GitLab VS Code Extension

This extension integrates GitLab into Visual Studio Code. After you set up the extension, you can:

• View GitLab issues and merge requests. View issues, comments, merge requests, and changed files in the sidebar, or build a custom search to meet your needs.
• Create and review merge requests.
• View security findings in your current branch
• Validate your GitLab CI/CD configuration locally with a command.
• Manage your pipelines. View your pipeline status and open the related merge request. With advanced pipeline actions, you can create, retry, or cancel a pipeline.
• View the job output. View the output of a running or finished job in an editor tab.
• Manage snippets. Create and insert snippets, and apply snippet patches.
• Browse a GitLab repository directly in Visual Studio Code without cloning it.
• Auto-complete GitLab CI/CD variables in your .gitlab-ci.yml pipeline file, and any file beginning with .gitlab-ci and ending with .yml or .yaml, like .gitlab-ci.production.yml.

Supports multiple GitLab instances.

If you face an issue, check out our list of known issues and if it's not listed, please report it.

Minimum supported version

This extension supports GitLab versions 16.1 and later. Even though most of the extension's features work with older versions, we currently don't actively support GitLab instances below version 16.1.

To find your GitLab version, visit /help (like https://gitlab.com/help).

Features

You need to set up your access token(s) to use these features, please see Setup section below.

Browse issues, review MRs

See your issues, MRs (including changed files) and other custom search results on a dedicated panel in the VS Code sidebar. Read more

Information about your branch - pipelines, MR, closing issue

See pipeline status, open MR and closing issue links in the status bar. Read more. This pipeline status automatically updates so you don't need to open GitLab to see your pipeline status.

Advanced pipeline actions allow you to view pipeline on GitLab, create a new pipeline, retry or cancel current pipeline. Read more.

Commands

You can use Command Palette to run the commands.

• GitLab: Search Project Issues (Supports Filters). Read more
• GitLab: Search Project Merge Requests (Supports Filters). Read more
• GitLab: Advanced Search (Issues, Merge Requests, Commits, Comments...). Read more
• GitLab: Create Snippet - Create public, internal or private snippet from entire file or selection. Read more.
• GitLab: Insert Snippet - Insert a project snippet, supports multi-file snippets. Read more.
• GitLab: Compare Current Branch with Default Branch - Compare your branch with the repository's default branch and view changes on GitLab. Read more.
• GitLab: Open Active File on GitLab - View active file on GitLab with highlighting active line number and selected text block. Read more.
• GitLab: Validate GitLab CI/CD Config - Validate GitLab CI/CD configuration file .gitlab-ci.yml. Read more.
• GitLab: Show Merged GitLab CI/CD Config - Show a preview of the GitLab CI/CD configuration file .gitlab-ci.yml with all includes resolved. Read more.
• GitLab: Open Merge Request for Current Branch
• GitLab: Show Issues Assigned to Me - Open issues assigned to you on GitLab.
• GitLab: Show Merge Requests Assigned to Me - Open MRs assigned to you on GitLab.
• GitLab: Open Current Project on GitLab
• GitLab: Create New Issue on Current Project
• GitLab: Create New Merge Request on Current Project - Open the merge request page to create a merge request.
• GitLab: Open Remote Repository - Browse a remote GitLab repository. Read more.
• GitLab: Open Active File on GitLab
• GitLab: Copy Link to Active File on GitLab
• GitLab: Remove Account from VS Code

Commands this extension extends or integrates with:

• Git: Clone - Search for and clone projects for every GitLab instance you set up. Read more, Official Documentation
• Git: Add Remote... - Add existing projects as remote from every GitLab instance you set up.

Setup

This extension requires you to create a GitLab personal access token, and assign it to the extension:

1. Install the extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace and enable it. If you use an unofficial version of VS Code, install the extension from the Open VSX Registry.
2. Optional. To sign in to GitLab.com, you can run the command GitLab: Authenticate to GitLab.com to authenticate using OAuth. This feature is not available for self-managed installations.
3. If you did not sign in with OAuth, create a personal access token with the api and read_user scopes:
   • If you use GitLab.com, go to the personal access tokens page.
   • If you use a self-managed GitLab instance, follow the instructions in the GitLab documentation.
4. Copy the token. For security reasons, this value is never displayed again, so you must copy this value now.
5. Open Visual Studio Code, then open the command palette by pressing Command + Shift + P.
6. In the command palette, search for GitLab: Add Account and press Enter.
7. In the URL to GitLab instance, paste the full URL to your GitLab instance, including the http:// or https://. Press Enter to confirm.
8. Paste in your GitLab personal access token and press Enter. The token is not displayed, nor is it accessible to others.

The extension automatically matches your Git repository remote URL with the GitLab instance URL you specified for your token. If this automatic matching fails, you can right-click (Ctrl+click on MacOS) the repository in the GitLab Tree View and resolve the problem.

