Foundational flows
- Tier: Premium, Ultimate
- Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated
Foundational flows are built and maintained by GitLab and display a GitLab-maintained badge ( ).
Each flow is designed to solve a specific problem or help you with a development task.
The following foundational flows are available:
- Software Development: Create AI-generated solutions for work across the software development lifecycle.
- Developer: Create actionable merge requests from issues.
- Fix CI/CD Pipeline: Diagnose and repair failed jobs.
- Convert to GitLab CI/CD: Migrate Jenkins pipelines to CI/CD.
- Code Review: Automate code review with AI-native analysis and feedback.
- Agentic SAST Vulnerability Resolution: Automatically generate merge requests to resolve SAST vulnerabilities.
- SAST false positive detection: Automatically identify and filter false positives in SAST findings.
- Secret false positive detection: Automatically identify and filter false positives in secret detection findings.
Configure flow execution CI/CD details
You can configure the environment where flows use CI/CD to execute.
For example, on GitLab Self-Managed, administrators can configure a custom container registry for foundational flow images.
For more information, see Configure flow execution.
Security for foundational flows
In the GitLab UI, foundational flows have access to the following GitLab APIs:
- Projects API
- Issues API
- Merge Requests API
- Repository Files API
- Branches API
- Commits API
- CI Pipelines API
- Labels API
- Epics API
- Notes API
- Search API
Service accounts
Foundational flows use a service account to complete tasks. For more information, see composite identity workflow.
When a foundational flow creates a merge request, the merge request is attributed to the human user who triggered the flow instead of the service account. This is done to adhere to compliance frameworks that require segregation of duties. See compliance considerations.
Turn foundational flows on or off
You can turn foundational flows on or off:
- On GitLab.com: For top-level groups and projects.
- On GitLab Self-Managed: For instances, groups, and projects.
You can also turn flow execution on or off to control whether features that consume compute minutes can run in the GitLab UI. These features include external agents, foundational flows, and custom flows.
On GitLab.com
Prerequisites:
- The Owner role for the top-level group.
- In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your top-level group.
- Select Settings > GitLab Duo.
- Select Change configuration.
- Under Flow execution, select the Allow flow execution and Allow foundational flows checkboxes.
- Select the checkbox for each foundational flow you want to turn on.
- Select Save changes.
When you turn off foundational flows for a top-level group, users with that group as their default GitLab Duo namespace cannot access foundational flows in any namespace.
Prerequisites:
- The Owner or Maintainer role for the project.
- Flow execution and foundational flows turned on for the top-level group.
- In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project.
- Select Settings > General.
- Expand GitLab Duo.
- Turn on the GitLab Duo, Allow flow execution, and Allow foundational flows toggles.
- Select Save changes.
On GitLab Self-Managed
Prerequisites:
- Administrator access.
- In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
- In the left sidebar, select GitLab Duo.
- Select Change configuration.
- Under Flow execution, select the Allow flow execution and Allow foundational flows checkboxes.
- Optional. In the Image registry text box, enter the container registry URL for foundational flow images.
Leave this text box empty to use the default
registry.gitlab.com. - Select Save changes.
Prerequisites:
- Administrator access.
- Flow execution and foundational flows turned on for the instance.
- In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your group.
- Select Settings > General.
- Expand GitLab Duo features.
- Under Flow execution, select the Allow flow execution and Allow foundational flows checkboxes.
- Select the checkbox for each foundational flow you want to turn on.
- Select Save changes.
When turned on for the group, foundational flows are available to all subgroups and projects.
Prerequisites:
- The Owner or Maintainer role for the project.
- Flow execution and foundational flows turned on for the instance and group.
- In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project.
- Select Settings > General.
- Expand GitLab Duo.
- Turn on the GitLab Duo, Allow flow execution, and Allow foundational flows toggles.
- Select Save changes.