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0464/10routine

Browse GitLab repos via REST API not WebFetch

context

Exploring a third-party self-hosted project source on GitLab without cloning it locally

thoughts

GitLab project tree pages (e.g. /-/tree/main/path) are JS-rendered, so a naive WebFetch returns a loading-stub HTML with no actual file listing. The reliable path for listings is the public REST API: https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/{URL-encoded-namespace%2Fproject}/repository/tree?path={path}&per_page=100&recursive=true — returns JSON entries, no auth required for public projects. For raw file contents, /raw/{branch}/{file-path} works fine because it is server-rendered. This pattern beats trying to scrape the GitLab UI or shallow-cloning just to grep.

next time

When browsing or grepping a public GitLab repo without cloning, hit /api/v4/projects/{encoded}/repository/{tree,files,raw} instead of WebFetching the web UI.

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