Import GitLab Commits

This tool imports commits from a private GitLab repository to a separate repository. It can be used to showcase your programming activity for another company on GitHub.

Check out this informative blog post for a practical use case on how to import GitLab commits here.

Why It's Useful

Contributions before running import-gitlab-commits:

After:

Getting Started

You can run the tool with Docker or a native Go build.

Docker Usage

Docker Compose

Run the tool using Docker Compose:

1. Copy the environment variables template:

   cp .env.example .env

2. Edit .env and configure your credentials.

3. Build and run with Docker Compose:

docker compose up

The imported repository will be created in the output/ directory.

Plain Docker

Build:

docker build -t github.com/alexandear/import-gitlab-commits .

Run:

docker run --rm \
    -e GITLAB_BASE_URL="https://gitlab.com" \
    -e GITLAB_TOKEN="<your_gitlab_token>" \
    -e COMMITTER_NAME="John Doe" \
    -e COMMITTER_EMAIL="john.doe@example.com" \
    -v $(pwd)/output:/root \
    github.com/alexandear/import-gitlab-commits

Using native Go build

1. Download and install Go.

2. Install the program by running the following command in a shell:

   go install github.com/alexandear/import-gitlab-commits@latest

3. Set environment variables and run import-gitlab-commits:

   export GITLAB_BASE_URL=https://gitlab.com
   export GITLAB_TOKEN=<your_gitlab_token>
   export COMMITTER_NAME="John Doe"
   export COMMITTER_EMAIL=john.doe@example.com
   
   $(go env GOPATH)/bin/import-gitlab-commits

Where $(go env GOPATH)/bin/ is the path where import-gitlab-commits is installed.

Configuration

Configure the tool with these environment variables:

• GITLAB_BASE_URL - a GitLab instance URL, e.g., https://gitlab.com, https://gitlab.gnome.org, or any GitLab server.
• GITLAB_TOKEN - a personal access token with these scopes: read_api, read_user, read_repository.
• COMMITTER_NAME - your GitHub name with surname, e.g., John Doe (can be passed to git config user.name).
• COMMITTER_EMAIL - your GitHub email, e.g., john.doe@example.com (valid for git config user.email).

Internals

What the tool does:

• Retrieves current user info using GITLAB_TOKEN.
• Fetches projects from GITLAB_BASE_URL that the current user contributed to.
• For all projects, fetches commits where the author's email matches the current user's email.
• Creates a new repository repo.gitlab.yourcompany.com.currentusername and commits all fetched commits with the message: Project: GITLAB_PROJECT_ID commit: GITLAB_COMMIT_HASH, commit date GITLAB_COMMIT_DATE, and commit author COMMITTER_NAME <COMMITTER_EMAIL>.

To display the changes on GitHub, you need to:

• Create a new repository yourcompany-contributions on GitHub.
• Open the folder repo.gitlab.yourcompany.com.currentusername.
• Add the remote URL: git remote add origin git@github.com:username/yourcompany-contributions.git.
• Push the changes.

Integration Tests

To run integration tests:

1. Set the GITLAB_TOKEN environment variable with the value obtained at https://gitlab.com/-/user_settings/personal_access_tokens. Necessary scopes:

   • read_api
   • read_user
   • read_repository

2. Set GITLAB_BASE_URL to https://gitlab.com.

3. Run make test-integration.