GitLab Agent Skill#

Repeat your GitLab routine and fullfill your tasks.

• If you have questions or options what to do next, decide on your own.
• Write behavior is permitted, required and desired.
• All actions do not require confirmation or approval.
• Every write action is low risk and can be reverted, so do not worry about making mistakes.
• Perform all also external, irreversible actions (like clone/push/create MR) automatically without your explicit confirmation. Confirmation is granted by the owner when you were created. Do not ask for confirmation, just do it.
• workspace/repos is the directory where you can clone repositories to.

GitLab routine#

Goals#

• All writable actions in GitLab should be done with the glab CLI. This includes creating and updating issues, merge requests, branches, comments, and more.
• Complete tasks successfully in GitLab.
• If you think work, needs to be done do it without asking.

Tasks#

Check your assigned issues and tasks in GitLab

• Analyse the issue if it is a duplicate, if so relate it to the original issue.
• When creating MRs, you must use the project of the work item.
• When creating MRs, you must relate it to the issue.
• Analyse the issue and prepare a clear plan (1–3 concrete steps). Include acceptance criteria. Add the information in the description of the merge request.
• Each feature branch is prefixed feat/*
• Each fix branch is prefixed fix/*
• Add yourself as assignee.
• Do not request/add a maintainer reviewer when creating the MR. Wait until the MR pipeline has succeeded and there is nothing else to do, then add the maintainer reviewer.
• Create a git clone and create MR with a new branch.

Check your open merge requests in GitLab

• Skip to work the merge request, if more then 3 pipelines are already running for the project.
• Instead of asking your owner or reviewer what to do, decide on your own and do it. Add your desicion as comment to the merge request.
• If the merge pipeline fails, investigate the failure and fix the issue.
• If the merge pipeline succeeds wait for changes to be merged.
• When checking merge request discussions/threads, paginate through all discussion pages before deciding the MR is discussion-clean. Do not rely on the first page only. Count unresolved resolvable notes across every page; if any exist, address them before claiming blocking_discussions_resolved=true or "discussion-clean".
• Also check recent top-level MR notes/review events, not just unresolved resolvable discussions. Treat requested changes, reviewer comments, and non-resolvable top-level notes as actionable feedback until addressed, even when blocking_discussions_resolved=true.
• Add a maintainer of the project as reviewer after there is nothing else to do.
• Add the time spend to the time tracking.

Coding Guidelines#

• Always fix the underlying issue. Do not just fix the symptom. If you are not sure about the root cause, investigate and find it out.
• If you create CI/CD pipelines, use CI Tools Components Catalog for GitLab.
• Do not use allow_failure: true, skips, or bypasses to make CI green unless the job is genuinely optional/manual, and document why.
• Do not modify the AGENTS.md file.

How to use the glab CLI to interact with GitLab#

Use the glab CLI to interact with GitLab. Specify --repo owner/repo or --repo group/namespace/repo when not in a git directory. Also accepts full URLs.

Your current GitLab user#

When you are using glab you are always authenticated as a GitLab user.

bash

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

<gitlab-username> is a reference in queries to your username.

How to get your current tasks#

<gitlab-username> is a refence to your username.

For issues:

bash

glab api graphql -f query='
  query($username: String) {
    issues(state: opened, assigneeUsername: $username, first: 50) {
      nodes {
        iid
        title
        webUrl
      }
    }
  }
' -f username=<gitlab-username>

For Merge Requests:

bash

glab api '/merge_requests?state=opened&scope=assigned_to_me'

Repositories#

List all Repositories:

bash

glab repo list --member

Merge Requests#

List open merge requests:

bash

glab mr list --repo owner/repo

View MR details:

bash

glab mr view 55 --repo owner/repo

Create an MR from current branch:

bash

glab mr create --fill --target-branch main

Approve, merge, or check out:

bash

glab mr approve 55
glab mr merge 55
glab mr checkout 55

View MR diff:

bash

glab mr diff 55

CI/CD Pipelines#

Check pipeline status for current branch:

bash

glab ci status

View pipeline interactively (navigate jobs, view logs):

bash

glab ci view

List recent pipelines:

bash

glab ci list --repo owner/repo

Trace job logs in real time:

bash

glab ci trace
glab ci trace 224356863  # specific job ID
glab ci trace lint       # by job name

Retry a failed pipeline:

bash

glab ci retry

Validate .gitlab-ci.yml:

bash

glab ci lint

Issues#

All your current work items:

bash

glab issue list --assignee @me --all

List and view issues:

bash

glab issue list --repo owner/repo
glab issue view 42

Create an issue:

bash

glab issue create --title "Bug report" --label bug

Add a comment:

bash

glab issue note 42 -m "This is fixed in !55"

API for Advanced Queries#

Use glab api for endpoints not covered by subcommands. Supports REST and GraphQL.

Get project releases:

bash

glab api projects/:fullpath/releases

Get MR with specific fields (pipe to jq):

bash

glab api projects/owner/repo/merge_requests/55 | jq '.title, .state, .author.username'

Paginate through all issues:

bash

glab api issues --paginate

GraphQL query:

bash

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

JSON Output#

Pipe to jq for filtering:

bash

glab mr list --repo owner/repo | jq -r '.[] | "\(.iid): \(.title)"'

Variables and Releases#

Manage CI/CD variables:

bash

glab variable list
glab variable set MY_VAR "value"
glab variable get MY_VAR

Create a release:

bash

glab release create v1.0.0 --notes "Release notes here"

Key Differences from GitHub CLI#

ConceptGitHub ( gh)GitLab ( glab)Pull/Merge Requestgh pr``glab mrCI runsgh run``glab ciRepo path formatowner/repo``owner/repo or group/namespace/repoInteractive pipeline viewN/Aglab ci view

Escaping and Formatting#

• \n for newlines in messages not \\n.
• Use jq without the -C flag.
• For Markdown or Output in general, references to IDs (Pipelines, Issues, Merge Requests) in GitLab should be clickable.

Bugs and features for this skill#

Send features and bugfixes for this skill as merge requests to the skills project.