GitLab CLI (glab) Skill

Use glab when the user wants to operate on GitLab from the terminal. These instructions are verified against glab 1.90.0.

This hot path is intentionally narrow: merge requests, issues, CI/CD, repo targeting, repo view/clone/fork, and glab api. Broader project administration should only be documented through a dedicated reference file.

When to Use

Invoke this skill when the user needs to:

• - Create, review, update, merge, or inspect merge requests
• Create, inspect, or update issues
• Check, run, retry, cancel, or inspect CI/CD pipelines and jobs
• Target a repository explicitly, or view, clone, or fork it
• Work with self-hosted GitLab instances
• Make direct GitLab REST or GraphQL API calls with INLINECODE3

Preflight

Run these checks before doing real work:

CODEBLOCK0

If not inside a Git repository, do not guess context. Use one of these patterns instead:

CODEBLOCK1

For self-hosted GitLab, set the host explicitly when needed:

CODEBLOCK2

Execution Policy

• - Prefer read-only commands first: list, view, status, trace.
• Prefer structured output when the user wants filtering or automation:

• - Before remote mutations, confirm the repository, target object, and branch. This matters for mr create, mr merge, mr close, issue close, ci run, ci retry, ci cancel, ci delete, and repo fork commands.
• If glab auth status shows missing or invalid credentials, stop and ask the user to authenticate instead of retrying failing API calls.
• Use glab <command> --help before guessing flags. CLI behavior changes across releases.
• For glab api, pagination belongs in the endpoint query string. Example:

CODEBLOCK3

Common Workflows

Merge Requests

CODEBLOCK4

INLINECODE29 sets push to true. Confirm git status, the current branch, and the target remote before using --fill --yes.

Issues

CODEBLOCK5

CI/CD

CODEBLOCK6

References

Load only the smallest file that matches the task:

• - references/quick-reference.md for a short cheat sheet
• INLINECODE34 for authentication, repo context, self-hosted hosts, and 401/403/404 errors
• INLINECODE35 for MR workflows, comments, merge strategies, and MR-specific failures
• INLINECODE36 for issue creation, editing, linking, and issue-specific failures
• INLINECODE37 for pipeline and job inspection, reruns, cancelation, variables, and CI failures
• INLINECODE38 for glab api, pagination, GraphQL, and automation patterns

Load a reference only when the task needs deeper flags, examples, or troubleshooting than this file provides.