About the Handbook

History of the handbook

The handbook started when GitLab was a company of just ten people to make sharing information efficient and easy. We knew that future GitLab team-members wouldn’t be able to see emails about process changes that were being sent before they joined and that most of the people who would eventually join GitLab likely hadn’t even heard of us yet. The handbook was our way of ensuring that all of our company information was accessible to everyone regardless of when they became part of the team.

Advantages

At GitLab our handbook is extensive and keeping it relevant is an important part of everyone’s job. It is a vital part of who we are and how we communicate. We established these processes because we saw these benefits:

  1. Reading is much faster than listening.
  2. Reading is async, you don’t have to interrupt someone or wait for them to become available.
  3. Talent Acquisition is easier if people can see what we stand for and how we operate.
  4. Retention is better if people know what they are getting into before they join.
  5. On-boarding is easier if you can find all relevant information spelled out.
  6. Teamwork is easier if you can read how other parts of the company work.
  7. Discussing changes is easier if you can read what the current process is.
  8. Communicating change is easier if you can just point to the diff.
  9. Everyone can contribute to it by proposing a change via a merge request.

One common concern newcomers to the handbook express is that the strict documentation makes the company more rigid. In fact, writing down our current process in the handbook has the effect of empowering contributors to propose change. As a result, this handbook is far from rigid. You only need to look at the handbook changelog to see the evidence. Every attempt is made to document guidelines and processes in the handbook. However, it is not possible to document every possible situation or scenario that could potentially occur. Just because something is not yet in the handbook does not mean that it is allowed. GitLab will review each team member’s concern or situation based on local laws to determine the best outcome and then update the handbook accordingly. If you have questions, please discuss with your manager or contact the People Success team.

Handbook Interpretation

The handbook is subject to interpretation. We do our best to be as clear as possible to minimize confusion and/or misinterpretation. We also recognize that we have a global audience and that may bring different interpretations. If you have any questions or need further clarification please check with the content owner of the page. When in doubt please reach out and ask.

Remember that everything is in draft at GitLab and subject to change, this includes our handbook.

Count handbook pages

It’s easy to see that the handbook is large, but have you ever wondered just how large? The handbook is over two thousand pages long. That’s a lot of good info!

Historical Word and Page Counts

about.gitlab.com/handbook

Date Word Count Page Count Notes
2018-01-01 298,806 228
2018-10-01 427,929 335
2019-01-01 520,519 439
2019-04-01 656,668 586
2019-07-01 818,064 766
2019-10-01 987,397 884
2020-01-01 1,204,642 1,035
2020-04-01 1,491,017 1,222
2020-07-01 1,851,350 1,488
2020-10-01 2,166,627 1,759
2021-01-01 2,410,554 1,914
2021-04-01 2,615,372 2,056
2021-07-01 2,956,781 2,271
2021-10-01 3,138,952 2,355
2022-01-01 3,280,108 2,395
2022-04-01 3,474,993 2,553
2022-07-01 3,628,280 2,641
2022-10-01 3,732,384 2,724
2023-01-01 3,732,186 2,722 ⬅️ Last entry before migration
2023-07-01 3,905,979 2,743
2023-10-01 3,478,407 2,306
2023-12-22 0 0 ⬅️ Handbook Migration Complete

handbook.gitlab.com/handbook

Date Word Count Page Count Notes
2023-07-01 150,732 133
2023-10-01 1,909,139 1,403
2024-01-01 3,631,360 3,003 ⬅️ Migration Completed
2024-03-19 3,655,083 2,910 ⬅️ Hugo generated Live Count

Methodology

Word and page counts are determined through a simple two-step process:

  1. Count the number of words in the handbook. This can be done by running find sites/handbook/source/handbook -type f -name "*.md" -o -name "*.md.erb" | xargs wc -w from the root of the repository.
  2. Count the number of pages in the handbook. This can be done by running grep -l -r "\" * | wc -l from the root of the repository.

Note: If you need to go back to an earlier version of the handbook, use git checkout `git rev-list -n 1 --first-parent --before="2021-07-02 00:00" master` specifying the next day after the day you want.

View Statistics

On this page you can see handbook trends and discover popular pages that you may not know about.

GitLab uses Snowplow to track handbook usage; the information can be viewed on Sisense.

More about the handbook

We’ve gathered some information about the handbook here, but there’s still more elsewhere.


Handbook Changelog
The last 100 Merge Requests to the Handbook
Handbook On-Call
Important Update See Content Websites for the latest information about the DRI and support processes for the about.gitlab.com and handbook.gitlab.com site. Introduction GitLab recognizes that the Handbook is a critical part of empowering team members to do their jobs effectively. As such we have implemented a basic on-call process (refer to First-response Service Level Objective below) to ensure that someone is available to assist team members in the event that something is broken in the handbook or if they are having trouble with making updates to it.
Handbook Roadmap
Documents development plans for the handbook
Handbook Support
How to get support when contributing to GitLab Handbook
Handbook Team READMEs
Here you’ll find the README of the people who are currently tasked with supporting and operating the handbook site.
Migration Details
Handbook Content is on the move. This gives the time table and the individual files which are being migrated.
Migration Reports
Last modified January 22, 2024: Add Handbook metadata (b0eb2c90)