Open Mr

Open MR (GitLab)

Push the current branch. Create a GitLab merge request if this branch has none. Update title and body if it already has one. Work GitLab. The ticket lives in Jira. The title must carry that key.

This skill does not commit. If the work is uncommitted, stop and tell the user to use commit-work first.

Prerequisites

• glab CLI must be installed and authenticated. Verify with glab auth status.
• If glab is missing: "glab CLI is required. Install it from https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli#installation."
• Ticket number from the branch name or the conversation. If neither has one, stop and ask.

Title

TICKET-123: Short description

Examples:

• PROJ-214: Retry payment webhooks
• PROJ-214: Fix target branch detection

Do not use conventional-commit types in the title. The Jira key is the prefix. Derive the description from the net diff, not from the first commit on the branch.

Body

## Summary
[Why this ticket needed code, and what is now true. Two or three sentences.
Do not write "this MR implements the ticket."]

## What changed
- [User-visible behaviour, API or data contract, or risk]
- [Same bar. Not a file name.]

Omit What changed when every bullet would only name a file. Then Summary is enough.

Forbidden:

• File-list bullets (Updated Foo.ts, Added tests)
• A Testing checklist. CI is the automated record. One concrete QA line under Summary is allowed only when you will actually do that step ("Refund a captured payment in staging.")
• A References or Jira link section. The key is already in the title
• Local disk paths

Write the body to a temp file. Pass it as the description. Do not interpolate markdown through a quoted --description.

Steps

1. Check branch state

git branch --show-current
git remote show origin | grep "HEAD branch"
git status --porcelain

• Default branch: stop. "Cannot open an MR from the default branch. Switch to a feature branch first."
• git status --porcelain has output: stop. "Uncommitted changes detected. Commit or stash them before opening an MR."

2. Push

git push -u origin <branch-name>

If push fails, stop and show the exact error. Do not pass --push to glab mr create after this.

3. Find an existing MR

glab mr list --source-branch <branch-name> -F json

If the array is non-empty, note the iid and URL. Do not create a second MR.

4. Derive title and body

git log origin/<default-branch>..HEAD --oneline
git diff origin/<default-branch>..HEAD
git diff origin/<default-branch>..HEAD --stat

Read the full diff. Regenerate title and body from scratch every time, including updates.

5. Create or update

No MR:

glab mr create \
  --title "<title>" \
  --description-file <temp-body> \
  --yes

Open ready, not draft.

MR exists:

glab mr update <iid> \
  --title "<title>" \
  --description-file <temp-body> \
  --yes

If glab rejects --description-file on update, pass the file contents with --description. Do not hand-quote a multiline body on the command line.

6. Report

Print the URL. Say whether this created an MR or updated one.

Failure Conditions