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glab

Manage GitLab projects from the command line: create, review, merge MRs; manage issues; monitor and trigger CI/CD; support self-hosted instances and automation.

personAuthor: bezkomhubclawhub
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GitLab CLI (glab)

Official CLI for GitLab. Manage issues, merge requests, pipelines, and more from the terminal.

Source: Inspired by NikiforovAll/glab-skill on Smithery.

⚠️ Security Notice

The glab api command provides unrestricted GitLab API access with your token.

  • A compromised or overly-permissive token can delete projects, modify settings, expose secrets
  • Recommendation: Use tokens with minimal scopes:
    • read_api - Read-only operations
    • api - Full access (only when write operations needed)
  • For automation, consider project-level tokens with limited scope
  • Never use tokens with sudo scope unless required

Prerequisites

Required binaries:

  • glab - GitLab CLI
  • jq - JSON processor (for scripts and API parsing)

Required credentials:

  • GITLAB_TOKEN - GitLab personal access token

Optional configuration:

  • GITLAB_HOST - Self-hosted GitLab instance (default: gitlab.com)
# Verify installation
glab --version
jq --version

# Authenticate (interactive)
glab auth login

# Or via environment
export GITLAB_TOKEN="glpat-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
export GITLAB_HOST="gitlab.example.org"  # for self-hosted

# Verify auth
glab auth status

Quick Reference

Merge Requests:

glab mr create --title "Fix" --description "Closes #123"
glab mr list --reviewer=@me          # MRs awaiting your review
glab mr checkout 123                  # Test MR locally
glab mr approve 123 && glab mr merge 123

Issues:

glab issue create --title "Bug" --label=bug
glab issue list --assignee=@me
glab issue close 456

CI/CD:

glab ci status                        # Current pipeline status
glab pipeline ci view                 # Watch pipeline live
glab ci lint                          # Validate .gitlab-ci.yml
glab ci retry                         # Retry failed pipeline

Working Outside Repo:

glab mr list -R owner/repo            # Specify repository

Advanced API Access:

See references/api-advanced.md for glab api usage. This command enables arbitrary GitLab API calls and should be used with appropriately-scoped tokens.

Core Workflows

Create and Merge MR

# 1. Push branch
git push -u origin feature-branch

# 2. Create MR
glab mr create --title "Add feature" --description "Implements X" --reviewer=alice,bob --label="enhancement"

# 3. After approval, merge
glab mr approve 123
glab mr merge 123 --remove-source-branch

Review MR

# List MRs for review
glab mr list --reviewer=@me

# Checkout and test
glab mr checkout 123

# Approve or comment
glab mr approve 123
glab mr note 123 -m "Looks good, just one suggestion..."

Monitor Pipeline

# Watch current branch pipeline
glab pipeline ci view

# Check specific pipeline
glab ci view 456

# View failed job logs
glab ci trace

# Retry
glab ci retry

Self-Hosted GitLab

# Set default host
export GITLAB_HOST=gitlab.example.org

# Or per-command
glab mr list -R gitlab.example.org/owner/repo

Scripts

| Script | Description | |--------|-------------| | glab-mr-await.sh | Wait for MR approval and successful pipeline | | glab-pipeline-watch.sh | Monitor pipeline with exit codes for CI |

# Wait for MR to be approved and merged
./scripts/glab-mr-await.sh 123 --timeout 600

# Watch pipeline, exit 0 on success, 1 on failure
./scripts/glab-pipeline-watch.sh --timeout 300

Script environment variables:

  • TIMEOUT - Max wait time in seconds (default varies by script)
  • INTERVAL - Polling interval in seconds (default 5-10s)

Troubleshooting

| Error | Fix | |-------|-----| | command not found: glab | Install glab | | command not found: jq | Install jq | | 401 Unauthorized | Set GITLAB_TOKEN or run glab auth login | | 404 Project Not Found | Verify repo name and permissions | | not a git repository | Use -R owner/repo flag | | source branch already has MR | glab mr list to find existing |

For detailed troubleshooting, see references/troubleshooting.md.

Progressive Disclosure

  • references/api-advanced.md - glab api usage with security considerations
  • references/commands-detailed.md - Full command reference with all flags
  • references/troubleshooting.md - Detailed error scenarios and solutions

Load these when you need specific flag details or are debugging issues.

Best Practices

  1. Always verify auth: glab auth status
  2. Use minimal-scope tokens for read operations
  3. Link MRs to issues: "Closes #123" in description
  4. Lint CI config before pushing: glab ci lint
  5. Use --output=json for scripting
  6. Most commands have --web to open in browser