glab

GitLab Workflow Skill

GitLab workflow management using glab CLI for merge requests, issues, and Git best practices.

Multiple GitLab Instances

glab auto-detects the GitLab host from your git remote. No GITLAB_HOST is needed when working inside a repository. For non-origin remotes (e.g. a local GDK instance added as a secondary remote), use glab config set remote_alias <remote>. Set GITLAB_HOST only when running outside a git repository or for a one-off command targeting a specific instance. See references/multi-host.md for non-origin remote setup and hostname derivation from remote URLs.

⚠️ Message Escaping — Common Trap

If your message contains backticks (`), $, or other shell special characters, NEVER inline them directly in -m "...". The shell interprets backticks as command substitution, silently mangling your message and producing errors like /bin/bash: line 1: client_name: command not found.

This has caused real production failures: agents posting malformed comments to GitLab MRs/issues, followed by apologetic correction notes.

❌ DON'T — inline backticks in double-quoted -m

# BROKEN: shell tries to execute `client_name` as a command
glab mr note 100 -m "Use `client_name` and `wor/` here." -R org/repo
# Error: /bin/bash: line 1: client_name: command not found
# The comment is posted as: "Use  and  here." (identifiers silently stripped)

# Also BROKEN: backslash-escaped backticks break in nested/scripted contexts
glab mr note 100 -m "Use \`client_name\`" -R org/repo
# Works in simple cases but fails when the command is double-quoted by a caller:
# bash -c "glab mr note 100 -m \"Use \`client_name\`\""  → still executes client_name

✅ DO — write to a file first, then pass via $(cat ...)

Pick a path appropriate for your environment (a mktemp result, a scoped workspace tmp file, whatever fits — the skill doesn't prescribe a specific path; agents choose one that's unique to their invocation to avoid clobbering parallel runs):