Code Owners (PREMIUM)

Moved to GitLab Premium in 13.9.

Use the Code Owners feature to define who has expertise for specific parts of your project's codebase. Define the owners of files and directories in a repository to:

• Require owners to approve changes. Combine protected branches with Code Owners to require experts to approve merge requests before they merge into a protected branch.
• Identify owners. Code Owner names are displayed on the files and directories they own:

Use Code Owners in combination with merge request approval rules (either optional or required) to build a flexible approval workflow:

• Use Code Owners to ensure quality. Define the users who have domain expertise for specific paths in your repository.
• Use Approval rules to define areas of expertise that don't correspond to specific file paths in your repository. Approval rules help guide merge request creators to the correct set of reviewers, such as frontend developers or a security team.

For example:

View Code Owners of a file or directory

To view the Code Owners of a file or directory:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
2. On the left sidebar, select Repository > Files.
3. Go to the file or directory you want to see the Code Owners for.
4. Optional. Select a branch or tag.

GitLab shows the Code Owners at the top of the page.

Set up Code Owners

1. Create a CODEOWNERS file in your preferred location.
2. Define some rules in the file following the Code Owners syntax reference. Some suggestions:
   • Configure All eligible approvers approval rule.
   • Require Code Owner approval on a protected branch.
3. Commit your changes, and push them up to GitLab.

Code Owners file

A CODEOWNERS file (with no extension) specifies the users or shared groups responsible for specific files and directories in a repository.

Each repository uses a single CODEOWNERS file. GitLab checks these locations in your repository in this order. The first CODEOWNERS file found is used, and all others are ignored:

1. In the root directory: ./CODEOWNERS.
2. In the docs directory: ./docs/CODEOWNERS.
3. In the .gitlab directory: ./.gitlab/CODEOWNERS.

Groups as Code Owners

Group and subgroup hierarchy support was introduced in GitLab 13.0.

You can use members of groups and subgroups as Code Owners for projects:

graph TD
    A[Parent group X] -->|owns| B[Project A]
    A -->|contains| C[Subgroup Y]
    C -->|owns| D[Project B]
    A-. inherits ownership .-> D

In this example:

• Parent group X (group-x) owns Project A.
• Parent group X also contains a subgroup, Subgroup Y. (group-x/subgroup-y)
• Subgroup Y owns Project B.

The eligible Code Owners are:

• Project A: the members of Group X only, because Project A doesn't belong to Subgroup Y.
• Project B: the members of both Group X and Subgroup Y.

You can invite Subgroup Y to Project A so that their members also become eligible Code Owners.

graph LR
    A[Parent group X] -->|owns| B[Project A]
    A -->|also contains| C[Subgroup Y]
    C -.->D{Invite Subgroup Y<br/>to Project A?} -.->|yes| F[Approvals can be<br/> required] -.-> B
    D{Invite Subgroup Y<br/>to Project A?} -.->|no| I[Subgroup Y cannot be<br /> an approver] -.-> B
    C -.->E{Add Subgroup Y<br/>as Code Owners<br/>to Project A?} -.->|yes| H[Approvals can only<br/>be optional] -.-> B

If you do not invite Subgroup Y to Project A, but make them Code Owners, their approval of the merge request becomes optional.

Inviting Subgroup Y to a parent group of Project A is not supported. To set Subgroup Y as Code Owners, add this group directly to the project itself.

NOTE: For approval to be required, groups as Code Owners must have a direct membership (not inherited membership) in the project. Approval can only be optional for groups that inherit membership. Members in the Code Owners group also must be direct members, and not inherit membership from any parent groups.

Add a group as a Code Owner

To set a group as a Code Owner:

In the CODEOWNERS file, enter text that follows one of these patterns:

# All group members as Code Owners for a file
file.md @group-x

# All subgroup members as Code Owners for a file
file.md @group-x/subgroup-y

# All group and subgroup members as Code Owners for a file
file.md @group-x @group-x/subgroup-y

Define more specific owners for more specifically defined files or directories

When a file or directory matches multiple entries in the CODEOWNERS file, the users from last pattern matching the file or directory are used. This enables you to define more specific owners for more specifically defined files or directories, when you order the entries in a sensible way.

For example, in the following CODEOWNERS file:

# This line would match the file terms.md
*.md @doc-team

# This line would also match the file terms.md
terms.md @legal-team

The Code Owner for terms.md would be @legal-team.

If you use sections, the last pattern matching the file or directory for each section is used. For example, in a CODEOWNERS file using sections:

[README Owners]
README.md @user1 @user2
internal/README.md @user4

[README other owners]
README.md @user3

The Code Owners for the README.md in the root directory are @user1, @user2, and @user3. The Code Owners for internal/README.md are @user4 and @user3.

Only one CODEOWNERS pattern per section is matched to a file path.

Organize Code Owners by putting them into sections

• Introduced in GitLab 13.2 with a flag named sectional_codeowners. Disabled by default.
• Generally available in GitLab 13.4. Feature flag sectional_codeowners removed.

You can organize Code Owners by putting them into named sections.

You can use sections for shared directories, so that multiple teams can be reviewers.

To add a section to the CODEOWNERS file, enter a section name in brackets, followed by the files or directories, and users, groups, or subgroups:

[README Owners]
README.md @user1 @user2
internal/README.md @user2

Each Code Owner in the merge request widget is listed under a label. The following image shows a Groups and Documentation section:

Set default owner for a section

• Introduced in GitLab 15.11 with a flag named codeowners_default_owners. Disabled by default.
• Generally available in GitLab 15.11. Feature flag codeowners_default_owners removed.

If multiple file paths inside a section share the same ownership, define a default Code Owner for the section. All paths in that section inherit this default, unless you override the section default on a specific line.

Default owners are applied when specific owners are not specified for file paths. Specific owners defined beside the file path override default owners:

[Documentation] @docs-team
docs/
README.md

[Database] @database-team
model/db/
config/db/database-setup.md @docs-team

In this example:

• @docs-team owns all items in the Documentation section.
• @database-team owns all items in the Database section except config/db/database-setup.md, which has an override assigning it to @docs-team.

To combine the syntax for default owners with optional sections and required approvals, place default owners at the end:

[Documentation][2] @docs-team
docs/
README.md

^[Database] @database-team
model/db/
config/db/database-setup.md @docs-team

Sections with duplicate names

If multiple sections have the same name, they are combined. Also, section headings are not case-sensitive. For example:

[Documentation]
ee/docs/    @docs
docs/       @docs

[Database]
README.md  @database
model/db/   @database

[DOCUMENTATION]
README.md  @docs

This code results in three entries under the Documentation section header, and two entries under Database. The entries defined under the sections Documentation and DOCUMENTATION are combined, using the case of the first section.

Make a Code Owners section optional

Introduced in GitLab 13.8.

You can designate optional sections in your Code Owners file. Prepend the section name with the caret ^ character to treat the entire section as optional. Optional sections enable you to designate responsible parties for various parts of your codebase, but not require approval from them. This approach provides a more relaxed policy for parts of your project that are frequently updated, but don't require stringent reviews.

In this example, the [Go] section is optional:

[Documentation]
*.md @root

[Ruby]
*.rb @root

^[Go]
*.go @root

The optional Code Owners section displays in merge requests under the Approval Rules area:

If a section is duplicated in the file, and one of them is marked as optional and the other isn't, the section is required.

Optional sections in the CODEOWNERS file are treated as optional only when changes are submitted by using merge requests. If a change is submitted directly to the protected branch, approval from Code Owners is still required, even if the section is marked as optional.

Require multiple approvals from Code Owners

Introduced in GitLab 15.9.

You can require multiple approvals for the Code Owners sections under the Approval Rules area in merge requests. Append the section name with a number n in brackets. This requires n approvals from the Code Owners in this section. Please note valid entries for n are integers ≥ 1. [1] is optional as it is the default. Invalid values for n are treated as 1.

WARNING: Issue #384881 proposes changes to the behavior of this setting. Do not intentionally set invalid values. They may become valid in the future, and cause unexpected behavior.

Please confirm you enabled Require approval from code owners in Settings > Repository > Protected branches, otherwise the Code Owner approvals will be optional.

In this example, the [Documentation] section requires 2 approvals:

[Documentation][2]
*.md @tech-writer-team

[Ruby]
*.rb @dev-team

The Documentation Code Owners section under the Approval Rules area displays 2 approvals are required:

Allowed to Push

The Code Owner approval and protected branch features do not apply to users who are Allowed to push.

Technical Resources

Code Owners development guidelines

Troubleshooting

For more information about how the Code Owners feature handles errors, see the Code Owners reference.

Approvals shown as optional

A Code Owner approval rule is optional if any of these conditions are true:

• The user or group are not a member of the project. Code Owners cannot inherit from parent groups.
• Code Owner approval on a protected branch has not been set up.
• The section is marked as optional.

Approvals do not show

Code Owner approval rules only update when the merge request is created. If you update the CODEOWNERS file, close the merge request and create a new one.

User not shown as possible approver

A user might not show as an approver on the Code Owner merge request approval rules if any of these conditions are true:

• A rule prevents the specific user from approving the merge request. Check the project merge request approval settings.
• A Code Owner group has a visibility of private, and the current user is not a member of the Code Owner group.
• Current user is an external user who does not have permission to the internal Code Owner group.

Approval rule is invalid. GitLab has approved this rule automatically to unblock the merge request

This message may appear if an approval rule uses a Code Owner that is not a direct member of the project. Check that the group or user has been invited to the project.