Performance Bar (FREE SELF)

The Stats field introduced in GitLab 13.9. The Memory field introduced in GitLab 14.0.

You can display the GitLab Performance Bar to see statistics for the performance of a page. When activated, it looks as follows:

From left to right, it displays:

• Current Host: the current host serving the page.
• Database queries: the time taken (in milliseconds) and the total number of database queries, displayed in the format 00ms / 00 (00 cached) pg. Click to display a modal window with more details.
• Gitaly calls: the time taken (in milliseconds) and the total number of Gitaly calls. Click to display a modal window with more details.
• Rugged calls: the time taken (in milliseconds) and the total number of Rugged calls. Click to display a modal window with more details.
• Redis calls: the time taken (in milliseconds) and the total number of Redis calls. Click to display a modal window with more details.
• Elasticsearch calls: the time taken (in milliseconds) and the total number of Elasticsearch calls. Click to display a modal window with more details.
• External HTTP calls: the time taken (in milliseconds) and the total number of external calls to other systems. Click to display a modal window with more details.
• Load timings of the page: if your browser supports load timings (Chromium and Chrome) several values in milliseconds, separated by slashes. Click to display a modal window with more details. The values, from left to right:
  • Backend: time needed for the base page to load.
  • First Contentful Paint: Time until something was visible to the user.
  • DomContentLoaded Event.
  • Total number of requests the page loaded.
• Memory: the amount of memory consumed and objects allocated during the selected request. Select it to display a window with more details.
• Trace: if Jaeger is integrated, Trace links to a Jaeger tracing page with the current request's correlation_id included.
• +: a link to add a request's details to the performance bar. The request can be added by its full URL (authenticated as the current user), or by the value of its X-Request-Id header.
• Download: a link to download the raw JSON used to generate the Performance Bar reports.
• Request Selector: a select box displayed on the right-hand side of the Performance Bar which enables you to view these metrics for any requests made while the current page was open. Only the first two requests per unique URL are captured.
• Stats (optional): if the GITLAB_PERFORMANCE_BAR_STATS_URL environment variable is set, this URL is displayed in the bar. In GitLab 13.9 and later, used only in GitLab SaaS.

NOTE: Not all indicators are available in all environments. For instance, the memory view requires to run Ruby with specific patches applied. When running GitLab locally using the GDK this is typically not the case and the memory view cannot be used.

Request warnings

Requests that exceed predefined limits display a warning {warning} icon and explanation next to the metric. In this example, the Gitaly call duration exceeded the threshold.

If any requests on the current page generated warnings, the warning icon displays next to the Requests selector menu. In this selector menu, an exclamation (!) appears next to requests with warnings.

Enable the Performance Bar via the Admin Area

The GitLab Performance Bar is disabled by default for non-administrators. To enable it for a given group:

1. Sign in as a user with Administrator permissions.
2. On the top bar, select Menu > {admin} Admin.
3. On the left sidebar, select Settings > Metrics and profiling (admin/application_settings/metrics_and_profiling), and expand Profiling - Performance bar.
4. Click Enable access to the Performance Bar.
5. In the Allowed group field, provide the full path of the group allowed to access the GitLab Performance Bar.
6. Click Save changes.

Keyboard shortcut for the Performance Bar

After enabling the GitLab Performance Bar, press the p + b keyboard shortcut to display it, and again to hide it.