Notebook.link now supports GitLab

Your GitLab notebooks, just a prefix away

Since launch, Notebook.link has let you turn a GitHub repository into a live, runnable Jupyter environment with a single link. But a lot of scientific and teaching material doesn't live on GitHub: universities, research labs and open-source communities host plenty of it on GitLab.

Starting today, GitLab is a first-class Git provider on Notebook.link. Any public repository on gitlab.com can be opened, run and shared the same way as a GitHub repository, with the same environment handling, lock files and interface styles.

Open a repository from its URL

The fastest way to try it doesn't even need the dashboard. Take the URL of a GitLab project and put notebook.link/ in front of it:

https://gitlab.com/{group}/{project}
        ↓
https://notebook.link/gitlab.com/{group}/{project}

Notebook.link redirects you to the canonical form of the link, https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{project}/, downloads the repository, sets up its environment and opens it in JupyterLite, all in your browser.

Without a git reference, the link follows the latest commit of the default branch. Links follow GitLab's own URL structure, so you can copy a path from the GitLab interface and it just works:

Reference	Link
Default branch	https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{project}/
Nested groups	https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{subgroup}/{project}/
Branch	https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{project}/-/tree/{branch}/
Commit	https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{project}/-/commit/{sha}/
Tag	https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{project}/-/tags/{tag}/
Merge request	https://notebook.link/gitlab/{group}/{project}/-/merge_requests/{number}/

Two GitLab habits are supported from day one:

• Nested groups: projects can sit arbitrarily deep, e.g. my-university/physics/lab-2026/tutorials.
• Branch names with slashes, such as feature/new-exercises.

Create a GitLab link from the dashboard

The New Link form on the Link page now asks which Git provider hosts your repository. Pick GitLab, paste the project path (or the full https://gitlab.com/... URL, which is cleaned up for you), and choose what to snapshot: a commit, a branch, a tag or a merge request.

Everything else works as it does for GitHub links. You can give the link a name and an alias (https://notebook.link/@{username}/{alias}), choose the file opened by default, pick the Windowed, Single-document or Presentation interface, and make the link public or unlisted.

Your repository, your environment

GitLab repositories are prepared for Notebook.link exactly like GitHub ones. You don't need GitLab-specific configuration:

• Describe the environment in an environment.yml at the repository root or in .nblink/.
• Commit a nblink-lock.json lock file to pin package versions, so your link keeps working years from now.
• Optionally add a jupyter-lite.json to customize the JupyterLite runtime.

If your repository is already Notebook.link ready on GitHub, a GitLab mirror of it is ready too. See Prepare your Git repository for Notebook.link for the details.

After you push new commits

As with GitHub, the git reference you choose decides what your audience sees after you push:

• A branch, a merge request or no reference always shows the latest commit.
• A tag or a commit hash is a fixed snapshot.

When a link needs to show the exact same content and environment for years, as course material or a paper's companion notebooks usually do, use a commit hash together with a lock file.

Branches, tags and merge requests are resolved to a commit through the GitLab API. If you ever hit its rate limit, a commit link still works, since it doesn't query the API.

Current limitations

This first release focuses on the most common case. Some things aren't supported yet:

• Public repositories only. Private GitLab projects can't be opened yet. Private GitHub repositories work through the Notebook.link GitHub app, but GitLab has no equivalent yet.
• gitlab.com only. Self-hosted GitLab instances aren't supported yet.
• The 50MB repository size limit applies, as it does for GitHub.

Try it

Pick your favorite notebook repository on gitlab.com, put notebook.link/ in front of its URL, and see it run in your browser. If something doesn't work as expected, or you need to connect notebook.link to a private GitLab instance, let us know.