Data models

A non-exhaustive map of the most-touched tables. The schema is in db/structure.sql (~24 MB) and db/docs/.

Core

Table	Notes
users	All identities, including bots and ghosts.
namespaces	STI: User namespace, Group, ProjectNamespace.
projects	Repository, CI config, integrations attach here.
members	Project / group membership rows.
routes	Polymorphic path → resource mapping (project routing).
personal_access_tokens	API tokens issued by users.
application_settings	Single-row admin settings.

Issuables and discussions

Table	Notes
issues, merge_requests	Two flavors of issuable.
work_items_widget_*	Widgets attached to work items.
notes	Comments — polymorphic via noteable_type.
discussions	A grouping of notes (used for diff threads).
events	Activity feed entries.
award_emoji	Reactions.
todos	Per-user todo inbox.
subscriptions	Issue/MR/label subscriptions.
internal_ids	Per-parent IID counters.

CI

Table	Notes
ci_pipelines	Pipeline runs.
ci_builds	Jobs (legacy table name).
ci_stages	Stages within a pipeline.
ci_runners, ci_runner_machines	Runners and their executors.
ci_job_artifacts	Build artifacts metadata.
ci_variables, ci_group_variables	Variables.
ci_pipeline_schedules	Cron triggers.
ci_secure_files	Files uploaded for CI.

These live in the ci decomposed database.

Repository / SCM

Table	Notes
protected_branches, protected_tags	Branch / tag rules.
tags, branches	Cached refs (some are computed from Gitaly).
merge_request_diffs	Snapshotted MR diffs.
merge_request_diff_files	Per-file diff data.
pool_repositories	Object pools for forks.

Packages

Table	Notes
packages_packages	Package versions across all formats.
packages_package_files	Bytes pointer (object storage).
container_repositories	Container Registry repositories.
dependency_proxy_*	Dependency Proxy cache.

Security

Table	Notes
vulnerabilities, vulnerability_findings	Vulnerability records.
vulnerability_occurrences	Per-scanner occurrences.
vulnerability_state_transitions	Workflow audit.
dast_*, sast_*, secret_detection_*	Per-scanner config.

These live in the sec decomposed database.

Geo (EE)

Table	Notes
geo_*_registry	Per-resource replication state.

In a separate Geo tracking DB.

Observability

Table	Notes
audit_events	Partitioned by month.
application_setting_terms	Terms of use acceptance.
error_tracking_errors, error_tracking_events	Sentry-style error tracking.

Search

Table	Notes
search_indices, search_zoekt_*	Zoekt deployment metadata.
ai_* (some Active Context)	Active Context state.

ClickHouse tables

The ClickHouse cluster has its own schema — not in db/structure.sql. See db/clickhouse/migrate/ for migrations. Major tables include event-store ingest, audit events, and CI analytics.

Naming and conventions

• Singular models (User, Project); plural tables (users, projects).
• Foreign keys match <model>_id.
• Soft-delete is rare; most deletes are hard with cascading workers.
• Decomposed databases (main, ci, sec) — cross-DB joins are forbidden at runtime.

Related

• Database.
• ClickHouse.