Tuleap + Gitlab: why using both tools?
You can say Tuleap and Gitlab can be seen as “competitors” or “alternatives”. Actually, if you consider more than just both of them providing “Git” and issue tracking features, they’re quite complementary:
- With Tuleap: you will gather a wide audience around one single project management tool. In addition to the development team, Tuleap is also used for overall project and program management, tests and requirements, documentation, and more…
- With GitLab: your development teams will get top of the notch CI/CD pipelines and the git repository centered view they are used to with GitHub.
In any case, to get started, know that each Tuleap project can either:
- use regular Tuleap Git repositories and Tuleap Pull Requests
- use Tuleap-GitLab Integration
The capabilities of Tuleap <-> Gitlab integration
The Tuleap GitLab integration allows you to connect to any GitLab instance, in the cloud or on-premises.
- Reference Tuleap artifacts in your Gitlab commit messages – or in merge requests or branch- and conversely. A forward and backward traceability.
- Import and synchronize Gitlab Groups in Tuleap to keep consistency in tools.
- Create Gitlab branches or pull requests from Tuleap.
- Close automatically Tuleap artifacts from a Gitlab commit message.
Watch the integration in action
A quick demo to understand how Tuleap and GitLab work seamlessly together.
Watch the video →How Tuleap-Gitlab integration works
Fully handled in Tuleap
Tuleap provides a dedicated GitLab plugin that will do all the heavy lifting to make things work seamlessly. On GitLab, this integration doesn’t have specific constraint; better, it runs using standard APIs available on all GitLab versions and flavors, on-premises or in the cloud.
Managed by Git admins in Tuleap projects
The installation of the Tuleap-GitLab plugin is the only action that requires a Tuleap site administrator. Everything else is in the hands of the Git administrators in Tuleap project.
Create GitLab repositories in Tuleap projects
It’s the base of the Tuleap-GitLab integration. A Tuleap Git Administrator creates a “GitLab” repository on Tuleap. This repository references the GitLab project the development team works on.
Integrated GitLab repositories will appear just like any regular git repositories, only we added a small 🦊 icon to distinguish them.
End-to-end traceability with Tuleap-GitLab integration
Regardless of where the code is stored and review, the promise of Tuleap is to keep the track of what is done, when and what for. In other words, Tuleap provide end-to-end traceability from requirements down to the code and from the code back to the requirements.
With Tuleap-GitLab integration, benefit from end-to-end traceability even outside Tuleap.
Use cross-references
You can mention a Tuleap artifact ID in a commit message or merge request from GitLab. The Tuleap artifact adds a reference with details and a link back to the activity in GitLab.
Traceability isn’t about just about references, it’s about linking pieces of information together to understand why something was done. Developers are encouraged to reference the Tuleap artifact that corresponds to the commit being made.
Developers create the link by adding TULEAP-XYZ in their commit messages. Tuleap will:
- create on Tuleap a reference toward the commit
- add on GitLab a comment on the commit with a link back to the artifact
GitLab links to a Tuleap artifact
View GitLab commit linked to a Tuleap artifact
GitLab Merge Requests
Most GitLab usage implies Merge Requests (MR). Of course, here too, you are covered with full traceability.
The typical use case is to have a User Story defined in Tuleap with development tasks. On GitLab, development happens through feature branches or per-task merge requests, each referencing Tuleap artifacts.
Anyone browsing Tuleap artifacts can deep dive into the related code. Conversely, GitLab users will see links back to requirements, tests, etc.
Ready to see Tuleap in action?
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