--- title: GitLab external content connector description: The GitLab external content connector retrieves issues, wikis, merge requests, tags, branches, and commits from groups, projects, and repositories in your GitLab.com source system and makes their content and metadata searchable in AI Search applications. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/gitlab-external-content-connector.html release: australia product: Search Administration classification: search-administration topic_type: concept last_updated: "2026-03-12" reading_time_minutes: 2 keywords: [ServiceNow Otto, AI Agents, generative AI, agentic AI] breadcrumb: [Configure, External Content Connectors, Search administration, Configure core features, Administer the ServiceNow AI Platform] --- # GitLab external content connector The GitLab external content connector retrieves issues, wikis, merge requests, tags, branches, and commits from groups, projects, and repositories in your GitLab.com source system and makes their content and metadata searchable in AI Search applications. Connector administrators can run or schedule content crawls to retrieve updated content and access permissions from your source system, or user permission crawls to retrieve updated security principals from your source system. Both types of crawl feed their data to AI Search for indexing. The indexed content and metadata are stored as records in a connector-specific indexed source. Search administrators can create search sources from this indexed source and link them to search profiles to make the indexed records searchable in AI Search applications. ## Prerequisites for the GitLab external content connector To use the GitLab external content connector, your GitLab plan must satisfy all of these conditions: - **Offering** You must be using the GitLab.com offering, not GitLab Dedicated or GitLab Self-Managed. To learn more about GitLab offerings, see [https://docs.gitlab.com/subscriptions/choosing\_subscription/\#choose-an-offering](https://docs.gitlab.com/subscriptions/choosing_subscription/#choose-an-offering). - **Group owner user account** You need a GitLab.com user account that owns all the public and private top-level groups you want the external content connector to crawl. The connector impersonates this user when retrieving searchable content, user access permissions, and security principals from your GitLab source system. - **Public content requirements** Public content you want to retrieve must be in public top-level groups owned by your group owner user. - **Private content requirements** Private content you want to retrieve must be in a private top-level group on the Ultimate subscription tier. This group must be owned by your group owner user, and you must have configured access permissions for enterprise users in this private group. \(The connector only retrieves user access permissions and security principals for enterprise users.\) To learn more about GitLab subscription tiers, see [https://docs.gitlab.com/subscriptions/choosing\_subscription/\#choose-a-subscription-tier](https://docs.gitlab.com/subscriptions/choosing_subscription/#choose-a-subscription-tier). For information about GitLab enterprise users, see [https://docs.gitlab.com/user/enterprise\_user/](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/enterprise_user/). ## Limitations for the GitLab external content connector The GitLab external content connector doesn't retrieve searchable content from personal GitLab.com projects. When retrieving security principals from your GitLab.com source system, the GitLab external content connector doesn't support any of these security features: - [Custom roles](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/custom_roles/) - [Group access tokens](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/settings/group_access_tokens/) - Users that aren't [Enterprise users](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/enterprise_user/) - Users with the [Minimal Access](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/permissions/#users-with-minimal-access) role - **[Configure GitLab for external content indexing](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/configure-gitlab-external-content-indexing.md)** Create a personal access token for a group owner user account on GitLab.com to allow the GitLab external content connector to access your GitLab source system. - **[Create a GitLab external content connector](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/create-ext-cont-connector-gitlab.md)** Create an external content connector to retrieve searchable content and security principals from your GitLab source system. - **[Configure crawl settings for a GitLab external content connector](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/configure-crawl-settings-gitlab-external-content-connector.md)** Specify the groups, projects, and repositories you want your GitLab external content connector to crawl. Select the issues, wikis, merge requests, tags, branches, and commits you want the crawl to retrieve and feed to AI Search for indexing. **Parent Topic:**[Configuring External Content Connectors](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/configuring-ext-cont-connectors.md) **Related topics** [Create a content crawl for an external content connector](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/create-content-crawl-external-content-connector.md) [Create a user permission crawl for an external content connector](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/platform-administration/search-administration/create-user-mapping-crawl-external-content-connector.md)