## Executive Summary Self-managed and Dedicated GitLab customers need a way to automatically find and use GitLab's **official, GitLab-maintained CI/CD components** — currently, manual mirroring is the only option, a complex and time-consuming process that creates a barrier to adoption and a fundamentally inferior experience compared to GitLab.com. This epic delivers automated distribution of **official components only**, as the Self-Managed/Dedicated follow-up phase to [Bundle-based delivery of official CI components (#21992)](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/work_items/21992). It reuses the bundle-artifact mechanism built for GitLab.com's Cells/Organizations architecture rather than building a separate distribution path, and depends on that work landing first. ## Problem Organizations using self-managed and Dedicated GitLab instances face significant barriers when trying to leverage the rich ecosystem of CI/CD components available on GitLab.com: * **Manual overhead**: Current mirroring processes require extensive manual intervention, making adoption impractical for most organizations * **Dependency complexity**: Components often have nested dependencies that are difficult to track and maintain manually * **Synchronization gaps**: No automated way to stay current with component updates and security patches * **Air-gapped limitations**: Fully isolated environments cannot access external components at all * **Inconsistent experience**: Self-managed users have a fundamentally different (and inferior) experience compared to GitLab.com users * **Lack of first-class positioning**: Component distribution is treated as a workaround rather than a core platform capability ## Solution Vision Establish automated, first-class component distribution for self-managed and Dedicated instances through: 1. **Automated component synchronization** - Replace manual mirroring with built-in, automated discovery and distribution of GitLab-maintained components 2. **Dependency resolution** - Automatically handle nested component dependencies during sync, ensuring all required components are available 3. **Air-gapped support** - Provide mechanisms for fully isolated environments to access components through alternative distribution methods 4. **Premium/Ultimate positioning** - Market and document this as a headline capability for Premium and Ultimate tiers, with appropriate feature differentiation ## Scope **In scope:** - Automated discovery and sync of **official components** (catalog resources with `verification_level == :gitlab_maintained`) from GitLab.com to Self-Managed and Dedicated instances. - Scheduled (e.g. daily) and on-demand synchronization. - Air-gapped support for official components (offline bundle / manual import mechanism). - Documentation and migration guidance to retire manual mirroring as the default path for official components. - Premium/Ultimate tier positioning and packaging for official-component distribution. **Out of scope:** - **Community-maintained and partner-maintained components.** The CI/CD Catalog's public/community tier has not seen the adoption originally anticipated; distribution effort is concentrated on official, GitLab-maintained components. Manual mirroring remains the supported (if unautomated) path for community and partner-maintained components on Self-Managed/Dedicated. Revisiting this is contingent on developments not currently in view — material cross-org platform investment, demonstrated community-component demand, or competitive necessity — none of which apply today. - Any distribution mechanism not built on the bundle architecture delivered by [#21992](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/work_items/21992). - Work on this epic does not begin until #21992's customer-cell distribution (Phase 2) is complete — this epic is explicitly downstream of it, not parallel to it. ## Acceptance Criteria ### Scenario 1: Automated Component Synchronization - [ ] Self-Managed/Dedicated instances can automatically discover and sync **official (GitLab-maintained) components** from GitLab.com. - [ ] Synchronization can be scheduled (e.g., daily, weekly) or triggered on-demand - [ ] Users have a clear, documented process to enable and configure component distribution - [ ] Manual mirroring is documented as a deprecated workaround, with migration guidance provided ### Scenario 2: Dependency Resolution - [ ] When syncing a component, all nested dependencies are automatically identified and synced - [ ] Dependency conflicts are detected and reported to the user - [ ] Users can view the dependency tree for synced components - [ ] Documentation clearly explains how dependencies are resolved and managed ### Scenario 3: Air-Gapped Environment Support - [ ] Provide a mechanism for air-gapped instances to access components (e.g., offline bundle, manual import) - [ ] Document the process for importing components in isolated environments - [ ] Support for both GitLab-maintained and community components in air-gapped scenarios ### Tier Strategy - [ ] Define which features are available at Premium vs. Ultimate tiers - [ ] Document feature differentiation (e.g., automated sync, dependency resolution, air-gapped support) - [ ] Create marketing and product documentation positioning this as a headline capability ## Relationship to #21992 This epic is downstream of [Bundle-based delivery of official CI components (#21992)](https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/work_items/21992) Phases 1–2 (default organization + customer-cell bundle distribution). It reuses the same bundle-artifact and `catalog_bundled_*` mechanism, extending delivery to Self-Managed and Dedicated instances. No work here starts until that foundation is in place.