Namespaces

Namespaces organize projects in GitLab. Because each namespace is separate, you can use the same project name in multiple namespaces.

Types of namespaces

GitLab has two types of namespaces:

• User: Your personal namespace is based on your username. In a personal namespace:

  • You cannot create subgroups.
  • Groups do not inherit your namespace permissions or group features.
  • All the projects you create are under the scope of this namespace.
  • Changes to your username also change project and namespace URLs. Before you change your username, read about repository redirects.

• Group: A group or subgroup namespace is based on the group or subgroup name. In group and subgroup namespaces:

  • You can create multiple subgroups to manage multiple projects.
  • Subgroups inherit some of the parent group settings. You can view these in the subgroup Settings.
  • You can configure settings specifically for each subgroup and project.
  • You can manage the group or subgroup URL independently of the name.

Determine which type of namespace you're in

To determine whether you're in a group or personal namespace, you can view the URL. For example:

Namespace for	URL	Namespace
A user named alex.	https://gitlab.example.com/alex	alex
A group named alex-team.	https://gitlab.example.com/alex-team	alex-team
A group named alex-team with a subgroup named marketing.	https://gitlab.example.com/alex-team/marketing	alex-team/marketing

Name limitations

When you choose a name for your namespace, keep in mind the character limitations and reserved group names.

NOTE: Namespaces with a period (.) cause issues with SSL certificate validation and the source path when publishing Terraform modules.