Skip to content

gitlab-github-mapping.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
100 lines (81 loc) · 4.35 KB

gitlab-github-mapping.md

File metadata and controls

100 lines (81 loc) · 4.35 KB

GitLab → GitHub Concepts Mapping

TL;DR — Most GitLab concepts have a direct GitHub equivalent (MR → PR, Group → Org, $CI_COMMIT_SHA → ${{ github.sha }}), but two things genuinely change: there are no stages (jobs run in parallel and you sequence them with needs:), and every job starts on a fresh VM with no shared state.

A side-by-sidereference for teams transitioning from GitLab to GitHub.

Terminology

Concept GitLab GitHub
Group Group Organization
Project Project Repository
Code review request Merge Request (MR) Pull Request (PR)
Artifacts artifacts: actions/upload-artifact
Environment variables CI/CD Variables Secrets / Variables / Env
Protected environments Protected environments Environments + protection rules
Code ownership CODEOWNERS CODEOWNERS (same file format)
Branch rules Protected branches Branch protection rules
Fork Fork Fork
Issue board Issue board Projects (beta)
Package registry Package Registry GitHub Packages
Container registry Container Registry GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io)
Release Release Release
Webhook Webhook Webhook
API token Personal access token Personal access token (classic / fine-grained)

CI/CD Concepts

Job triggers

GitLab GitHub Actions
only: [main] on: push: branches: [main]
rules: if: conditions
workflow:rules: on: event filters
when: manual workflow_dispatch: or environment approvals
schedules on: schedule: cron:

Job structure

GitLab GitHub Actions
stages: Job ordering via needs:
stage: build Belongs to implicit graph via needs:
script: steps: run:
before_script: Earlier steps: in same job
after_script: if: always() step at end
image: runs-on: + container:
services: services: (same concept)
tags: runs-on: [self-hosted, label]
parallel: strategy: matrix:
cache: actions/cache action
artifacts: actions/upload-artifact / actions/download-artifact
needs: [job] needs: [job] (same!)
extends: Composite actions / Reusable workflows

Variables & Secrets

GitLab GitHub Actions
CI/CD Variable (masked) Secret (${{ secrets.NAME }})
CI/CD Variable (plain) Variable (${{ vars.NAME }})
Group-level variable Organization secret/variable
Project-level variable Repository secret/variable
Environment variable Environment secret/variable
$CI_COMMIT_SHA ${{ github.sha }}
$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH ${{ github.ref_name }}
$CI_PIPELINE_ID ${{ github.run_id }}
$CI_JOB_NAME ${{ github.job }}
$CI_PROJECT_NAME ${{ github.repository }}

Predefined Variable Mapping

GitLab Variable GitHub Equivalent Notes
$CI_COMMIT_SHA ${{ github.sha }} Full commit SHA
$CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA ${{ github.sha }} truncated No built-in short SHA
$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH ${{ github.ref_name }} Branch name
$CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }} PR number
$CI_PIPELINE_URL ${{ github.server_url }}/${{ github.repository }}/actions/runs/${{ github.run_id }}
$CI_PROJECT_DIR ${{ github.workspace }} Checkout path
$CI_REGISTRY ghcr.io GitHub Container Registry
$CI_REGISTRY_USER ${{ github.actor }}
$CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Key Differences to Watch Out For

  1. No stages — GitHub Actions uses a dependency graph (needs:) instead of sequential stages.
  2. Each job runs on a fresh VM — Unlike GitLab where jobs in the same stage share an environment (with cache/artifacts), each GitHub Actions job starts clean.
  3. Secrets are not echoed — GitHub masks secret values in logs; no need to set masked: true.
  4. GITHUB_TOKEN is auto-provisioned — you get a token for the current repo automatically; no need to create a personal access token for basic CI operations.
  5. Workflow files must be on the default branch — Changes to workflows in a branch PR won't run against main's rules until merged.