gitlab.nvim

This Neovim plugin is designed to make it easy to review Gitlab MRs from within the editor. This means you can do things like:

• Create, edit, delete, and reply to comments on an MR
• Read and Edit an MR description
• Approve/Revoke Approval for an MR

demo.mp4

Requirements

• Go
• make (for install)
• nui.nvim
• plenary.nvim

Installation

With Lazy:

return {
  "harrisoncramer/gitlab.nvim",
  dependencies = {
    "MunifTanjim/nui.nvim",
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim"
  },
  build = function () require("gitlab").build() end, -- Builds the Go binary
  config = function()
    require("gitlab").setup()
  end,
}

And with Packer:

use {
  'harrisoncramer/gitlab.nvim',
  requires = {
    "MunifTanjim/nui.nvim",
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim"
  },
  run = function() require("gitlab").build() end,
  config = function()
    require("gitlab").setup()
  end,
}

Configuration

This plugin requires a .gitlab.nvim file in the root of the local Gitlab directory. Provide this file with values required to connect to your gitlab instance (gitlab_url is optional, use only for self-hosted instances):

project_id=112415
auth_token=your_gitlab_token
gitlab_url=https://my-personal-gitlab-instance.com/

If you don't want to write your authentication token into a dotfile, you may provide it as a shell variable. For instance in your .bashrc or .zshrc file:

export AUTH_TOKEN="your_gitlab_token"

By default, the plugin will interact with MRs against a "main" branch. You can configure this by passing in the base_branch option to the .gitlab.nvim configuration file for your project.

project_id=112415
auth_token=your_gitlab_token
gitlab_url=https://my-personal-gitlab-instance.com/
base_branch=master

Configuring the Plugin

Here is the default setup function. All of these values are optional, and if you call this function with no values the defaults will be used:

require("gitlab").setup({
  port = 20136, -- The port of the Go server, which runs in the background
  log_path = vim.fn.stdpath("cache") .. "gitlab.nvim.log", -- Log path for the Go server
  keymaps = {
    popup = { -- The popup for comment creation, editing, and replying
      exit = "<Esc>",
      perform_action = "<leader>s", -- Once in normal mode, does action (like saving comment or editing description, etc)
    },
    discussion_tree = { -- The discussion tree that holds all comments
      jump_to_location = "o",
      edit_comment = "e",
      delete_comment = "dd",
      reply_to_comment = "r",
      toggle_node = "t",
      position = "left", -- "top", "right", "bottom" or "left"
      size = "20%", -- Size of split
      relative = "editor" -- Position relative to "editor" or "window"
    },
    dialogue = { -- The confirmation dialogue for deleting comments
      focus_next = { "j", "<Down>", "<Tab>" },
      focus_prev = { "k", "<Up>", "<S-Tab>" },
      close = { "<Esc>", "<C-c>" },
      submit = { "<CR>", "<Space>" },
    }
  }
})

Usage

First, check out the branch that you want to review locally.

git checkout feature-branch

Then open Neovim and the reviewer will be initialized. The project_id you specify in your configuration file must match the project_id of the Gitlab project your terminal is inside of.

The summary command will pull down the MR description into a buffer so that you can read it. To edit the description, edit the buffer and press the perform_action keybinding when in normal mode (it's <leader>s by default):

require("gitlab").summary()

The approve command will approve the merge request for the current branch:

require("gitlab").approve()

The revoke command will revoke approval for the merge request for the current branch:

require("gitlab").revoke()

The comment command will open up a NUI popover that will allow you to create a Gitlab comment on the current line. To send the comment, use <leader>s while the comment popup is open:

require("gitlab").comment()

Discussions

Gitlab groups threads of notes together into "disucssions." To get a list of all the discussions for the current MR, use the list_discussions command. This command will open up a split view of all the comments on the current merge request. You can jump to the comment location by using the o key in the tree buffer, and you can reply to a thread by using the r keybinding in the tree buffer:

require("gitlab").list_discussions()

Within the discussion tree, there are several functions that you can call, however, it's better to use the keybindings provided in the setup function. If you want to call them manually, they are:

require("gitlab").delete_comment()
require("gitlab").edit_comment()
require("gitlab").reply()

Keybindings

The plugin does not set up any keybindings outside of these buffers, you need to set them up yourself. Here's what I'm using:

local gitlab = require("gitlab")
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>gls", gitlab.summary)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>glA", gitlab.approve)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>glR", gitlab.revoke)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>glc", gitlab.create_comment)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>gld", gitlab.list_discussions)

Troubleshooting

This plugin uses a Golang server to reach out to Gitlab. The Golang server runs outside of Neovim, and can be interacted with directly in order to troubleshoot. The server will start up when you open Neovim with a MR branch. You can curl it directly:

curl --header "PRIVATE-TOKEN: ${GITLAB_TOKEN}" localhost:21036/info

This is the API call that is happening from within Neovim when you run the summary command.

This Go server, in turn, writes logs to the log path that is configured in your setup function. These are written by default to ~/.cache/nvim/gitlab.nvim.log and will be written each time the server reaeches out to Gitlab.

If the Golang server is not starting up correctly, please check your .gitlab.nvim file and your setup function. You can, however, try running the Golang server independently of Neovim. For instance, to start it up for a certain project, navigate to your plugin directory, and build the binary (these are instructions for Lazy) and move that binary to your project. You can then try running the binary directly, or even with a debugger like Delve:

$ cd ~/.local/share/nvim/lazy/gitlab.nvim
$ cd cmd
$ go build -gcflags=all="-N -l" -o bin && cp ./bin ~/path-to-your-project
$ cd ~/path-to-your-project
$ dlv exec ./bin -- 41057709 https://www.gitlab.com 21036 your-gitlab-token