Project access tokens

Project access tokens are similar to passwords, except you can limit access to resources, select a limited role, and provide an expiry date.

note
Actual access to a project is controlled by a combination of roles and permissions, and the token scopes.

Use a project access token to authenticate:

  • With the GitLab API.
  • With Git, when using HTTP Basic Authentication, use:
    • Any non-blank value as a username.
    • The project access token as the password.

Project access tokens are similar to group access tokens and personal access tokens, but project access tokens are scoped to a project, so you cannot use them to access resources from other projects.

In self-managed instances, project access tokens are subject to the same maximum lifetime limits as personal access tokens if the limit is set.

You can use project access tokens:

You cannot use project access tokens to create other group, project, or personal access tokens.

Project access tokens inherit the default prefix setting configured for personal access tokens.

Create a project access token

History
  • Introduced in GitLab 15.1, Owners can select Owner role for project access tokens.
  • Introduced in GitLab 15.3, default expiration of 30 days and default role of Guest is populated in the UI.
  • Ability to create non-expiring project access tokens removed in GitLab 16.0.
  • Maximum allowable lifetime limit extended to 400 days in GitLab 17.6 with a flag named buffered_token_expiration_limit. Disabled by default.
  • Project access token description introduced in GitLab 17.7.
The availability of the extended maximum allowable lifetime limit is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history.
caution
The ability to create project access tokens without an expiry date was deprecated in GitLab 15.4 and removed in GitLab 16.0. For more information on expiry dates added to existing tokens, see the documentation on access token expiration.

To create a project access token:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > Access tokens.
  3. Select Add new token.
  4. In Token name, enter a name. The token name is visible to any user with permissions to view the project.
  5. Optional. In Token description, enter a description for the token.
  6. In Expiration date, enter an expiry date for the token.
    • The token expires on that date at midnight UTC. A token with the expiration date of 2024-01-01 expires at 00:00:00 UTC on 2024-01-01.
    • If you do not enter an expiry date, the expiry date is automatically set to 30 days later than the current date.
    • By default, this date can be a maximum of 365 days later than the current date. In GitLab 17.6 or later, you can extend this limit to 400 days.
    • An instance-wide maximum lifetime setting can limit the maximum allowable lifetime in self-managed instances.
  7. Select a role for the token.
  8. Select the desired scopes.
  9. Select Create project access token.

A project access token is displayed. Save the project access token somewhere safe. After you leave or refresh the page, you can’t view it again.

caution
Project access tokens are treated as internal users. If an internal user creates a project access token, that token is able to access all projects that have visibility level set to Internal.

Revoke a project access token

History
  • Ability to view revoked tokens introduced in GitLab 17.3 with a flag named retain_resource_access_token_user_after_revoke. Disabled by default.
The availability of being able to view revoked tokens is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history.

To revoke a project access token:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Settings > Access tokens.
  3. Next to the project access token to revoke, select Revoke ().

In GitLab 17.3 and later, if you enable the retain_resource_access_token_user_after_revoke feature flag, you can view both active and inactive revoked project access tokens on the access tokens page. If you do not enable the feature flag, you can only view the active tokens. The inactive project access tokens table:

  • Contains:
    • Existing tokens that have been revoked but have not yet expired. After these tokens expire, they are no longer in the table.
    • Tokens created after the feature flag was enabled that have been revoked. These tokens remain in the table even after they have expired.
  • Does not contain:
    • Tokens that have already expired or been revoked.
    • Existing tokens that expire in the future or have not been revoked.

Scopes for a project access token

History
  • k8s_proxy introduced in GitLab 16.4 with a flag named k8s_proxy_pat. Enabled by default.
  • Feature flag k8s_proxy_pat removed in GitLab 16.5.

The scope determines the actions you can perform when you authenticate with a project access token.

note
See the warning in create a project access token regarding internal projects.
Scope Description
api Grants complete read and write access to the scoped project API, including the container registry, the dependency proxy, and the package registry.
read_api Grants read access to the scoped project API, including the package registry.
read_registry Grants read access (pull) to the container registry images if a project is private and authorization is required.
write_registry Grants write access (push) to the container registry. You need both read and write access to push images.
read_repository Grants read access (pull) to the repository.
write_repository Grants read and write access (pull and push) to the repository.
create_runner Grants permission to create runners in the project.
manage_runner Grants permission to manage runners in the project.
ai_features Grants permission to perform API actions for GitLab Duo. This scope is designed to work with the GitLab Duo Plugin for JetBrains. For all other extensions, see scope requirements.
k8s_proxy Grants permission to perform Kubernetes API calls using the agent for Kubernetes in the project.

