The other day at work I needed a way to verify the integrity of a file under source control (GitLab) against a local copy of the same file, which was potentially modified or outdated. I decided to take the opportunity to learn a bit about using the GitLab API. Here’s a breakdown of what I learned: How to create, use and manage access tokens. Access the GitLab API programmatically using JavaScript. How to compare files “by hash” instead of by content. Creating an Access Token Depending on what endpoints of the GitLab API you need to access, a personal access token might be required.