In the upcoming milestones, we will be extending CI/CD minute usage quotas to GitLab.com public projects not part of GitLab open source programs.

In the first half of 2021, GitLab.com and other CI/CD providers faced a large uptick in the abuse of free pipeline minutes to mine for cryptocurrencies. To discourage and reduce abuse, we annouced several changes to help ensure service continued to be reliable for our customers and users. The most recent change was made on 2021-07-17 to "include public projects in pipeline minutes quota for free users."

Why add a usage quota to public projects?

Previously, GitLab provided public projects on GitLab.com with a very high number of shared runner minutes to facilitate community contributions to open source. This means cryptominers are able to use GitLab.com shared runners to process large quantities of pipelines and consume an inordinate amount of minutes. These behaviors negatively impact the performance and the availability of GitLab.com shared runners. By adding a quota to the pipelines, the abusers are no longer able to process and consume minutes because there is a limit in place.

CI/CD minute quotas enable CI/CD minute accumulation, which also gives you transparency into pipeline minute billing. Accumulation of CI/CD minutes in GitLab empowers you to make informed decisions about how to optimize your pipelines and CI/CD usage.

How does this usage quota impact you?

Self-managed users are not impacted by these changes as CI/CD minutes are only relevant for GitLab.com users.

Additionally, open source program participants are not included in the public project CI/CD minute quotas following the implementation of distinguish open source software program namespaces in GitLab, and should experience no change in their GitLab contribution flow.

For all other GitLab.com public project users, accounting for 5% of our usage, when you reach a CI/CD quota an email is sent automatically to notify the owner(s) of the namespace. You can purchase additional CI/CD minutes, or upgrade your account to a higher plan. Your self-hosted runners can still be used even if you reach your quota limits.

For more information on CI/CD minutes and billing, please refer to the customer FAQ.

What's Next?

To further protect GitLab.com from cryptomining abuse, in the next few months you'll notice some changes to GitLab.com CI/CD minute quotas and the types of projects that accumulate pipeline minutes.

To address your questions and feedback on these changes going forward, we have created a space in the GitLab Community Forum, which is actively monitored by GitLab team members and product managers involved with this change.

“Cryptomining has shaped our pipeline consumption visibility. Here's what you need to know” – Jackie Porter

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