How to Implement Version Control with GitLab

GitLab streamlines modern source code management, aiding software development teams in delivering faster and more efficiently.

Introduction

Implementing Version Control Implementing version control can be challenging due to various obstacles and potential solutions. For a project to be successful, it must have a robust source control system and allow multiple developers to collaborate simultaneously. To cater to modern development teams, a solution needs a wide array of features to support projects from conception to production. GitLab offers a comprehensive version control solution to produce better software more quickly on a single platform, simplifying the implementation of version control.

Three Key Components for Implementing a Version Control System

Collaboration, acceleration, and compliance and security are the three pillars of a robust source code management system. Continuous high-quality code development thrives in an environment where team members work together to rapidly create innovative solutions securely.

The following section provides a detailed examination of these three components:

Collaboration

One of the most crucial elements in implementing version control is how a software development team collaborates to deliver value. Strong collaboration ensures a solution-focused approach to code development. GitLab offers several features to strengthen collaboration across an organization.

Code Review

Delivering high-quality code is crucial for providing value to customers and businesses. Establishing a code review process helps teams improve code and collaborate. GitLab's inline comments facilitate asynchronous code review and feedback, allowing team members to share thoughts across time zones, document discussions, and explain how solutions were developed. Code review in merge requests is one of GitLab's most useful features, enabling teams to have discussions, link to specific lines of code in a diff, and resolve threads quickly. Merge Request Reviewers simplify the review process, helping team members request a review with just a few clicks. Code reviewers can suggest code changes using a simple markdown syntax in a diff.

Learn how merge requests reviewers help team members improve code → ADINUSA

InnerSourcing

Teams can establish an open-source culture within an organization to break down silos, reduce code review friction, and strengthen code documentation. Using GitLab, teams can establish maintainer roles to manage contributions and protect the source code. As GitLab is a single application for the entire software development lifecycle, teams benefit from network effects as team members across the organization can contribute. Review Apps illustrate live changes before deploying to production, helping contributors and reviewers understand how a change will appear to users.

File Locking

File locking helps teams manage binary files and prevent merge conflicts. Using GitLab, a team member with push access to a repository file or directory can commit changes and unlock it for reviewers or other contributors. If someone tries to push a change to a locked file, they'll receive a pre-receive hook blocking them from committing. If a file isn't locked and someone pushes a change, GitLab simplifies conflict resolution when merging with the UI. Team members can view both versions and select which option to keep.

Web IDE

GitLab's Web IDE editor makes it easy for team members to contribute changes to projects with an advanced editor with commit staging. When viewing a file, contributors can access the Web IDE when viewing files, merge requests, or the repository file list. Web IDE lowers the barrier to entry for team members who may not feel comfortable making changes in the terminal. With Web IDE, GitLab ensures that everyone—regardless of skill level—can collaborate.

Acceleration

A strong version control system facilitates rapid development, helping software development teams create innovative solutions. When developers can code and see their creations quickly, they can focus on enhancements, providing high-quality experiences to users. GitLab provides everything teams need to accelerate development and delivery to meet customer needs.

Git-Based Repository

As a Git repository, GitLab allows developers to work from a local copy, resulting in rapid branching and code development. Git is a fast distributed source code system, so developers don't have to wait to communicate with a server to make changes. GitLab enables mirroring of repositories to/from external sources, allowing developers to automatically mirror tags, branches, and commits between repositories. GitLab helps minimize repository storage disk usage with Git object deduplication for forks.

Learn how Git partial clone enables you to fetch one large file at a time → ADINUSA

Branching Capabilities

GitLab helps team members branch code and merge changes into the main branch. With its workflow flexibility, GitLab helps teams of any size determine the best branching strategy to accelerate code development. To further accelerate code development, GitLab enables branch creation from issues. Because GitLab empowers contributors to move quickly, it also creates permissions to protect who can read or write to a repository and branches. These restrictions can be placed on certain branches to protect them.

Built-In CI/CD

GitLab CI/CD applies all three continuous methods (continuous integration, delivery, and deployment) to software without requiring third-party applications or integrations. The built-in CI/CD features run automated scripts to preview changes with Review Apps, build and test applications, deploy apps to different environments, schedule pipelines, install runners, and check for vulnerabilities with security test reports.

Want a more effective CI/CD pipeline? Read these pro tips → G itLab

Compliance and Security

The advantage of a diverse software development team in which multiple developers contribute to a project is that code benefits from a variety of experience levels, fueling innovation. Although creativity is important to feature development, safeguards must be established to ensure stability. When multiple developers contribute to a project, GitLab provides comprehensive security features to protect source code and project access.

Merge Requests

Merge requests can track, review, and approve code changes, helping teams protect the source code. GitLab can help teams set required merge request approvals and restrict who can push and merge to specific users. In addition to protected branches, GitLab also offers the ability to set specific rules, such as blocking Git tag removal or requiring a format for commit messages. To protect the code base from prying eyes, GitLab rejects any files likely to contain secrets.

Security and Compliance Management

Compliance management with GitLab includes policy management to determine rules to follow compliance frameworks, automatic compliance workflows to help team members adhere to standards, and audit management to log activities to document incidents and adherence to established policies. Security management with GitLab makes it possible to automatically scan code for quality and security with every commit, and teams can easily adhere to security scanning and license compliance. Developers can immediately remediate vulnerabilities while working in code or create an issue with a single click, while security professionals can use the dashboard to review the vulnerabilities that developers could not resolve on their own. Furthermore, GitLab ensures secure communication between Git and its servers using SSH keys.

Access Controls

GitLab simplifies auditing and compliance with granular access controls and reporting. Protecting project creation/deletion and limiting visibility into projects, groups, and snippets are possible with GitLab's advanced access control features. GitLab Code Owners helps teams identify who owns certain repository files or paths, so contributors can share changes with owners to ensure quality.

Conclusion

Implementing version control represents a significant advancement in software development practices. It merges the benefits of version control with the agility of DevOps, creating an environment where software teams can thrive. As the software development landscape continues to evolve, embracing GitLab's comprehensive version control solution equips organizations with the tools they need to face future challenges and seize new opportunities.

This platform enhances collaboration among software and DevOps teams, ensuring high code quality and efficient project management. By integrating version control software with comprehensive DevOps practices, GitLab provides a unified solution that addresses the critical needs of software teams, paving the way for the delivery of superior software at an unparalleled pace.