Restrict the creation of project access tokens

To limit potential abuse, you can restrict users from creating tokens for a group hierarchy. This setting is only configurable for a top-level group and applies to every downstream project and subgroup. Any existing project access tokens remain valid until their expiration date or until manually revoked.

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group. This group must be at the top level.
  2. Select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Permissions and group features.
  4. In Permissions, clear the Users can create project access tokens and group access tokens in this group checkbox.

Access token expiration

Whether your existing project access tokens have expiry dates automatically applied depends on what GitLab offering you have, and when you upgraded to GitLab 16.0 or later:

  • On GitLab.com, during the 16.0 milestone, existing project access tokens without an expiry date were automatically given an expiry date of 365 days later than the current date.
  • On GitLab self-managed, if you upgraded from GitLab 15.11 or earlier to GitLab 16.0 or later:
    • On or before July 23, 2024, existing project access tokens without an expiry date were automatically given an expiry date of 365 days later than the current date. This change is a breaking change.
    • On or after July 24, 2024, existing project access tokens without an expiry date did not have an expiry date set.

On GitLab self-managed, if you do a new install of one of the following GitLab versions, your existing project access tokens do not have expiry dates automatically applied:

  • 16.0.9
  • 16.1.7
  • 16.2.10
  • 16.3.8
  • 16.4.6
  • 16.5.9
  • 16.6.9
  • 16.7.9
  • 16.8.9
  • 16.9.10
  • 16.10.9
  • 16.11.7
  • 17.0.5
  • 17.1.3
  • 17.2.1

Project access token expiry emails

History
  • Sixty and thirty day expiry notification emails introduced in GitLab 17.6 with a flag named expiring_pats_30d_60d_notifications. Disabled by default.
  • Sixty and thirty day notification emails generally available in GitLab 17.7. Feature flag expiring_pats_30d_60d_notifications removed.
  • Notifications to inherited group members introduced in GitLab 17.7 with a flag named pat_expiry_inherited_members_notification. Disabled by default.
The availability of the sixty and thirty day expiry notification emails is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history.

GitLab runs a check every day at 1:00 AM UTC to identify project access tokens that are expiring in the near future. Members of the project with at least the Maintainer role are notified by email when these tokens expire in a certain number of days. The number of days differs depending on the version of GitLab:

  • In GitLab 17.6 and later, project maintainers and owners are notified by email when the check identifies their project access tokens as expiring in the next sixty days. An additional email is sent when the check identifies their project access tokens as expiring in the next thirty days.
  • Project maintainers and owners are notified by email when the check identifies their project access tokens as expiring in the next seven days.
  • In GitLab 17.7 and later, project members who have inherited the Owner or Maintainer role due to the project belonging to a group can also receive notification emails. You can enable this by changing:

Bot users for projects

History
  • Changed in GitLab 17.2 with a flag named retain_resource_access_token_user_after_revoke. Disabled by default. When enabled new bot users are made members with no expiry date and, when the token is later revoked or expires, the bot user is retained. It is not deleted and its records are not moved to the Ghost User.
The behavior of the bot user after the project access token is revoked is controlled by a feature flag. For more information, see the history.

Bot users for projects are GitLab-created non-billable users. Each time you create a project access token, a bot user is created and added to the project. This user is not a billable user, so it does not count toward the license limit.

The bot users for projects have permissions that correspond with the selected role and scope of the project access token.

  • The name is set to the name of the token.
  • The username is set to project_{project_id}_bot_{random_string}. For example, project_123_bot_4ffca233d8298ea1.
  • The email is set to project_{project_id}_bot_{random_string}@noreply.{Gitlab.config.gitlab.host}. For example, project_123_bot_4ffca233d8298ea1@noreply.example.com.

API calls made with a project access token are associated with the corresponding bot user.

Bot users for projects:

  • Are included in a project’s member list but cannot be modified. The membership expires when the token expires.
  • Cannot be added to any other project.
  • Can have a maximum role of Owner for a project. For more information, see Create a project access token.

When the project access token is revoked:

  • The bot user is deleted.
  • All records are moved to a system-wide user with the username Ghost User.

See also Bot users for groups.

Token availability

More than one project access token is only available in paid subscriptions. In Premium and Ultimate trial subscriptions, only one project access token is included. For more information, see the “What is included” section of the GitLab Trial FAQ.