Track how projects are created in GitLab

Created with the help of GitLab Duo.

We currently lack a systematic way to track how projects are created in GitLab. This makes it difficult to:

• Debug issues where we need to understand the user's creation path
• Analyze usage patterns across different creation methods
• Build accurate funnels for product analytics
• Differentiate between API and UI-initiated actions

Proposal

Add tracking fields to the project entity(?) to capture creation context. This could be

Option A: Two separate fields

• creation_method: How the project was created (e.g., blank_new, template, url_import, direct_transfer, github_import, bitbucket_import, manifest_import, gitea_import, etc.)
• creation_channel: Where the action was initiated (e.g., ui, api)

Option B: Single combined field

• creation_source: Combined value (e.g., ui_blank_new, api_github_import, api_direct_transfer)

Considerations

• Congregate: This is a Professional Services wrapper around our APIs, so it might appear as api in the channel field, which seems appropriate
• Retry flows: Is there any concern about Failed project imports that are retried not retaining their original creation method
• Existing projects: We'd need to decide whether to backfill existing projects (likely not feasible) or only track going forward

Open questions

1. Which option (A or B) better serves our analytics needs?
2. Should this live on the projects table directly or in a separate table?
3. What level of granularity do we need for import sources?
4. Any edge cases to be aware of like projects created via Rails console or database seeding?

Useful links

https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/import/repo_by_url/#import-a-project-by-using-the-api

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