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Deploy the GitLab Issues Cloud Microsoft 365 Copilot connector

The GitLab Issues Cloud connector allows your organization to index issues stored in GitLab and make them available in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Search. This article describes the steps to deploy and customize the GitLab Issues Cloud connector.

Prerequisites

Before you deploy the connector, make sure that you meet the following prerequisites:

  • Confirm that your GitLab instance is accessible via the GitLab API.
  • Generate a client ID and client secret from GitLab for authentication.
  • Make sure that the authentication account has access to the issues (and their associated projects or repositories) that you want to index.
  • Make sure that the client ID and client secret include the following scopes:
    • read_api
    • read_repository
    • read_user
  • Users who access indexed GitLab data must have corresponding Microsoft Entra ID identities for permissions mapping.
  • Set the appropriate redirect URLs during GitLab authentication setup:
    • Microsoft 365 Enterprise: https://gcs.office.com/v1.0/admin/oauth/callback
    • Microsoft 365 Government: https://gcsgcc.office.com/v1.0/admin/oauth/callback

Deploy the connector

To add the GitLab Issues Cloud connector for your organization:

  1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the left pane, choose Copilot > Connectors.
  2. Choose the Gallery tab.
  3. From the list of available connectors, choose GitLab Issues Cloud.

Set display name

The display name identifies references in Copilot responses and helps users recognize the associated content source. You can accept the default GitLab Issues Cloud display name, or customize it to meet the needs of your organization.

For more information, see Enhance Copilot discovery of connector content.

Set instance URL

Provide the GitLab instance URL. For GitLab Cloud, this URL is typically:

https://gitlab.com

Choose authentication type

The connector supports OAuth 2.0 for GitLab.

To authenticate:

  • Enter the GitLab client ID and client secret.
  • Choose Authorize.

For information about how to create OAuth apps in GitLab, see Configure GitLab as an OAuth 2.0 authentication identity provider.

Roll out

To roll out to a limited audience, choose the toggle next to Rollout to limited audience and specify the users and groups. For more information, see Staged rollout for Copilot connectors.

Choose Create to deploy the connection. The GitLab Issues Cloud connector starts indexing content right away.

The following table lists the default values that are set.

Category Default value
Users Only people with access to this data source
Content Time-range filter: 365 days
Sync Incremental crawl: every 15 minutes
Full crawl: daily

To customize these values, choose Custom setup. For more information, see Customize settings.

After you create your connection, you can review the status in the Connectors section of the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Customize settings (optional)

You can customize the default values for the GitLab Issues Cloud connector settings. To customize settings, on the connector page in the admin center, choose Custom setup.

Customize user settings

Access permissions

Choose whether indexed data is visible to:

  • Only people with access to this data source (default)
  • Everyone

Map identities

To ensure permissions are applied correctly, map GitLab user identities to Microsoft Entra ID using:

  • Email: Maps GitLab email to Microsoft Entra ID user properties.
  • Login: Maps GitLab logins with Microsoft Entra ID user properties.
  • Name: Maps GitLab name with Microsoft Entra ID user properties.

If direct mapping fails, use regular expressions (regex) to transform the data. For example: [a-zA-Z0-9]+. For more information, see Map Microsoft Entra identities.

Customize content settings

Query string

Review or edit the default query string to refine which items are indexed.

Manage properties

You can add or remove available properties from the data source, assign a schema to the property (searchable, queryable, retrievable, or refinable), change the semantic label, and add an alias to the property. The following table lists properties that the connector indexes by default.

Property Semantic label Description Schema attributes
title Title Issue title Searchable, retrievable
description Body Issue description Searchable, retrievable
labels Tags Issue labels Queryable, refinable
author Author Issue author Searchable, retrievable
created_at Created date Timestamp for creation Queryable, retrievable
updated_at Modified date Timestamp for last update Queryable, retrievable

Customize sync intervals

You can customize the full and incremental crawl intervals. The following are the default values:

  • Incremental crawl: Every 15 minutes.
  • Full crawl: Daily.

For more information, see Guidelines for sync settings.

Rate limits

The following table lists the rate limits that apply to the GitLab Issues Cloud connector.

Approximate number of items Approximate time to complete ingestion
Up to 100,000 hours to 0.5 day
100,000 to 1,000,000 0.5 days to 4 days
1,000,000 or more 4 days–2 weeks (varies by environment load)