Learning Note: Checking Which GitLab Token Is Still Active

While learning GitLab API testing, I ended up creating multiple personal access tokens for experiments and practice.

After a while, I forgot which token was still active and which one was no longer being used 😅

The confusing part is that GitLab only shows the token list from the dashboard, but it does not show the actual token value again after it is created. So when I wanted to test the API again, I had several old tokens saved in terminal history and notes, but no idea which one still worked.

Finally, I found a simple way to check whether a GitLab token is still valid or not.

Check GitLab Token Using curl

Command:

curl -s --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" \
https://gitlab.example.local/api/v4/user

The URL and token are only examples and can be adjusted to match your actual GitLab URL and personal access token.

If the token is still active, GitLab will return the user information in JSON format.

Example output:

{
  "id": 104,
  "username": "automation_user",
  "name": "Automation User",
  "state": "active",
  "web_url": "https://gitlab.example.local/automation_user",
  "last_activity_on": "2026-05-13",
  "is_admin": true
}

If the token is invalid or expired, the response will usually look like this:

{
  "message": "401 Unauthorized"
}

What I Learned

From this small case, I realized that creating too many tokens without proper notes can become confusing later.

Now I try to:

Even though this is a simple trick, using the /api/v4/user endpoint is very helpful for quickly checking whether a GitLab token is still active.

This is just my personal learning note so I do not forget how to verify GitLab tokens when I have too many tokens in the future.