gitlab-kas server not starting after upgrading to gitlab-18.0.0-ee

On upgrade omnibus v17.11.2-ee to v18.0.0-ee gitlab-kas fails to startup OS Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Log entry on attempting to start 2025-05-15_21:36:20.30999 {"time":"2025-05-16T09:36:20.309951551+12:00","level":"ERROR","msg":"Program aborted","error":"protojson.Unmarshal: proto: (line 1:50): unknown field "gitops""}

Workaround

kas should be able to start again if you remove the top level gitops section in its config file.