Packages

Workspace gems extracted from the monolith. Each lives under gems/<name>/ and is loaded via path: in the Gemfile so it ships with the monorepo, but each gem could be released independently if needed.

Inventory

Gem	Purpose
gitlab-utils	Shared utilities: lazy methods, json wrappers, retry helpers
gitlab-rspec	Shared RSpec helpers reused across this gem set
gitlab-rspec_flaky	Flaky-test detection helpers
gitlab-database-load_balancing	Postgres replica/primary read routing
gitlab-database-data_isolation	Cross-database / cross-cell query rejection
gitlab-database-lock_retries	Retryable schema-modifying transactions
gitlab-active-context	Backend-agnostic vector + keyword retrieval
gitlab-housekeeper	Automated MR generator
gitlab-backup-cli	Standalone CLI for backup/restore
gitlab-secret_detection	Secret detection rules and engine
gitlab-glaz	GitLab Authoring Style ruleset
gitlab-grape-openapi	Grape OpenAPI extensions
gitlab-http	HTTP client wrapper with redirect/SSRF protections
gitlab-safe_request_store	Per-request key/value store
gitlab-schema-validation	Schema parsing and assertions
auto_freeze	Freezes constants in Rails dev to catch mutation bugs
bundler-checksum	Verifies gem checksums (deprecated; kept for transition)
mail-smtp_pool	SMTP connection pool
csv_builder	Streaming CSV builder
error_tracking_open_api	OpenAPI client for the error-tracking service
ipynbdiff	Jupyter notebook diff helper
activerecord-gitlab	ActiveRecord patches and scopes
action_dispatch-draw_all	Allow drawing routes in multiple definitions

26 gems total in gems/ (plus a config/ directory with shared CI templates and a README.md).

Why monorepo gems?

• Ownership: each subsystem can have its own gemspec, dependencies, and README.
• Isolation: tests for the gem run independently; the gem doesn't load the full Rails stack.
• Reusability: a gem might one day be extracted (e.g., gitlab-database-load_balancing is internal-only but stable enough to publish).
• CI granularity: changes to a gem only re-run that gem's tests, not the whole monolith.

Gem CI

Each gem is verified by gems/gem.gitlab-ci.yml. The template includes RSpec, Rubocop, and gemspec validation. Gems with PG dependencies extend gem-pg.gitlab-ci.yml.

Adding a new gem

1. mkdir gems/my-gem.

2. Run bundle gem ... inside it.

3. Add the gem to the root Gemfile:

   gem 'my-gem', path: 'gems/my-gem', feature_category: :foo

4. Add a .gitlab-ci.yml extending the gem template.

5. Document the gem under packages/<gem>.md here.

Related

• Patterns and conventions — feature_category on Gemfile entries.
• Tooling — Gemfile.next pattern.