Gitlab CLI Skills

GitLab CLI Skills

Comprehensive GitLab CLI (glab) command reference and workflows.

Quick start

# First time setup
glab auth login

# Common operations
glab mr create --fill              # Create MR from current branch
glab issue create                  # Create issue
glab ci view                       # View pipeline status
glab repo view --web              # Open repo in browser

Skill organization

This skill routes to specialized sub-skills by GitLab domain:

Core Workflows:

• glab-mr - Merge requests: create, review, approve, merge
• glab-issue - Issues: create, list, update, close, comment
• glab-ci - CI/CD: pipelines, jobs, logs, artifacts
• glab-repo - Repositories: clone, create, fork, manage

Project Management:

• glab-milestone - Release planning and milestone tracking
• glab-iteration - Sprint/iteration management
• glab-label - Label management and organization
• glab-release - Software releases and versioning

Authentication & Config:

• glab-auth - Login, logout, Docker registry auth
• glab-config - CLI configuration and defaults
• glab-ssh-key - SSH key management
• glab-gpg-key - GPG keys for commit signing
• glab-token - Personal and project access tokens

CI/CD Management:

• glab-job - Individual job operations
• glab-schedule - Scheduled pipelines and cron jobs
• glab-variable - CI/CD variables and secrets
• glab-securefile - Secure files for pipelines
• glab-runner - Runner management: list, pause, delete (added v1.87.0)
• glab-runner-controller - Runner controller and token management (EXPERIMENTAL, admin-only)

Collaboration:

• glab-user - User profiles and information
• glab-snippet - Code snippets (GitLab gists)
• glab-incident - Incident management
• glab-workitems - Work items: tasks, OKRs, key results, next-gen epics (added v1.87.0)

Advanced:

• glab-api - Direct REST API calls
• glab-cluster - Kubernetes cluster integration
• glab-deploy-key - Deploy keys for automation
• glab-quick-actions - GitLab slash command quick actions for batching state changes
• glab-stack - Stacked/dependent merge requests
• glab-opentofu - Terraform/OpenTofu state management

Utilities:

• glab-alias - Custom command aliases
• glab-completion - Shell autocompletion
• glab-help - Command help and documentation
• glab-version - Version information
• glab-check-update - Update checker
• glab-changelog - Changelog generation
• glab-attestation - Software supply chain security
• glab-duo - GitLab Duo AI assistant
• glab-mcp - Model Context Protocol server for AI assistant integration (EXPERIMENTAL)

v1.89.0 Updates

v1.89.0+: 18 commands across 12 sub-skills now support --output json / -F json for structured output — raw GitLab API responses ideal for agent/automation parsing. Affected sub-skills: glab-release, glab-ci, glab-milestone, glab-schedule, glab-mr, glab-repo, glab-label, glab-deploy-key, glab-ssh-key, glab-gpg-key, glab-cluster, glab-opentofu.

Other v1.89.0 changes:

• glab-auth: glab auth login now prompts for SSH hostname separately from API hostname on self-hosted instances
• glab-stack: glab stack sync --update-base flag added to rebase stack onto updated base branch
• glab-release: --notes / --notes-file are now optional for glab release create and glab release update

When to use glab vs web UI

Use glab when:

• Automating GitLab operations in scripts
• Working in terminal-centric workflows
• Batch operations (multiple MRs/issues)
• Integration with other CLI tools
• CI/CD pipeline workflows
• Faster navigation without browser context switching

Use web UI when:

• Complex diff review with inline comments
• Visual merge conflict resolution
• Configuring repo settings and permissions
• Advanced search/filtering across projects
• Reviewing security scanning results
• Managing group/instance-level settings

Common workflows

Daily development

# Start work on issue
glab issue view 123
git checkout -b 123-feature-name

# Create MR when ready
glab mr create --fill --draft

# Mark ready for review
glab mr update --ready

# Merge after approval
glab mr merge --when-pipeline-succeeds --remove-source-branch

Code review

# List your review queue
glab mr list --reviewer=@me --state=opened

# Review an MR
glab mr checkout 456
glab mr diff
npm test

# Approve
glab mr approve 456
glab mr note 456 -m "LGTM! Nice work on the error handling."

CI/CD debugging

# Check pipeline status
glab ci status

# View failed jobs
glab ci view

# Get job logs
glab ci trace <job-id>

# Retry failed job
glab ci retry <job-id>

Decision Trees

"Should I create an MR or work on an issue first?"

Need to track work?
├─ Yes → Create issue first (glab issue create)
│         Then: glab mr for <issue-id>
└─ No → Direct MR (glab mr create --fill)

Use glab issue create + glab mr for when:

• Work needs discussion/approval before coding
• Tracking feature requests or bugs
• Sprint planning and assignment
• Want issue to auto-close when MR merges

Use glab mr create directly when:

• Quick fixes or typos
• Working from existing issue
• Hotfixes or urgent changes

"Which CI command should I use?"

What do you need?
├─ Overall pipeline status → glab ci status
├─ Visual pipeline view → glab ci view
├─ Specific job logs → glab ci trace <job-id>
├─ Download build artifacts → glab ci artifact <ref> <job-name>
├─ Validate config file → glab ci lint
├─ Trigger new run → glab ci run
└─ List all pipelines → glab ci list

Quick reference:

• Pipeline-level: glab ci status, glab ci view, glab ci run
• Job-level: glab ci trace, glab job retry, glab job view
• Artifacts: glab ci artifact (by pipeline) or job artifacts via glab job

"Clone or fork?"

What's your relationship to the repo?
├─ You have write access → glab repo clone group/project
├─ Contributing to someone else's project:
│   ├─ One-time contribution → glab repo fork + work + MR
│   └─ Ongoing contributions → glab repo fork, then sync regularly
└─ Just reading/exploring → glab repo clone (or view --web)

Fork when:

• You don't have write access to the original repo
• Contributing to open source projects
• Experimenting without affecting the original
• Need your own copy for long-term work

Clone when:

• You're a project member with write access
• Working on organization/team repositories
• No need for a personal copy

"Project vs group labels?"

Where should the label live?
├─ Used across multiple projects → glab label create --group <group>
└─ Specific to one project → glab label create (in project directory)

Group-level labels:

• Consistent labeling across organization
• Examples: priority::high, type::bug, status::blocked
• Managed centrally, inherited by projects

Project-level labels:

• Project-specific workflows
• Examples: needs-ux-review, deploy-to-staging
• Managed by project maintainers

Related Skills

MR and Issue workflows:

• Start with glab-issue to create/track work
• Use glab-mr to create MR that closes issue
• Script: scripts/create-mr-from-issue.sh automates this

CI/CD debugging:

• Use glab-ci for pipeline-level operations
• Use glab-job for individual job operations
• Script: scripts/ci-debug.sh for quick failure diagnosis

Repository operations:

• Use glab-repo for repository management
• Use glab-auth for authentication setup
• Script: scripts/sync-fork.sh for fork synchronization

Configuration:

• Use glab-auth for initial authentication
• Use glab-config to set defaults and preferences
• Use glab-alias for custom shortcuts