How GitLab Pages uses the GitLab API to serve content

This post details the transition of GitLab Pages from a file-based configuration (config.json) to an API-based configuration for domain setup. This change significantly reduces daemon startup time from approximately 25 minutes to a few seconds by querying an internal API endpoint on demand and caching the configuration. It also outlines the ongoing work to remove the NFS dependency by transitioning to object storage, which will enable Kubernetes deployment in the future. For self-managed instances, a workaround is provided to enable API-based configuration, with official documentation to follow.