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, and delete comments on an MR
• Reply to exisiting comments
• Read MR summaries
• Approve an MR
• Revoke approval for an MR

edited.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, used 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:

require("gitlab").setup({
  port = 20136, -- The port of the Go server, which runs in the background
  log_path = vim.fn.stdpath("cache"), -- 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
    },
    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",
    },
    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:

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)

Diff Views

This plugin does not provide you with a diff view out of the box for viewing changes. That is already handled by other plugins. I highly recommend using Diffview to see which files have changed in an MR. This is the function that I'm using to accomplish this:

-- Review changes against develop (will break if no develop branch present)
vim.keymap.set("n", "<leader>gR", function()
  local isDiff = vim.fn.getwinvar(nil, "&diff")
  local bufName = vim.api.nvim_buf_get_name(0)
  if isDiff ~= 0 or u.string_starts(bufName, "diff") then
    vim.cmd.tabclose()
    vim.cmd.tabprev()
  else
    vim.cmd.DiffviewOpen("main")
  end
end)

Which looks like this in my editor:

This is useful if you plan to leave comments on the diff, because this plugin currently only supports leaving comments on lines that have been added or modified. I'm currenly working on adding functionality to allow users to leave comments on any lines, including those that have been deleted or untouched.

Debugging

This plugin is built on top of a Golang server. If you want to debug that server, you can run it independently of Neovim. For instance, to start it up in a certain project, navigate to your plugin directory, and build the binary:

$ 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

You can send JSON to it like you would any other REST server.