Project features and permissions

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

Configure project features and permissions

To configure features and permissions for a project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. To allow users to request access to the project, select the Users can request access checkbox.
5. To enable or disable features in the project, use the feature toggles.
6. Select Save changes.

When you disable a feature, the following additional features are also disabled:

• If you disable the Issues feature, project users cannot use:

  • Issue Boards
  • Service Desk
  • Project users can still access Milestones from merge requests.

• If you disable Issues and Merge Requests, project users cannot use:

  • Labels
  • Milestones

• If you disable Repository, project users cannot access:

  • Merge requests
  • CI/CD
  • Git Large File Storage
  • Packages

• The metrics dashboard requires read access to project environments and deployments. Users with access to the metrics dashboard can also access environments and deployments.

Enable and disable project features

Enabled project features are visible and accessible to project members. You can disable specific project features, so that they are not visible and accessible to project members, regardless of their role.

To enable or disable individual features in a project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. To enable a feature, turn on the toggle. To disable a feature, turn off the toggle.
5. Select Save changes.

Disable project analytics

By default, project analytics are displayed under the Analyze item in the left sidebar. To disable this feature and remove the Analyze item from the left sidebar:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. Turn off the Analytics toggle.
5. Select Save changes.

Disable CVE identifier request in issues

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com

• Introduced in GitLab 13.4, only for public projects on GitLab.com.

In some environments, users can submit a CVE identifier request in an issue.

To disable the CVE identifier request option in issues in your project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility, project features, permissions.
4. Under Issues, turn off the CVE ID requests in the issue sidebar toggle.
5. Select Save changes.

Disable project email notifications

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role for the 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.
4. Clear the Enable email notifications checkbox.

Disable diff previews in project email notifications

• Introduced in GitLab 15.6 with the flag named diff_preview_in_email. Disabled by default.
• Enabled the flag diff_preview_in_email on GitLab.com, self-managed, and GitLab Dedicated in GitLab 17.1.

FLAG: The availability of this feature is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history.

When you review code in a merge request and comment on a line of code, GitLab includes a few lines of the diff in the email notification to participants. Some organizational policies treat email as a less secure system, or might not control their own infrastructure for email. This can present risks to IP or access control of source code.

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role for the project.

To disable diff previews 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.
4. Clear Include diff previews.
5. Select Save changes.

Configure merge request settings for a project

Configure your project's merge request settings:

• Set up the merge request method (merge commit, fast-forward merge).
• Add merge request description templates.
• Enable:
  • Merge request approvals.
  • Status checks.
  • Merge only if pipeline succeeds.
  • Merge only when all threads are resolved.
  • Required associated issue from Jira.
  • Suggested Reviewers
  • Delete source branch when merge request is accepted option by default.
• Configure:
  • Suggested changes commit messages.
  • Merge and squash commit message templates.
  • Default target project for merge requests coming from forks.

Delete the source branch on merge by default

In merge requests, you can change the default behavior so that the Delete the source branch checkbox is always selected.

To set this default:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > Merge requests.
3. Select Enable "Delete source branch" option by default.
4. Select Save changes.