Insights (ULTIMATE)

Introduced in GitLab Ultimate 12.0.

Configure the Insights that matter for your projects to explore data such as triage hygiene, issues created/closed per a given period, average time for merge requests to be merged and much more.

NOTE: Note: This feature is also available at the group level.

View your project's Insights

You can access your project's Insights by clicking the Analytics > Insights link in the left sidebar:

Configure your Insights

Insights are configured using a YAML file called .gitlab/insights.yml within a project. That file will then be used in the project's Insights page.

See Writing your .gitlab/insights.yml below for details about the content of this file.

NOTE: Note: Once the configuration file is created, you can also use it for your project's group.

NOTE: Note: If the project doesn't have any configuration file, it'll try to use the group configuration if possible. If the group doesn't have any configuration, the default configuration will be used.

Permissions

If you have access to view a project, then you have access to view their Insights.

NOTE: Note: Issues or merge requests that you don't have access to (because you don't have access to the project they belong to, or because they are confidential) are filtered out of the Insights charts.

You may also consult the group permissions table.

Writing your .gitlab/insights.yml

The .gitlab/insights.yml file defines the structure and order of the Insights charts that will be displayed in each Insights page of your project or group.

Each page has a unique key and a collection of charts to fetch and display.

For example, here's a single definition for Insights that will display one page with one chart:

bugsCharts:
  title: "Charts for bugs"
  charts:
    - title: "Monthly bugs created"
      description: "Open bugs created per month"
      type: bar
      query:
        issuable_type: issue
        issuable_state: opened
        filter_labels:
          - bug
        group_by: month
        period_limit: 24

Each chart definition is made up of a hash composed of key-value pairs.

For example, here's single chart definition:

- title: "Monthly bugs created"
  description: "Open bugs created per month"
  type: bar
  query:
    issuable_type: issue
    issuable_state: opened
    filter_labels:
      - bug
    group_by: month
    period_limit: 24

Configuration parameters

A chart is defined as a list of parameters that define the chart's behavior.

The following table lists available parameters for charts:

Keyword	Description
title	The title of the chart. This will displayed on the Insights page.
description	A description for the individual chart. This will be displayed above the relevant chart.
type	The type of chart: bar, line or stacked-bar.
query	A hash that defines the conditions for issues / merge requests to be part of the chart.

Parameter details

The following are detailed explanations for parameters used to configure Insights charts.

title

title is the title of the chart as it will be displayed on the Insights page. For example:

monthlyBugsCreated:
  title: "Monthly bugs created"

description

The description text is displayed above the chart, but below the title. It's used to give extra details regarding the chart, for example:

monthlyBugsCreated:
  title: "Monthly bugs created"
  description: "Open bugs created per month"

type

type is the chart type.

For example:

monthlyBugsCreated:
  title: "Monthly bugs created"
  type: bar

Supported values are:

Name	Example
bar
bar (time series, i.e. when group_by is used)
line
stacked-bar

query

query allows to define the conditions for issues / merge requests to be part of the chart.

Example:

monthlyBugsCreated:
  title: "Monthly bugs created"
  description: "Open bugs created per month"
  type: bar
  query:
    issuable_type: issue
    issuable_state: opened
    filter_labels:
      - bug
    collection_labels:
      - S1
      - S2
      - S3
      - S4
    group_by: week
    period_limit: 104

query.issuable_type

Defines the type of "issuable" you want to create a chart for.

Supported values are:

• issue: The chart will display issues' data.
• merge_request: The chart will display merge requests' data.

query.issuable_state

Filter by the state of the queried "issuable".

By default, the opened state filter will be applied.

Supported values are:

• opened: Open issues / merge requests.
• closed: Closed Open issues / merge requests.
• locked: Issues / merge requests that have their discussion locked.
• merged: Merged merge requests.
• all: Issues / merge requests in all states

query.filter_labels

Filter by labels applied to the queried "issuable".

By default, no labels filter will be applied. All the defined labels must be applied to the "issuable" in order for it to be selected.

Example:

monthlyBugsCreated:
  title: "Monthly regressions created"
  type: bar
  query:
    issuable_type: issue
    issuable_state: opened
    filter_labels:
      - bug
      - regression

query.collection_labels

Group "issuable" by the configured labels.

By default, no grouping will be done. When using this keyword, you need to set type to either line or stacked-bar.

Example:

weeklyBugsBySeverity:
  title: "Weekly bugs by severity"
  type: stacked-bar
  query:
    issuable_type: issue
    issuable_state: opened
    filter_labels:
      - bug
    collection_labels:
      - S1
      - S2
      - S3
      - S4

query.group_by

Define the X-axis of your chart.

Supported values are:

• day: Group data per day.
• week: Group data per week.
• month: Group data per month.

query.period_limit

Define how far "issuables" are queried in the past.

The unit is related to the query.group_by you defined. For instance if you defined query.group_by: 'day' then query.period_limit: 365 would mean "Gather and display data for the last 365 days".

By default, default values will be applied depending on the query.group_by you defined.

query.group_by	Default value
day	30
week	4
month	12

projects

Introduced in GitLab Ultimate 12.4.

You can limit where the "issuables" can be queried from:

• If .gitlab/insights.yml is used for a group's insights, with projects, you can limit the projects to be queried. By default, all projects under the group will be used.
• If .gitlab/insights.yml is used for a project's insights, specifying any other projects will yield no results. By default, the project itself will be used.

projects.only

The projects.only option specifies the projects which the "issuables" should be queried from.

Projects listed here will be ignored when:

• They don't exist.
• The current user doesn't have sufficient permissions to read them.
• They are outside of the group.

In the following insights.yml example, we specify the projects the queries will be used on. This example is useful when setting a group's insights:

monthlyBugsCreated:
  title: "Monthly bugs created"
  description: "Open bugs created per month"
  type: bar
  query:
    issuable_type: issue
    issuable_state: opened
    filter_labels:
      - bug
  projects:
    only:
      - 3                         # You can use the project ID
      - groupA/projectA           # Or full project path
      - groupA/subgroupB/projectC # Projects in subgroups can be included
      - groupB/project            # Projects outside the group will be ignored

Complete example

.projectsOnly: &projectsOnly
  projects:
    only:
      - 3
      - groupA/projectA
      - groupA/subgroupB/projectC

bugsCharts:
  title: "Charts for bugs"
  charts:
    - title: "Monthly bugs created"
      description: "Open bugs created per month"
      type: bar
      <<: *projectsOnly
      query:
        issuable_type: issue
        issuable_state: opened
        filter_labels:
          - bug
        group_by: month
        period_limit: 24

    - title: "Weekly bugs by severity"
      type: stacked-bar
      <<: *projectsOnly
      query:
        issuable_type: issue
        issuable_state: opened
        filter_labels:
          - bug
        collection_labels:
          - S1
          - S2
          - S3
          - S4
        group_by: week
        period_limit: 104

    - title: "Monthly bugs by team"
      type: line
      <<: *projectsOnly
      query:
        issuable_type: merge_request
        issuable_state: opened
        filter_labels:
          - bug
        collection_labels:
          - Manage
          - Plan
          - Create
        group_by: month
        period_limit: 24