Merge request reviews

Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Merge requests are the primary method of making changes to files in a GitLab project. Create and submit a merge request to propose changes. Your team leaves comments on your merge request, and makes suggestions you can accept from the user interface. When a teammate reviews your work, they can choose to accept or reject it.

To review merge requests, you can use:

For an overview, see Merge request review.

View the review status of a merge request

To do this:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Merge requests and find your merge request.
  3. Select the title of the merge request to view it.

  4. Scroll to the merge request widget to see the mergeability and approval status for the merge request. For example, the lack of required approvals blocks this merge request:

    The merge request widget displays 'All required approvals must be given'.

To see the individual review status for each reviewer, check the right sidebar of a merge request. Each Reviewer shows the status to the right of the user’s name:

Request a review

History
  • Enhanced reviewer drawer introduced in GitLab 17.5 with a flag named reviewer_assign_drawer.
  • Enabled on GitLab.com and self-managed in GitLab 17.5.

When you’ve finished preparing your changes, it’s time to request a review. To assign a reviewer to your merge request, either use the /assign_reviewer @user quick action in any text field, or:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Merge requests and find your merge request.
  3. Select the title of the merge request to view it.
  4. On the right sidebar, in the Reviewers section:
    • To find a specific reviewer by name, select Edit.
    • In GitLab Premium and Ultimate, to find a reviewer who fulfills approval rules, select Assign to open the reviewer drawer.

GitLab adds the merge request to the user’s review requests.

Find reviewers who fulfill approval rules

Tier: Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

GitLab Premium and Ultimate help you more quickly find the best reviewers for your merge request. Use the Assign reviewers drawer to filter lists of reviewers. See the Code Owners for the files changed in your merge request, and the users who satisfy your project’s approval rules.

In this example, the merge request requires 3 Code Owner approvals, but has none so far:

The Assign Reviewers drawer for a merge request that requires 3 Code Owner approvals, but has none. It shows one line per Code Owner rule, and one line per approval rule. You can select reviewers for each rule.

  1. To see optional approval rules or Code Owners, select Optional approval rules () to show them.
  2. Next to the reviewer type you need, select Edit:
    • Code Owners shows only the Code Owners for that file type.
    • Approval rules shows only users who fulfill that approval rule.
  3. Select your desired reviewers. (GitLab Premium and Ultimate enable you to select multiple reviewers.)
  4. Repeat for each required Code Owner and Approval rule item.
  5. When you’ve selected your reviewers, on the top right, select Close () to hide the drawer.

Re-request a review

After a reviewer completes their merge request reviews, the author of the merge request can request a new review from the reviewer. To do this, either use the /request_review @user quick action in any text field on the merge request, or:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Merge requests and find your merge request.
  3. Select the title of the merge request to view it.
  4. If you have collapsed the right sidebar in the merge request, select the Expand Sidebar to expand it.
  5. In the Reviewers section, select the Re-request a review icon () next to the reviewer’s name.

GitLab creates a new to-do item for the reviewer, and sends them a notification email.

Start a review

If a user has asked you to review a merge request:

  1. Either:
    • Press Shift + r to go to your Review requests page.
    • On the left sidebar, select Merge requests () > Review requests.
  2. Find your merge request, and select the title of the merge request to view it.
  3. Read the merge request description and comments to learn about the merge request.
  4. Select Changes to view the diff of the proposed changes. To learn more about the Changes page, see Changes in merge requests.

  5. Suggest multi-line or single-line changes as needed. If you select Start a review instead of Add comment now, your review comments remain unpublished until your review is complete.

  6. To add more comments after you’ve selected Start a review, add them to your review from:
    • The Changes tab, containing the diff view.
    • The Overview tab, and selecting Add to review:

    New thread

  7. Select Submit your review to publish all review comments added with either Start a review or Add to review. Until you submit your review, these comments remain unpublished.

Resolve or unresolve thread with a comment

Review comments can also resolve or unresolve resolvable threads. To resolve or unresolve a thread when replying to a comment:

  1. In the comment text area, write your comment.
  2. Select or clear Resolve thread.
  3. Select Add comment now or Add to review.

Pending comments display information about delayed actions. GitLab does not perform these actions until you publish the comment:

  • Thread is resolved.
  • Thread stays unresolved.

Submit a review

To submit your completed review, you can:

  • Use the /submit_review quick action in the text of a non-review comment.

  • Select Finish review, then select Submit review at the bottom of the dialog. In the dialog, you can supply a Summary comment, approve (or reject) the merge request, and include quick actions:

    Finish review with comment

When you submit your review, GitLab:

  • Publishes the comments in your review.
  • Sends a single email to every notifiable user of the merge request, with your review comments attached. Replying to this email creates a new comment on the merge request.
  • Perform any quick actions you added to your review comments.
  • Optional. Shows whether you have also approved or requested changes:
    • Comment: Leave general feedback without explicit approval.
    • Approve: Leave feedback and approve the changes.
    • Request changes: Block the merge request from merging until the author addresses your feedback.

Prevent merge when you request changes

Tier: Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated
History

A reviewer requesting changes blocks a merge request from merging. When this happens, the merge request reports area shows the message The change requests must be completed or resolved. To unblock the merge request, the reviewer who requested changes should re-review and approve the merge request.

Bypass a request for changes

If the user who requested changes is unavailable to re-review or approve, another user with permission to merge the merge request can override this check:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Merge requests and find your merge request.
  3. Select the title of the merge request to view it.
  4. On the merge request Overview, scroll to the merge request reports area.

  5. Next to The change requests must be completed or resolved, select Bypass:

    A merge request that is blocked because a user requested changes

  6. The merge reports area shows Merge with caution: Override added. To see which check a user bypassed, select Expand merge checks () and find the check that contains a warning () icon. In this example, the author bypassed The change requests must be completed or resolved:

    This merge request contains a bypassed check, and should be merged with caution.

Download merge request changes

As a diff

To download the changes included in a merge request as a diff:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Merge requests.
  3. Select your merge request.
  4. In the upper-right corner, select Code > Plain diff.

If you know the URL of the merge request, you can also download the diff from the command line by appending .diff to the URL. This example downloads the diff for merge request 000000: 

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/000000.diff

To download and apply the diff in a one-line CLI command: 

curl "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/000000.diff" | git apply

As a patch file

To download the changes included in a merge request as a patch file:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Code > Merge requests.
  3. Select your merge request.
  4. In the upper-right corner, select Code > Patches.

If you know the URL of the merge request, you can also download the patch from the command line by appending .patch to the URL. This example downloads the patch file for merge request 000000: 

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/000000.patch

To download and apply the patch in a one-line CLI command using git am: 

curl "https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/000000.patch" | git am

Associated features

Merge requests are related to these features: