GitLab Certified Associate (GCA)

The GitLab Certified Associate (GCA) is an official certification from GitLab that validates a candidate's ability to use GitLab to implement DevOps workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and collaborative development practices. Trusted by over 50 million users and the Fortune 100, GitLab is the leading AI-powered DevSecOps platform. The GCA certification is earned by passing a two-part assessment: a written knowledge exam and a hands-on lab graded by GitLab Professional Services engineers — confirming real-world proficiency, not just theoretical knowledge.

Request Training Email Inquiry

What is the GitLab Certified Associate (GCA)?

Who Should Take This Course?

DevOps engineers implementing CI/CD pipelines with GitLab
Software developers using GitLab for source code management and collaboration
Platform engineers managing GitLab instances and group/project configurations
DevSecOps engineers integrating security scanning into GitLab pipelines
Release and build engineers automating deployment workflows
Cloud engineers working with GitOps and infrastructure-as-code on GitLab
IT professionals transitioning from GitHub, Jenkins, or other DevOps tools to GitLab

What You Will Learn in the GCA Course

A comprehensive curriculum covering all exam objectives with hands-on labs and real-world practice.

GitLab Fundamentals and Navigation

Understand the GitLab platform, its structure, and how to navigate key areas for development and DevOps work.

GitLab interface overview — projects, groups, namespaces, and settings
Creating and managing projects — visibility, project features, and permissions
GitLab roles and permissions — Owner, Maintainer, Developer, Reporter, Guest
GitLab Flavored Markdown — writing issues, wikis, and MR descriptions
Labels, milestones, epics, and boards for project management

Git and Version Control with GitLab

Apply Git fundamentals and GitLab-specific workflows for source code management and collaboration.

Git basics — clone, commit, push, pull, fetch, and remote management
Branching strategies — feature branches, GitFlow, and trunk-based development
Merge requests — creating, reviewing, resolving conflicts, and merging
Protected branches and merge request approval rules
Cherry-picking, rebasing, and undoing changes (revert, reset)
Tagging and release management in GitLab

GitLab CI/CD Pipelines

Design and implement automated CI/CD pipelines using GitLab's native pipeline engine.

Understanding the .gitlab-ci.yml pipeline configuration file
Pipeline stages, jobs, and the execution order
GitLab Runners — shared, group, and project runners, executor types
Job artifacts — defining, passing between jobs, and expiring artifacts
Pipeline triggers — push, merge request, scheduled, and manual triggers
Environments and deployment jobs — review apps and production deployments
Variables — predefined CI/CD variables, project and group variables

Advanced CI/CD Features

Leverage advanced GitLab CI/CD capabilities for scalable, efficient pipelines.

Caching dependencies to speed up pipeline execution
Include and extend — reusing pipeline configuration with templates
Rules and only/except — conditional job execution
Downstream pipelines — parent-child pipelines and multi-project pipelines
DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) pipelines with 'needs' keyword
GitLab CI/CD components and the CI Catalog

DevSecOps and Collaboration

Integrate security practices and team collaboration workflows into GitLab.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) integration in pipelines
Dependency scanning and container scanning with GitLab
Code review workflows — inline comments, suggestions, and approval rules
GitLab Issues and boards for agile project management
Wikis, snippets, and internal documentation
Webhooks and integrations — Slack, Jira, and external tools

Course Prerequisites

Pre-requisites training is free when you purchase the course from ProSupport

Basic understanding of Git commands and version control concepts
Familiarity with Linux command-line usage
Basic knowledge of CI/CD concepts and DevOps practices
Experience with at least one programming or scripting language is beneficial
No prior GitLab-specific experience required — the course covers GitLab from the ground up

Exam Information

Everything you need to know about the GCA certification exam.

Exam Component	Details
Exam Name	GitLab Certified Associate
Exam Code	GCA
Exam Type	Written Knowledge Exam + Graded Hands-On Lab Assessment
Total Questions	40 (Written) + Hands-On Lab Tasks
Passing Score	70% (Written) + Satisfactory Lab Score
Exam Duration	60 minutes (Written) + 120 minutes (Hands-On Lab)
Language	English
Exam Provider	GitLab Professional Services / GitLab University
Exam Focus	GitLab platform usage, Git workflows, CI/CD pipeline design, DevSecOps practices
Exam Registration	GitLab University (university.gitlab.com) — Self-paced bundle ($650 USD)
Retake Policy	Retake policy determined by GitLab University; one attempt included with bundle
Certification Validity	No formal expiry — reflects GitLab platform knowledge at time of certification