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