Create Gitlab Release without Source Code

Question

I would like to use the Gitlab API to check for updates and update company-internal software from a local Gitlab server. Users have a shared global Gitlab account for submitting and updating issues, and changelog notes would be generated from issues which are closed since the last release. Is there a way to remove source code from the release or only allow downloading specific linked assets in a release? Or heck, even a better all-around solution for user-initiated updates on client machines which allows information from Gitlab issues to be integrated?

Answer 1

Three years later, it is not yet fully supported: the closest would be with GitLab 15.6 (November 2022)

Publish releases without giving access to source code

Previously, granting access to releases for public projects also allowed access to the source code.

With this update, you can now publish releases without giving access to the source code.
This is useful for organizations that use releases as a way to give access to new versions of software but do not want the source code to be public.

See Documentation and Issue.

You would see the sources on the release page (see issue 216485 for details):