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Check existing forks for user access before suggesting creation of a fork

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Release notes

Problem to solve

When users without access try to edit a page, they get a popup telling them to fork the project to make changes.

gitlab_fork

For large projects like GitLab, forking it can exceed the Free storage limit of 10GiB, which prevents changes being added to the fork. Here is how that might look for the user:

  1. Identify a change to be made (e.g. a typo)
  2. Edit -> Open in Web IDE
  3. Fork to make changes popup -> Fork
  4. User has to wait for the large fork to be made in their namespace
  5. After waiting, the user goes to edit their fork, only to discover they are now over their namespace storage limit and cannot edit their fork.
  6. The user is presented with no path forward. They cannot make the change because they can't push, they cannot make any changes until they wait for the fork to be deleted, and there's no clear guidance on how they can make the change they'd like.

Proposal

The "Fork to make changes" popup should present the user with forks that the user has appropriate permission to edit (if one exists).

I think the order that makes the most sense is:

  1. Check the user's namespace (this is the current behavior)
  2. Check the current namespace (e.g. GitLab.org/gitlab-community-fork)
  3. Check groups the user is a member of (e.g. Gitlab Community/Gitlab)

Other points:

  • I don't think it makes sense to check all public forks - but it could be configurable for an instance?
  • Project Owners might want to be able to specify a default fork.
  • Instance Administrators might want to be able to specify a default forking behavior.

Intended users

Open source communities/organizations, but particularly ones that follow a similar model to GitLab. But the utility can extend to any organization that wants to limit private namespaces while also limiting edit access to projects.

Feature Usage Metrics

Does this feature require an audit event?

If setting default forks or default forking behavior is implemented, those would need audit events.

Edited by menaechmi