The gitlab package provides 3 basic types:

• gitlab.Gitlab is the primary class, handling the HTTP requests. It holds the GitLab URL and authentication information.
• gitlab.GitlabObject is the base class for all the GitLab objects. These objects provide an abstraction for GitLab resources (projects, groups, and so on).
• gitlab.BaseManager is the base class for objects managers, providing the API to manipulate the resources and their attributes.

To connect to a GitLab server, create a gitlab.Gitlab object:

import gitlab

# private token authentication
gl = gitlab.Gitlab('http://10.0.0.1', 'JVNSESs8EwWRx5yDxM5q')

# or username/password authentication
gl = gitlab.Gitlab('http://10.0.0.1', email='jdoe', password='s3cr3t')

# make an API request to create the gl.user object. This is mandatory if you
# use the username/password authentication.
gl.auth()

You can also use configuration files to create gitlab.Gitlab objects:

gl = gitlab.Gitlab.from_config('somewhere', ['/tmp/gl.cfg'])

See the :ref:`cli_configuration` section for more information about configuration files.

The gitlab.Gitlab class provides managers to access the GitLab resources. Each manager provides a set of methods to act on the resources. The available methods depend on the resource type. Resources are represented as gitlab.GitlabObject-derived objects.

Examples:

# list all the projects
projects = gl.projects.list()
for project in projects:
    print(project)

# get the group with id == 2
group = gl.groups.get(2)
for group in groups:
    print()

# create a new user
user_data = {'email': 'jen@foo.com', 'username': 'jen', 'name': 'Jen'}
user = gl.users.create(user_data)
print(user)

Some gitlab.GitlabObject classes also provide managers to access related GitLab resources:

# list the issues for a project
project = gl.projects.get(1)
issues = project.issues.list()

You can update or delete an object when it exists as a GitlabObject object:

# update the attributes of a resource
project = gl.projects.get(1)
project.wall_enabled = False
# don't forget to apply your changes on the server:
project.save()

# delete the resource
project.delete()

Some GitlabObject-derived classes provide additional methods, allowing more actions on the GitLab resources. For example:

# get a tarball of the git repository
project = gl.projects.get(1)
project.archive()

You can use pagination to go throught long lists:

ten_first_groups = gl.groups.list(page=0, per_page=10)

Use the all parameter to get all the items:

all_groups = gl.groups.list(all=True)