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Deprecate Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22B Support

Deprecation Summary

Mistral has stopped supporting Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22B. While we have design partners who are leveraging Mistral 7B-it for self-hosted models, and others who are exploring the potential, customers are largely guided by GitLab recommendations and traffic light scores. While Mistral 7B-it is currently the smallest model we have supported for GitLab self-hosted features, it has failed to reach satisfactory validation scores for Chat use-cases (GitLab documentation and issue/epic questions).

This issue is to move Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22B from a supported model to a compatible model. Prior to deprecating Mistral 7B-it, we will add other lightweight OS models to our supported models - to include Mistral Small ✅ and META Llama 3.1 8B-it ✅

Documentation

  • Deprecation notices:
    • Slack to internal
  • Migration guidelines: add link
  • etc.

Product Usage

Mistral has stopped supporting Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22B

Breaking Change?

Does this deprecation contain a breaking change? No

Affected Customers

Who is affected by this deprecation: GitLab.com users, Self-managed users, or Dedicated users? (choose all that apply)

  • GitLab.com
  • Self-managed
  • Dedicated

What pricing tiers are impacted?

  • GitLab Free
  • GitLab Premium
  • GitLab Ultimate

This will impact self-managed GitLab Duo Self-Hosted customers who have deployed Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22Bfor usage with Duo. Duo Self-Hosted is now available with Enterprise for customers on both Premium and Ultimate.

Deprecation Milestone

This deprecation will be announced in milestone: 18.3 If this deprecation has already been announced, include information about when the initial announcement went out and what follow-up announcements are scheduled.

Planned Removal Milestone

The feature / functionality will be removed in milestone: 18.6

Internal Announcement Plan

Timeline for Notification

  • Custom Models will announce the plan to deprecate support for Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22B in 18.3. As of 18.5, these models will be removed as supported models and will instead fall into the compatible category and be included in the forthcoming compatible model catalogue (see &18573)
  • 10 July 2025: Internal slack announcement in in #sme-ai-internal, #public-sector-civ #ai_strategy #ai-field-strategy #sme-ai #g_custom_models. See #517649 (comment 2646659799)

Audience

  • Field team members
  • GitLab Duo Self-Hosted customers

Channels

  • Internal Slack channels (see above)
  • Notification on GitLab Duo Self-Hosted Documentation on supported models page
  • Release note (see

Checklists

Timeline

Rollout Plan

  • DRI Engineers: @engineer(s)
  • Describe rollout plans on GitLab.com
    • _Link to _a feature flag rollout issue that covers:
      • Expected release date on GitLab.com and GitLab version
      • Rollout timelines, such as a percentage rollout on GitLab.com
      • Creation of any clean-up issues, such as code removal
  • Move Mistral 7B-it, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mixtral 8x22B to compatible models on the Compatible Model Catalogue

Communication Plan

An internal slack post and a release post are not sufficient notification for our customers or internal stakeholders. Plan to communicate proactively and directly with affected customers and the internal stakeholders supporting them.

Internal Communication Plan

  • Share plans to deprecate in relevant Slack channels, seeking field feedback on any potentially affected customers. See #517649 (comment 2646659799)
  • Create an internal note in the comment thread of this issue with a comprehensive narrative of customer impacts, with the intended audience of internal stakeholders who directly interact with customers. See #517649 (comment 2646672013)
    • Consider: what will the CSM / AE / SA teams need to tell their customers? What will they want to know about customer sentiment and impact?
    • If customers must take an action, include in this internal note the following information: what action is needed, the steps they can take to complete it, the due date for that action, and the consequences of not completing the action in time.
  • Internal announcement plan (timeline for notifications, audience, channels, etc)
  • Support and enablement plan
    • Support readiness: Document how the support team should handle tickets related to this deprecation / breaking change.
    • Customer Success readiness: Ensure the CS team knows how to bring questions or concerns from clients to the right internal team members.

External Communication Plan

  • Customer announcement plan (timeline for notifications, audience, channels, etc)
  • A deprecation announcement entry has been created so the deprecation will appear in release posts and on the general deprecation page. Add link to the relevant merge request to the deprecation issue
    • Documentation has been updated to mark the feature as deprecated. Add link to the relevant merge request to the deprecation issue

Approvals

  • Product Manager @PM
  • Engineering Manager @EM

Keep in mind that approval check boxes and deprecations notices alone are not sufficient communication about breaking changes. Despite having approvals documented here, the PM/EM will still need to take active steps to partner with internal stakeholders and customers to ensure a positive user experience.

Stakeholder Mentions

  • Product Designer @emilybauman
  • Tech Writer @jglassman1
  • Software Engineering in Test @SET
  • Any other stable counterparts based on the product categories:
    • Add Sales/CS counterpart or mention @timtams
    • Add Support counterpart or mention @vidhya
    • Add Marketing counterpart or mention @anair5
    • Add Corp comms if direct customer comms are needed @kahsu
    • Add Product Security counterpart, if relevant to your deprecation
    • Mention (in internal note) Customer Success Managers / Account Managers / Solutions Architects for impacted customers

Labels

  • This issue is labeled deprecation, and with the relevant ~devops::, ~group::, and ~Category: labels.
  • This issue is labeled breaking change if the removal of the deprecated item will be a breaking change.

References

Edited by Susie Bitters