How to Enable GitLab Metrics and Visualize Them with Prometheus & Grafana

With the rise of DevOps, CI/CD pipelines rely on continuous monitoring. GitLab’s enterprise monitoring panel provides real‑time visualization, performance analysis, and automated alerts to keep every stage from code commit to production deployment in optimal condition.

Enable GitLab Metrics

Set the

metrics.enabled

flag to true in the GitLab Helm values file and upgrade the release.

<code>$ cat /etc/kubernetes/addons/gitlab-values.yaml
gitlab:
  webservice:
    workhorse:
      metrics:
        enabled: true

gitlab-runner:
  metrics:
    enabled: true

global:
  monitoring:
    enabled: true
</code>

<code>$ helm -n gitlab upgrade gitlab -f /etc/kubernetes/addons/gitlab-values.yaml /etc/kubernetes/addons/gitlab
Release "gitlab" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
...</code>

Prometheus Scrape Configuration

Modify the Prometheus ConfigMap to add a job that discovers GitLab pods and rewrites labels for proper scraping.

<code>$ kubectl -n kube-system edit cm prometheus
  - job_name: gitlab
    kubernetes_sd_configs:
    - role: pod
    relabel_configs:
    - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_gitlab_com_prometheus_scrape]
      action: keep
      regex: true
    - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_gitlab_com_prometheus_scheme]
      action: replace
      regex: (https?)
      target_label: __scheme__
    - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_gitlab_com_prometheus_path]
      action: replace
      target_label: __metrics_path__
      regex: (.+)
    - source_labels: [__address__, __meta_kubernetes_pod_annotation_gitlab_com_prometheus_port]
      action: replace
      regex: ([^:]+)(?::\d+)?;(\d+)
      replacement: $1:$2
      target_label: __address__
    - action: labelmap
      regex: __meta_kubernetes_pod_label_(.+)
    - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_namespace]
      action: replace
      target_label: kubernetes_namespace
    - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_pod_name]
      action: replace
      target_label: kubernetes_pod_name

  - job_name: gitlab-workhorse
    kubernetes_sd_configs:
    - role: endpoints
    relabel_configs:
    - action: keep
      source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_namespace, __meta_kubernetes_endpoints_name, __meta_kubernetes_endpoint_port_name]
      regex: gitlab;gitlab-webservice-default;http-metrics-wh
    - target_label: app
      replacement: workhorse
</code>

Verify that Prometheus is collecting the metrics:

<code>$ curl -s $(kubectl -n kube-system get svc prometheus -ojsonpath='{.spec.clusterIP}:{.spec.ports[0].port}')/prometheus/api/v1/query --data-urlencode 'query=up{job=~"gitlab"}' | jq '.data.result[] | {app: .metric.app, instance: .metric.instance, status: .value[1]}'
{ "app": "gitlab-gitlab-runner", "instance": "10.244.58.236:9252", "status": "1" }
{ "app": "gitlab-exporter", "instance": "10.244.85.250:9168", "status": "1" }
... (additional results omitted for brevity)
</code>

Grafana Dashboard Import

Import the following Grafana dashboard IDs to visualize GitLab metrics: 18917, 18923, 18921, 18925, 18926, 18927.

Tip: There are six panels, each adjusted to achieve the displayed results.

Conclusion

GitLab’s enterprise monitoring panel, combined with Prometheus and Grafana, offers a powerful way to achieve efficient development operations, improve cross‑team communication, and strengthen control over technical risk in complex IT environments.