info: "To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments"
| Check whether the commit author is a GitLab user | Restrict commits to existing GitLab users (checked against their emails). <sup>1</sup> |
| Reject unverified users | GitLab rejects any commit that was not committed by the same user as the user who pushed it, or where the committer's email address is not [confirmed](../security/user_email_confirmation.md). |
| Check whether commit is signed through GPG | Reject commit when it is not signed through GPG. Read [signing commits with GPG](../user/project/repository/gpg_signed_commits/index.md). |
| Prevent pushing secret files | GitLab rejects any files that are likely to contain secrets. See the [forbidden file names](#prevent-pushing-secrets-to-the-repository). |
| Require expression in commit messages | Only commit messages that match this regular expression are allowed to be pushed. <sup>2</sup> Leave empty to allow any commit message. Uses multiline mode, which can be disabled using `(?-m)`. |
| Reject expression in commit messages | Only commit messages that do not match this regular expression are allowed to be pushed. <sup>2</sup> Leave empty to allow any commit message. Uses multiline mode, which can be disabled using `(?-m)`. |
| Restrict by branch name | Only branch names that match this regular expression are allowed to be pushed. <sup>2</sup> Leave empty to allow all branch names. |
| Restrict by commit author's email | Only commit author's email that match this regular expression are allowed to be pushed. <sup>1</sup><sup>2</sup> Leave empty to allow any email. |
| Prohibited file names | Any committed filenames that match this regular expression and do not already exist in the repository are not allowed to be pushed. <sup>2</sup> Leave empty to allow any filenames. See [common examples](#prohibited-file-names). |
| Maximum file size | Pushes that contain added or updated files that exceed this file size (in MB) are rejected. Set to 0 to allow files of any size. Files tracked by Git LFS are exempted. |
1. GitLab uses [RE2 syntax](https://github.com/google/re2/wiki/Syntax) for regular expressions in push rules, and you can test them at the [regex101 regex tester](https://regex101.com/).
Each filename contained in a Git push is compared to the regular expression in this field. Filenames in Git consist of both the file's name and any directory that may precede it. A singular regular expression can contain multiple independent matches used as exclusions. File names can be broadly matched to any location in the repository, or restricted to specific locations. Filenames can also be partial matches used to exclude file types by extension.
The following examples make use of regex string boundary characters which match the beginning of a string (`^`), and the end (`$`). They also include instances where either the directory path or the filename can include `.` or `/`. Both of these special regex characters have to be escaped with a backslash `\\` to be used as normal characters in a match condition.
Example: prevent pushing any `.exe` files to any location in the repository. This is an example of a partial match, which can match any filename that contains `.exe` at the end:
```plaintext
\.exe$
```
Example: prevent a specific configuration file in the repository root from being pushed:
```plaintext
^config\.yml$
```
Example: prevent a specific configuration file in a known directory from being pushed:
