GitLab integration: Self hosted gitlab and multi group support

[Pankaj Pipada]

a) Do you support self hosted gitlab servers?
Our enterprise manages its code on self hosted gitlab instances rather than gitlab.com. Also, the self hosted server is accessible via VPN and not on public internet.

b) It is mentioned that you can attach only one gitlab group to a compass instance. Is that correct? Being a mid size org, we have multiple groups in out gitlab instance (mostly per software division wise gitlab group).

Doc links referred:
- https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/compass/components/import-components-from-GitLab/
- https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/compass/integrations/integrate-Compass-with-Gitlab/

[Josh Campbell]

Hey Pankaj! We currently support cloud hosted GitLab.com instances and only one group per Compass instance as you mentioned. I've added you as a +1 to these two feature requests that are in our backlog - I do not have a timeframe for these currently, sorry.

However, we recently open-sourced the GitLab app for Compass. If you are interested in forking and building upon this app you can create your own Forge app for free and add support for these features. We'd also welcome contributions back into the repo so others can benefit if you end up doing this :) 

[Dean Harrington]

Just a +1 here. We also use GitLab self-managed and cannot allow publicly available access for a variety of reasons, SOC compliance being one of them. Additionally, considering our workload and accountability, there is exactly zero interest in forking any code that is not related to the products we provide. If and when there is an agent (or some other mechanism) available, I think this would be an excellent contender since we already have Jira, Trello, OpsGenie, and Confluence (all cloud). As it stands, this is a non-starter for us, and we have test-driven both Backstage and OpsLevel but have found neither a compelling product.

[Josh Campbell]

Dean thanks for this! Absolutely understand on the above. FWIW I've also added your +1. I've also been in Germany this past week for an Atlassian event and heard from several folks in person echoing pretty much what you stated above. While no immediate change to the current roadmap is coming as a result (just to be candid), these additional data points absolutely help me for (re-)prioritizing. If you ever want to chat more about Compass and/or your feedback on other tools I'd love to connect.

[Sean Bryceland]

+1 Would definitly like to see this. We succesfulyl integrate Gitlab self-hosted with JIRA so would love to see this extenced to Compass.

[Oscar Garcia]

Same here! how can I +1 this feature?

thanks!

[Josh Campbell]

Hey Oscar and Sean, thanks a ton! I have added your +1's to our backlog ticket for this, I don't have a good ETA to share though sorry. It would be helpful to know, is this blocking you both from trying/using Compass?

[Sean Bryceland]

For our team yes - I have enjoyed what is there now but we wont role it out until this is available. Also not keen to build and maintain our own custom fork of the app. 

[Oscar Garcia]

same here!

[Patrick Metzdorf]

And another +1

[Cristian Thiago Moecke]

Need that too!

However, I noticed that we get a lot of data from git repos when we integrate jira cloud with gitlab onprem (that is possible!) and then jira cloud to compass. Can someone detail what more would we get? 

[Jeremy Durrance]

Same. This is a non-starter

[Josh Campbell]

Hey everyone, we recently released a way to integrate with GitLab self-managed that we'd love for you to try. The full blown GitLab self-managed app with the ability to import repositories and use the config as code feature is still on our roadmap, but using incoming webhooks you can get build, deploy, and merge request events & metrics into Compass from GitLab self-managed today.

[Cristian Thiago Moecke]

@Josh Campbell with the JIRA/Gitlab integration we get a way to import the repos, right? Not so straightforward but it works.  

[Josh Campbell]

Yes! Great callout, that should work though I haven't personally verified it. Using Jira import (assuming GitLab integration for Jira is setup) to ingest the components would work and the incoming webhook would complement that by providing the activity/events. Nice one!

[Cristian Thiago Moecke]

Import works fine, I´m using. 

Did not managed to make webhooks work, maybe because of
"Compass supports GitLab self-managed version 16.8 or higher for use with incoming webhooks."

We are not in this version, I´m requesting a update. 

[Tobias Rahloff]

Hi @Josh Campbell, the missing capability to add multiple groups to Compass via different Group Access Tokens is currently blocking the internal conversion from "free plan and evaluate the tool" to having a budget and maturing Compass to an integral part of the tooling. 

Big "+1" also from our side for this feature.