We run a completely self-hosted, air-gapped environment and need a project management workflow that works for both project managers and developers. Our PMs want high-level planning, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and simple status tracking, but they do not want to work directly in GitLab. At the same time, developers do not want to leave GitLab to create or update duplicate tasks in another system.
Our current OpenProject integration is too passive: it mainly records Git activity for traceability rather than supporting an active, day-to-day workflow. Ideally, PMs could create and manage planning items in a dedicated interface, those items would synchronize into GitLab issues for development work, and GitLab-created issues or status changes would automatically appear in the PM system. Branch names, commits, merge requests, and closing keywords should continue working naturally on the GitLab side.
Has anyone implemented a reliable bidirectional GitLab integration in an air-gapped environment? Which self-hosted tools or custom workflows have worked well for both PMs and developers?
3 Answers
If an existing product cannot provide the exact workflow, a custom bridge may be the most realistic option. ProjeQtOr is open source and could serve as the PM layer, with a webhook relay and scheduled reconciliation handling GitLab issue creation, updates, and status changes. Keep the mapping deterministic and define one source of truth for fields like status, ownership, and closing behavior.
Before adding another system, it may be worth checking whether GitLab itself can cover more of the PM workflow. Saved views, issue boards, roadmaps, and customizable work-item statuses provide high-level planning without leaving GitLab. The catch is that this only helps if the PMs are willing to use GitLab, which sounds unlikely here.
That is the main obstacle—we have already considered those features, but the PMs are firmly opposed to using GitLab directly.
Plane is worth evaluating because it is self-hostable and has a GitLab integration. Check the licensing and whether the integration is available under the edition you can run air-gapped. It may provide the separate PM-facing experience you want, but verify how complete the synchronization is before committing.
A small internal service using GitLab webhooks plus scheduled jobs could handle the bidirectional sync without needing an online service. I would favor explicit scripts and conflict rules over an AI-based translator, especially in an air-gapped environment.