Import GitLab Commits

The tool to import commits from private GitLab to separate repo. Can be used to show your programming activity for another company in GitHub.

Check out this informative blog post on how to import GitLab commits at https://www.alexandear.tech/posts/2023-03-08-import-gitlab-commits/ for a practical use case.

Getting Started

1. Download and install Go 1.21.
2. Install the program by running the 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=<your_gitlab_server_url>
export GITLAB_TOKEN=<your_gitlab_token>
export COMMITTER_NAME="<Name Surname>"
export COMMITTER_EMAIL=<mail@example.com>

$(go env GOPATH)/bin/import-gitlab-commits

where

• GITLAB_BASE_URL is a GitLab instance URL, e.g. https://gitlab.com, https://gitlab.gnome.org or any GitLab server;
• GITLAB_TOKEN is a personal access token;
• COMMITTER_NAME is your GitHub name with surname, e.g. John Doe (can be passed to git config user.name);
• COMMITTER_EMAIL is your GitHub email, e.g. john.doe@example.com (valid for git config user.email);
• $(go env GOPATH)/bin/ is the path where import-gitlab-commits installed.

Example

Contributions before running import-gitlab-commits:

After:

Internals

What work the tool does:

• gets current user info by GITLAB_TOKEN;
• fetches from GITLAB_BASE_URL projects that the current user contributed to;
• for all projects fetches commits where author's email is the current user's email;
• creates new repo repo.gitlab.yourcompany.com.currentusername and commits all fetched commits with message Project: GITLAB_PROJECT_ID commit: GITLAB_COMMIT_HASH, commit date GITLAB_COMMIT_DATE, and commit author COMMITTER_NAME <COMMITTER_EMAIL>.

To show the changes on GitHub you need to:

• create a new repo yourcompany-contributions in GitHub;
• open folder repo.gitlab.yourcompany.com.currentusername;
• add remote url git remote add origin git@github.com:username/yourcompany-contributions.git;
• push changes.

License