GitLab/Workflows

= Introduction =

GitLab is a code hosting, review, and continuous integration platform. We're running a community consultation on moving from Gerrit to GitLab for Wikimedia code review.

This aims to be a tutorial describing workflows for using our trial GitLab instance for Wikimedia development. Depending on the result of the consultation, it may evolve into a reference for production use.

Assumptions
This document is written with a number of underlying assumptions, based on feedback from the ongoing consultation and recent experimentation.


 * Many regular contributors to a repository in GitLab will have "Developer"-level permissions to create branches directly on the mainline copy of a project's repository, and merge changes from merge requests.  While not identical, this is roughly equivalent to +2 rights on Gerrit.
 * As on Gerrit, default branches (typically "master", sometimes "main" or "production") will be protected, and review will be required before a merge.
 * Location of branches
 * Users with permission to create branches will create work branches directly on the mainline repositories and submit merge requests for these.
 * Users without permission to create branches will instead fork the repository to their own account and create a work branch there, then submit a merge request for those changes to the mainline repository.
 * Development flow
 * In most situations, branches will accumulate commits sequentially as they receive review, and be squashed to a single commit on merge into the default branch.
 * It's possible to rewrite history and force push to the branch associated with a merge request, so workflows involving rebasing or amending of commits will be supported to some degree.
 * GitLab labels can serve roughly similar functions to Gerrit's notion of topics.

= Making a GitLab Merge Request =

Register an account on gitlab-test
Accounts on the test instance are not currently tied to Wikimedia developer accounts. Visit gitlab-test.wmcloud.org/users/sign_in to register.

Add an SSH key
Visit the SSH settings in your profile and add a public key. See the GitLab documentation for more details on this process.

Create a branch
Use the convention :

Make your changes
Write some code and save your changes.

Stage and commit your changes
Let's say you've edited the  in. You should be able to see this using :

Stage the file and commit:

You should now be able to see this commit in the log:

Fork the repository
If you don't have developer-level permissions on the project you'd like to contribute to, you'll first need to copy the repository to your own account. This is known as "forking". Visit the repository page, for example gitlab-test.wmcloud.org/mediawiki/core, and click "Fork" in the upper righthand corner.

Next, add a remote for your fork:

If you've done this successfully, it should show up in your remotes:

Push your commit to GitLab
If you have commit access, you can push directly to a branch on the origin with.

If you're using a fork, push instead to the remote you added above with.

Create a Merge Request on GitLab
You may notice that GitLab responded to the push with a link to create a new merge request from your branch. You can follow that link directly, or visit the trial GitLab instance, navigate to the branch list for the repository, and click the "Merge request" button in the listing.



Provide an informative title and description for the merge request, and @-mention the users you'd like to see review your code.

In the "Merge options" section:


 * Check "Delete source branch when merge request is accepted" to avoid cluttering the repository with already-merged feature branches.
 * Check "Squash commits when merge request is accepted".
 * Check "Allow commits from members who can merge to the target branch", unless you have a specific reason to prevent others from making changes.

Making new commits
Typically, you'll just make a new commit on your work branch, as usual, and push to the correct remote:

Or:

Force pushing to a branch
If, instead, you wish to rewrite the history of the branch, for example by altering an existing commit or rebasing your work on top of upstream changes, GitLab allows force-pushing to a branch that's associated with a merge request.