published, how much storage it consumes, and the manifest and configuration digests.

You can search, sort (by tag name), and delete tags on this page. You can share a filtered view by copying the URL from your browser.

Use container images from the container registry

To download and run a container image hosted in the container registry:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project or group.

2. Select Deploy > Container Registry.

3. Find the container image you want to work with and select Copy image path （{copy-to-clipboard}）.

4. Use docker run with the copied link:

   docker run [options] registry.example.com/group/project/image [arguments]

NOTE: You must authenticate with the container registry to download container images from a private repository.

For more information on running container images, see the Docker documentation.

Naming convention for your container images

Your container images must follow this naming convention:

<registry server>/<namespace>/<project>[/<optional path>]

For example, if your project is gitlab.example.com/mynamespace/myproject, then your container image must be named gitlab.example.com/mynamespace/myproject.

You can append additional names to the end of a container image name, up to two levels deep.

For example, these are all valid names for container images in the project named myproject:

registry.example.com/mynamespace/myproject:some-tag

registry.example.com/mynamespace/myproject/image:latest

registry.example.com/mynamespace/myproject/my/image:rc1

Move or rename container registry repositories

The path of a container repository always matches the related project's repository path, so renaming or moving only the container registry is not possible. Instead, you can rename or move the entire project.

Renaming projects with populated container repositories is only supported on GitLab.com.

On a self-managed instance, you can delete all container images before moving or renaming a group or project. Alternatively, issue 18383 contains community suggestions to work around this limitation. Epic 9459 proposes adding support for moving projects and groups with container repositories to self-managed GitLab.

Disable the container registry for a project

The container registry is enabled by default.

You can, however, remove the container registry for a project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand the Visibility, project features, permissions section and disable Container registry.
4. Select Save changes.

The Deploy > Container Registry entry is removed from the project's sidebar.

Change visibility of the container registry

By default, the container registry is visible to everyone with access to the project. You can, however, change the visibility of the container registry for a project.

For more information about the permissions that this setting grants to users, see Container registry visibility permissions.

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.

2. Select Settings > General.

3. Expand the section Visibility, project features, permissions.

4. Under Container registry, select an option from the dropdown list:

   • Everyone With Access (Default): The container registry is visible to everyone with access to the project. If the project is public, the container registry is also public. If the project is internal or private, the container registry is also internal or private.

   • Only Project Members: The container registry is visible only to project members with at least the Reporter role. This visibility is similar to the behavior of a private project with Container Registry visibility set to Everyone With Access.

5. Select Save changes.

Container registry visibility permissions

The ability to view the container registry and pull container images is controlled by the container registry's visibility permissions. You can change the visibility through the visibility setting on the UI or the API. Other permissions such as updating the container registry and pushing or deleting container images are not affected by this setting. However, disabling the container registry disables all container registry operations.

Supported image types

• OCI conformance introduced in GitLab 16.6.

The container registry supports the Docker V2 and Open Container Initiative (OCI) image formats. Additionally, the container registry conforms to the OCI distribution specification.

OCI support means that you can host OCI-based image formats in the registry, such as Helm 3+ chart packages. There is no distinction between image formats in the GitLab API and the UI. Issue 38047 addresses this distinction, starting with Helm.

Container image signatures

• Container image signature display introduced in GitLab 17.1.

In the GitLab container registry, you can use the OCI 1.1 manifest subject field to associate container images with Cosign signatures. You can then view signature information alongside its associated container image without having to search for that signature's tag.

When viewing a container image's tags, you see an icon displayed next to each tag that has an associated signature. To see the details of the signature, select the icon.

Prerequisites:

• To sign container images, Cosign v2.0 or later.
• For self-managed GitLab instances, you need a GitLab container registry configured with a metadata database to display signatures.

Sign container images with OCI referrer data

To add referrer data to signatures using Cosign, you must:

• Set the COSIGN_EXPERIMENTAL environment variable to 1.
• Add --registry-referrers-mode oci-1-1 to the signature command.

For example:

COSIGN_EXPERIMENTAL=1 cosign sign --registry-referrers-mode oci-1-1 <container image>

NOTE: While the GitLab container registry supports the OCI 1.1 manifest subject field, it does not fully implement the OCI 1.1 Referrers API.