Global fast-forward merge settings?

Is it possible to enable fast-forward merges – by default, instance-wide; to be applied to any newly created projects?

We would like Gitlab projects to have Merge Request settings which default to enable the fast-forward-only. I can only find a per-project setting, but I cannot find any Gitlab administrator settings to configure this globally.

If defining instance-wide Merge Requests settings is not exposed / possible – could this be achieved by defining a Project template? And if so- to define that template as the instance-wide default project template?

This feature request for globally configuring the merge method is tracked via https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/26540. I recommend following it and adding your vote/comment.

Yes, projects created from custom templates will copy over their merge request settings.