GitLab CLI - glab

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

glab is an open source GitLab CLI tool. It brings GitLab to your terminal: next to where you are already working with Git and your code, without switching between windows and browser tabs.

• Work with issues.
• Work with merge requests.
• Watch running pipelines directly from your CLI.

The GitLab CLI uses commands structured like glab <command> <subcommand> [flags] to perform many of the actions you usually do from the GitLab user interface:

# Sign in
glab auth login --stdin < token.txt

# View a list of issues
glab issue list

# Create merge request for issue 123
glab mr create 123

# Check out the branch for merge request 243
glab mr checkout 243

# Watch the pipeline in progress
glab pipeline ci view

# View, approve, and merge the merge request
glab mr view
glab mr approve
glab mr merge

Core commands

• glab alias
• glab api
• glab auth
• glab changelog
• glab check-update
• glab ci
• glab cluster
• glab completion
• glab config
• glab duo
• glab incident
• glab issue
• glab label
• glab mr
• glab release
• glab repo
• glab schedule
• glab snippet
• glab ssh-key
• glab user
• glab variable

GitLab Duo for the CLI

• Tier: Premium, Ultimate
• Add-on: GitLab Duo Enterprise
• Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated
• LLM: Anthropic Claude 3 Haiku

Version history

• Changed to require GitLab Duo add-on in GitLab 17.6 and later.
• Changed to include Premium in GitLab 18.0.

The GitLab CLI includes features powered by GitLab Duo. These include:

• glab duo ask

To ask questions about git commands while you work, type:

• glab duo ask

The glab duo ask command can help you remember a git command you forgot, or provide suggestions on how to run git commands to perform other tasks.

Install the CLI

Installation instructions are available in the glab README.

Authenticate with GitLab

To authenticate with your GitLab account, run glab auth login. glab respects tokens set using GITLAB_TOKEN.

glab also integrates with the 1Password shell plugin for secure authentication.

Examples

Run a CI/CD pipeline with variables from a file

The glab ci run command, when run with the -f (--variables-from-string) flag, uses values stored in an external file. For example, add this code to your .gitlab-ci.yml file to reference two variables:

stages:
  - build

# $EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_1 and $EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_2 are stored in another file
build-job:
  stage: build
  script:
    - echo $EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_1
    - echo $EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_2
    - echo $CI_JOB_ID

Then, create a file named variables.json to contain those variables:

[
  {
    "key": "EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_1",
    "value": "example value 1"
  },
  {
    "key": "EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_2",
    "value": "example value 2"
  }
]

To start a CI/CD pipeline that includes the contents of variables.json, run this command, editing the path to the file as needed:

$ glab ci run --variables-file /tmp/variables.json`

$ echo $EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_1
example value 1
$ echo $EXAMPLE_VARIABLE_2
example value 2
$ echo $CI_JOB_ID
9811701914

Report issues

Open an issue in the gitlab-org/cli repository to send us feedback.

Related topics

• Install the CLI
• Documentation
• Extension source code in the cli project

Troubleshooting

glab completion commands fail when using the 1Password shell plugin

The 1Password shell plugin adds the alias glab='op plugin run -- glab', which can interfere with the glab completion command. If your glab completion commands fail, configure your shell to prevent expanding aliases before performing completions:

• For Zsh, edit your ~/.zshrc file and add this line:

  setopt completealiases

• For Bash, edit your ~/.bashrc file and add this line:

  complete -F _functionname glab

For more information, see issue 122 for the 1Password shell plugin.