Updates on which attributes are relevant for the "updated_at" timestamp that is returned from gitlab API?

Question

I am querying gitlab projects using REST calls to the gitlab API (Example URL: https://gitlab.domain.com/api/v4/projects/).

In the result, there is the timestamp field updated_at, which is supposed to show the last update of the shown project.

However, I discovered that not all fields of a project are reflected in the updated_at timestamp. For example, a change in the star count of a gitlab project will not update the updated_at timestamp.

Is this a intended behavior? Does anyone know an exact documentation of the fields that are covered / uncovered by gitlab's updated_at timestamp?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Based on the code and some other resources:

1. last_activity_at describes when the most recent event in the project occurred.
2. updated_at describes when the project itself was last updated.

last_activity_at is updated based on events based on the events model code.

updated_at is updated whenever changes are made to the project record in the database. As this is an ActiveModel thing, there is no definitive list because it depends on the implementation. Someone would need to audit the whole codebase to give you a definitive answer. Generally though it would be whenever the projects table is updated for that particular project. However, it's not all project changes as some features such as CI/CD project settings are in a separate table.