Ehrax/glab

GitLab CLI (glab)

Manage GitLab projects entirely from the terminal using glab. This skill covers creating merge requests, triaging issues, running pipelines, cutting releases, and making raw API calls — all without leaving your shell.

When to Use

• Creating, reviewing, approving, or merging merge requests
• Creating, listing, updating, or closing issues and incidents
• Running, retrying, canceling, or viewing CI/CD pipelines and jobs
• Creating releases with assets and changelogs
• Cloning, forking, or managing repositories
• Managing CI/CD variables, schedules, and snippets
• Making raw REST or GraphQL API calls to GitLab
• Working with stacked diffs (experimental)
• Managing labels, milestones, deploy keys, SSH/GPG keys
• Authenticating to GitLab instances

Prerequisites

• glab installed (brew install glab, apt install glab, or see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli)
• Authenticated via glab auth login (minimum scopes: api, write_repository)
• Inside a Git repository with a GitLab remote (or use -R OWNER/REPO to target another project)

Command Structure

glab <command> <subcommand> [flags]

All commands support -h/--help and -R/--repo OWNER/REPO (to target a different project).

Reference Guides

| Topic | File | Load when... | |-------|------|-------------| | Merge requests | references/merge-requests.md | Creating, reviewing, approving, merging, or listing MRs | | Issues | references/issues.md | Creating, listing, updating, closing, or triaging issues/incidents | | CI/CD pipelines & jobs | references/ci-cd.md | Running, viewing, retrying, canceling pipelines or jobs; linting CI config | | Releases | references/releases.md | Creating releases, uploading assets, managing changelogs | | Repo, auth & config | references/repo-and-config.md | Cloning, forking, creating repos; authenticating; configuring glab | | API, variables & advanced | references/api-and-advanced.md | Making raw API calls; managing variables, snippets, schedules, stacks, labels, milestones, aliases | | Writing issues & MRs | references/writing-issues-and-mrs.md | REQUIRED before creating or updating any issue or MR title/description |

Core Workflows

Create a Merge Request

REQUIRED: Read references/writing-issues-and-mrs.md for full guidelines before writing titles/descriptions.

Title format: <type>[scope]: <imperative description> (closes #N) Types: feat, fix, docs, refactor, test, chore, perf, ci Max 72 chars. Imperative mood ("Add", not "Added").

# Interactive — prompts for title, description, target branch
glab mr create

# Non-interactive with conventional title, reviewers, and labels
glab mr create -t "feat(auth): add OAuth2 login (closes #123)" --yes -a assignee --reviewer reviewer1 --label "ready for review" -b main

# Draft MR for early feedback
glab mr create -f --draft

Review and Merge

glab mr list --reviewer=@me          # MRs awaiting your review
glab mr diff 42                       # View changes
glab mr approve 42                    # Approve
glab mr merge 42                      # Merge (prompts for method)

Create an Issue

REQUIRED: Read references/writing-issues-and-mrs.md for full guidelines before writing titles/descriptions.

Title format: [Type]: <specific problem/action> <context> Types: [Bug], [Feature], [Docs], [Task] 50-70 chars. Sentence case. Include location + symptom.

glab issue create -t "[Bug]: Login fails on iOS Safari 17 after timeout" -l bug,P1 -m v2.0
glab issue list --label bug --assignee=@me
glab issue close 99

Run and Monitor CI/CD

glab ci run -b main                   # Trigger pipeline on branch
glab ci status                        # Current pipeline status
glab ci view                          # Interactive pipeline viewer
glab ci retry lint                    # Retry a specific job by name
glab ci lint                          # Validate .gitlab-ci.yml

Create a Release

glab release create v1.2.0 ./dist/*.tar.gz \
  --notes "Bugfix release" \
  --milestone v1.2.0

Raw API Calls

# REST
glab api projects/:fullpath/members

# GraphQL
glab api graphql -f query='{ currentUser { username } }'

# With pagination
glab api issues --paginate --output ndjson

Manage Variables

glab variable list
glab variable set MY_SECRET "s3cret"
glab variable get MY_SECRET
glab variable delete MY_SECRET

All Top-Level Commands

| Command | Purpose | |---------|---------| | glab alias | Create command shortcuts | | glab api | Make authenticated REST/GraphQL API calls | | glab attestation | Manage attestations | | glab auth | Authenticate to GitLab instances | | glab changelog | Generate changelogs | | glab check-update | Check for glab updates | | glab ci | Manage CI/CD pipelines and jobs | | glab cluster | Manage cluster agents | | glab completion | Generate shell completions (bash/zsh/fish/PowerShell) | | glab config | Set and get glab configuration | | glab deploy-key | Manage deploy keys | | glab duo | Interact with GitLab Duo AI | | glab gpg-key | Manage GPG keys | | glab incident | Manage incidents | | glab issue | Manage issues | | glab iteration | Manage iterations | | glab job | Manage CI/CD jobs | | glab label | Manage labels | | glab mcp | Model Context Protocol server | | glab milestone | Manage milestones | | glab mr | Manage merge requests | | glab opentofu | OpenTofu integration | | glab release | Manage releases | | glab repo | Manage repositories | | glab schedule | Manage pipeline schedules | | glab securefile | Manage secure files | | glab snippet | Manage snippets | | glab ssh-key | Manage SSH keys | | glab stack | Stacked diffs (experimental) | | glab token | Manage personal access tokens | | glab user | Interact with user accounts | | glab variable | Manage CI/CD variables | | glab version | Show glab version |

Global Flags

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | -h, --help | Show help for any command | | -R, --repo OWNER/REPO | Target a different repository (also accepts GROUP/NAMESPACE/REPO or full URL) | | -v, --version | Show glab version |

Tips

• Title conventions: Always use conventional commit prefixes for MR titles (feat:, fix:, docs:, etc.) and descriptive problem-statement titles for issues. See references/writing-issues-and-mrs.md.
• Auto-detection: glab reads your Git remotes to determine the GitLab project. No need to specify --repo when inside the project directory.
• Multiple instances: Use glab auth login for each GitLab host. glab picks the right credentials based on your remote URL.
• Output formats: Many list commands accept -F json for machine-readable output.
• Aliases: Create shortcuts with glab alias set mrc 'mr create --fill --yes' then use glab mrc.
• Editor: Set EDITOR or VISUAL env vars to control which editor opens for descriptions.
• Recover: Use --recover on mr create and issue create to save progress if creation fails.