GitLab 18.x Ultimate provides native support for all four DORA metrics via its REST API, giving engineering teams deep insights into the performance and reliability of their software delivery processes.

✅ Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure:

🧭 Overview of Supported DORA Metrics

🔧 Step 1: Setup Deployments and Environments

1. Define production environments in your CI/CD pipeline:

deploy_prod:
  stage: deploy
  script:
    - ./deploy.sh
  environment:
    name: production
    tier: production

2. Ensure your production deployments are successfully tracked under:
   Project → Operations → Environments

🛠 Step 2: Use GitLab’s Incidents (For CFR + MTTR)

• Go to: Project → Monitor → Incidents
• Create incidents manually or via /incident in issues
• Ensure incidents are associated with the correct environment (production)
• Close incidents when resolved

🧪 Step 3: Generate DORA Metrics Using REST API

🔸 Project-Level DORA Metrics

GET /projects/:id/dora/metrics

Example Request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/123456/dora/metrics?metric=deployment_frequency&start_date=2024-01-01&end_date=2024-04-01"
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

🔸 Group-Level DORA Metrics

GET /groups/:id/dora/metrics

Example Request:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: <your_access_token>" \
  "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/groups/5678/dora/metrics?metric=lead_time_for_changes&interval=daily"
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

📌 Supported API Parameters

📥 Example Responses

[
  { "date": "2024-04-01", "value": 4 },
  { "date": "2024-04-02", "value": 2 }
]
Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

• value meaning depends on the metric:
  • Deployment Frequency: # of successful deployments
  • Lead Time: Seconds between merge and deploy
  • Change Failure Rate: Ratio (e.g. 0.25 = 25%)
  • MTTR: Seconds taken to resolve incidents

📈 Step 4: Visualize & Analyze Metrics

• Metrics appear in Project → Analytics → CI/CD → DORA Metrics (UI available if licensed)
• You can export metrics to:
  • Grafana / PowerBI / Google Sheets
  • GitLab CI pipeline reports or Slack alerts

⚙️ Step 5: Automate DORA API Pulls Using GitLab CI Job

Add the following job to your .gitlab-ci.yml file:

dora_metrics:
  stage: report
  script:
    - mkdir -p dora
    - |
      for metric in deployment_frequency lead_time_for_changes change_failure_rate time_to_restore_service; do
        curl --silent --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: $GITLAB_TOKEN" \
          "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/$CI_PROJECT_ID/dora/metrics?metric=$metric&start_date=$(date -I -d '30 days ago')&end_date=$(date -I)&interval=daily" \
          > "dora/${metric}.json"
      done
    - echo "✅ DORA metrics saved in the 'dora' directory"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - dora/
    expire_in: 7 days
Code language: PHP (php)

🔐 CI/CD Variable Required

This will generate JSON files in dora/ which can be uploaded to dashboards or emailed/reported as needed.

🧠 Best Practices

• Keep production tier tagging consistent for environments
• Use structured commit messages to link MRs to features
• Automate incident creation when pipeline fails in production
• Pull metrics into dashboards to observe trends

✅ Summary

Rajesh Kumar

I’m Rajesh Kumar, a DevOps, SRE, DevSecOps, Cloud, and Platform Engineering expert passionate about sharing practical knowledge, real-world experiences, and industry best practices. I have worked at Cotocus and regularly write about technology, travel, investing, health, product reviews, and digital marketing through my various platforms.

I publish technical articles at DevOps School, travel stories at Holiday Landmark, stock market insights at Stocks Mantra, health and fitness guidance at My Medic Plus, product reviews at TrueReviewNow, and SEO and digital marketing strategies at Wizbrand.