🔁 The GitLab Loophole: Fable 5.1 Free, Reset Every Month

Tutorials & Methods
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(⌐■_■) Every new GitLab group starts a fresh 30-day Ultimate trial with 24 credits, and Claude Fable 5.1 sits in its chat — sign up with an email, pass one SMS, no card, open another group when the month ends

GitLab’s 30-day Ultimate trial hands every account 24 credits for Duo Agentic Chat, and the model list inside that chat includes Claude Fable 5.1, Opus 5, Sonnet 5 and GPT-5.6. The trial belongs to the group you start it on, not to you. So when the 30 days end, a new group starts a new trial. Same account, same login.

   GET      Claude Fable 5.1 (and Opus 5 · Sonnet 5 · GPT-5.6) in a chat, 30 days
   NEED     an email + a phone that receives one SMS. No card. No company.
   REFILL   day 31 → new group → Start free trial → 24 fresh credits

:one: Get the trial

  1. gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new — first name, last name, username, any email, password. The company step after it: your own name as company, 1 employee.
  2. gitlab.com/-/identity_verification — one SMS code to your phone. Once per account, done forever.
  3. GitLab creates your first group and project for you. Open the group → Settings › Billing → the trial is already running, 24 credits.
  4. Your avatar → Preferences › Behavior › Default GitLab Duo namespace → pick that group → Save.
  5. Group → Settings › GitLab Duo › Model selection → Agentic Chat → Claude Fable 5.1 → Save. (Without this it answers with Sonnet 4.6.)
  6. Open GitLab Duo Chat from the top bar and ask.

:two: Get it again

  1. Top bar → Groups › New group → any name.
  2. New group → Settings › Billing › Start free trial → 24 fresh credits, 30 more days.
  3. Point the default namespace and the model at the new group, the same two clicks as before.

Accounts made after 27 January 2026 hold three groups, so three trials sit ready on one login. Older accounts have no group limit.

:three: Stretch the 24 credits

   model            answers per trial
   Fable 5.1        14
   Opus 5           26
   Sonnet 5         76
   Haiku 4.5        160
   GPT-5.6 Luna     192

Ask plainly, one question per message: one message = one credit charge. Long tool-running tasks charge per step. Fable for the hard questions, Sonnet 5 for the rest, switched from the dropdown mid-conversation without losing context. A run that fails costs nothing. Remaining credits: group → Settings › GitLab Duo › Usage (the full calls-per-credit table lists every model).

:four: Use it anywhere

The gitlab.com chat page, the GitLab Workflow extension for VS Code, the GitLab Duo plugin for JetBrains, and the Duo CLI in a terminal, all on any local folder once the default namespace from step 4 is set. Conversations follow you across all of them.

:five: No SMS? Two doors

  • No SMS in your country (Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, UAE, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and a few more): open a GitLab support ticket, they apply a verification exemption to your account. The country list is on the verification page.
  • No phone at all: run GitLab yourself. docker run the official GitLab EE image on your PC, request the self-managed trial at about.gitlab.com/free-trial (You host), the activation code arrives by email, paste it under Admin › Subscription. Same 24 credits, same 30 days, no SMS step.

Three groups on the login, three trials in the drawer. Day 31 is a click, not a goodbye.

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They ask for credit card verification!

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