Uploading artifacts: too large archive CI/CD Origin: Build & delivery Last updated 25 Oct 2026

GitLab CI: ERROR: Uploading artifacts as "archive" to coordinator... too large archive id=123 responseStatus=413 Request Entity Too Large

The job produced an artifact bigger than the instance or project's maximum artifact size.

Exact message you may see Uploading artifacts as "archive" to coordinator... too large archiveresponseStatus=413 Request Entity Too Large artifactstoo large archiveERROR: Uploading artifacts to coordinator... too large
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Seen on: GitLab CI

Meaning

GitLab.com limits artifact size per job; self-managed admins configure Maximum artifacts size. Reduce what you upload (only needed paths), compress build output, use expire_in, or publish large files to a package/object registry instead.

Common causes

  • artifacts:paths includes node_modules, .git or build caches
  • Large binaries, videos or datasets as artifacts
  • Instance limit set low by the administrator
  • Reverse proxy limit (413) in front of a self-managed instance

⚡ Quick fix

  1. Limit artifacts:paths to deliverables only
  2. Use cache: for dependencies, not artifacts
  3. Ask the admin to raise the limit, or push big files to a registry

Detailed fix by platform

GitLab CI

  1. Check size locally: du -sh dist/ node_modules/
  2. Use artifacts:expire_in: 1 week to save storage

Code examples

Narrow artifacts

yaml
build:
  script: npm run build
  artifacts:
    paths: [dist/]
    exclude: [dist/**/*.map]
    expire_in: 1 week

How to diagnose

  1. Size — How big is the artifact?
  2. Paths — What is included?
  3. Limit — Instance or proxy limit?

🔧 Still not fixed?

Many errors look alike. If the steps above didn’t solve it, one of these is probably what you’re facing:

Where this error sits

Origin: Build & delivery. Errors that are often confused with or caused by this one (click to open):

.gitlab-ci.yml invalid — GitLab CI: Found errors in your .gitlab-ci.yml: jobs:build config contains unknown keys: scripts (CI/CD).gitlab-ci.yml invalidCache not found / Unable to reserve cache — GitHub Actions: Cache not found for input keys: npm-Linux-abc123 / Failed to save: Unable to reserve cache with key, another job may be creating this cache (CI/CD)Cache not found / Una…Cannot connect to the Docker daemon (GitLab) — GitLab CI: Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at tcp://docker:2375. Is the docker daemon running? (CI/CD)Cannot connect to the…deprecated version of actions/upload-artifact — GitHub Actions: Error: This request has been automatically failed because it uses a deprecated version of `actions/upload-artifact: v3` (CI/CD)deprecated version of…ERROR: Job failed: exit code 1 — GitLab CI: ERROR: Job failed: exit code 1 (CI/CD)ERROR: Job failed: ex…execution took longer than 1h0m0s — GitLab CI: ERROR: Job failed: execution took longer than 1h0m0s seconds (CI/CD)execution took longer…failed to pull image (GitLab) — GitLab CI: ERROR: Job failed: failed to pull image "registry.example.com/app:latest" with specified policies [always]: access forbidden (CI/CD)failed to pull image …Job depends on artifacts that have expired — GitLab CI: This job could not start because it could not retrieve the needed artifacts (dependencies: build). (CI/CD)Job depends on artifa…Uploading…

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