This blog post is part of an ongoing series about GitLab's journey to build and integrate AI/ML into our DevSecOps platform. The series starts here: What the ML is up with DevSecOps and AI?. Throughout the series, we'll feature blogs from our product, engineering, and UX teams to showcase how we're infusing AI/ML into GitLab.
GitLab Code Suggestions (Beta) uses generative AI to suggest code while you’re developing. Since introduction in GitLab SaaS with 15.9, we've heard self-managed customers have wanted to use the feature. We're now bringing Code Suggestions to self-managed instances beginning with GitLab 16.1 (expected to be released June 22). Self-managed users working with VS Code or GitLab’s WebIDE can now receive code suggestions to help accelerate your development efforts while you type.
How does Code Suggestions work?
A self-managed instance administrator must enable Code Suggestions on behalf of an organization's entire instance. Once enabled, users of that self-managed instance can authenticate their IDE to GitLab.com infrastructure using a secure handshake with the user's self-managed instance. As users type in their IDE, a context window containing relevant source code is securely transmitted to GitLab’s infrastructure, which will return an AI-generated code suggestion. GitLab does not have any visibility into a self-managed customer’s code other than what is sent to generate the Code Suggestion. GitLab does not persist any customer code sent in that context window nor train on customer data.
In this video, Senior Backend Engineer Nikola Milojevic demonstrates how to set up and configure GitLab’s Code Suggestions for self-managed users on VS Code.
How Code Suggestions uses data
GitLab is mindful of privacy when we design our AI-powered features. With Code Suggestions, we securely transmit the data needed to generate a code suggestion, and we process all personal data in accordance with our privacy statement. Our VS Code Workflow extension will securely transmit a minimal amount of data required to generate a code suggestion. GitLab does not receive any information outside of an IDE’s context. Read more about Code Suggestions data usage.
Try Code Suggestions
We will be provisioning access on a customer-by-customer basis for this initial iteration of GitLab Code Suggestions (Beta) on self-managed instances. Please leave a note in this issue tagging your Customer Success Manager for help with enabling Code Suggestions once your instance is ready.
Code Suggestions for self-managed instances will require GitLab 16.1. Customers may try Code Suggestions either via GitLab’s WebIDE or VS Code’s GitLab Workflow Extension (version 3.67+).
Iterating on AI/ML features
This is just the start of the ways we're infusing GitLab with AI/ML capabilities to help GitLab users become more efficient and effective at their jobs. We are looking across the software development lifecycle for painful and time-consuming tasks that are ideal for AI-assisted features. We'll continue to share these demos throughout this blog series.
Interested in using these AI-generated features? Join our waitlist and share your ideas.
Continue reading our "AI/ML in DevSecOps" series.
Disclaimer: This blog contains information related to upcoming products, features, and functionality. It is important to note that the information in this blog post is for informational purposes only. Please do not rely on this information for purchasing or planning purposes. As with all projects, the items mentioned in this blog and linked pages are subject to change or delay. The development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab.