The extension is ready to use. If your project has a pipeline for the last commit, and a merge request from your current branch, information about both is displayed in the Visual Studio Code status bar.

Set token with environment variables

If you often delete your VS Code storage (such as in Gitpod containers) you can create environment variables before starting VS Code. If you set the token in an environment variable you don't have to set the personal access token every time you delete your VS Code storage.

• GITLAB_WORKFLOW_INSTANCE_URL: GitLab instance URL (e.g. https://gitlab.com).
• GITLAB_WORKFLOW_TOKEN: personal access token, which you created in a previous step.

The token configured in an environment variable is overridden if you configure a token for the same GitLab instance in the extension.

Self-signed certificate authority

If your GitLab uses a self-signed CA (certificate authority), please read the SSL setup guide and the settings for self-signed certificates

Extension settings

To learn how to change the VS Code Settings, read the official Settings documentation.

If you use self-signed certificates to connect to your GitLab instance, read the community-contributed settings for self-signed certificates.

gitlab.pipelineGitRemoteName (default: null)

The name of the Git remote name corresponding to the GitLab repository with your pipelines. If set to null or missing, then the extension uses the same remote as for the non-pipeline features.

gitlab.debug (default: false)

Setting this option to true enables debug mode. Debug mode improves error stack trace because the extension will use source maps to understand minified code. Debug mode also shows debug log messages in the extension logs.

gitlab.customQueries

Defines the search queries that retrieves the items shown on the GitLab Panel. See Custom Queries documentation for more details.

gitlab.aiAssistedCodeSuggestions.enabled (default: true)

Toggle to enable or disable AI assisted code suggestions.

Features in-depth

Issue and Merge Request details and comments in VS Code

GitLab Workflow allows you to view issue details and comments right in the VS Code. Click an issue link from the sidebar and VS Code will open a new tab to show the issue details. You can also comment on the issue from VS Code.

You can use GitLab Slash Commands to perform actions directly from VS Code. For example, to assign an issue to @fatihacet, simply add a comment /assign @fatihacet inside VS Code.

Merge Request Reviews

GitLab Workflow enables you to review merge requests directly inside the editor:

1. In the left-hand sidebar, go to Issues and Merge Requests.
2. Select the appropriate merge request filter to view a list of merge requests.
3. Expand a relevant merge request to view the description and files changed.
4. Select a file to open it, and view the diff.

From the diff, you can:

• Review and create discussions.
• Resolve and unresolve these discussions.
• Delete and edit individual comments.

Sidebar - details

Extension will add a GitLab Workflow panel to sidebar of VS Code. The dedicated panel will allow you to see the list of your issues and MRs (you can decide the exact queries by using the custom queries). Also you will be able to see pipeline, MR and issue links for your current branch.

You can see the issue and MR details by clicking on the issue item or by expanding the MR item and clicking on "Description". When you expand the MR, you can see all the changed files. When you click on a changed file, the extension opens the MR diff.

View the job output

To view the output of a job directly in VS Code, on the left sidebar, select the job. The output is updated automatically. To view the latest output, select Scroll to Bottom.

Security findings

If your project includes Secure features, then security findings are displayed for the currently checked out branch after you've opened a merge request for that branch and scans have completed. Secure features must be configured.

Pipeline actions

One of the real power features of this extension is pipeline actions. This feature can be accessible from the status bar by clicking the pipeline status text or command palette and allows you to,

• View the latest pipeline on GitLab
• Create a new pipeline for your current branch
• Retry the last pipeline
• Cancel the last pipeline

Status bar - details

If your current project is a GitLab project, the extension will do the following things:

• Fetch pipeline of the last commit and show it on the status bar. Clicking this item will open the pipeline actions menu.
• Show open MR for current branch and show it on the status bar. Clicking this item will open MR on GitLab.
• Fetch closing issue of that MR and show it on the status bar. Clicking this item will open Issue on GitLab.

Search

GitLab Workflow extension provides you two types of search. Search with filters and Advanced Search.

Search with filters

It allows users to search issues/MRs against their title and description fields. In the search input, you can type your search term and hit Enter, for example, Inconsistent line endings for HEX files or Pipelines should ignore retried builds.

It can become more powerful by allowing you to filter issues/MRs by author, assignee, milestone, title etc. Below is the full list of supported filter tokens

Token	Description	Example
title	Search issues/MRs against their title and description. You don't need to add quotes around multiple words. See Important notes section.	discussions refactor
labels	Comma separated label list for multiple labels.	labels: frontend, Discussion, performance
label	To search with a single label. You can also have multiple label tokens.	label: frontend or label:frontend label: Discussion
milestone	Milestone title without %.	milestone: 9.5
scope	Searches issues/MRs for the given scope. Values can be created-by-me, assigned-to-me or all. Defaults to created-by-me.	scope: created-by-me or scope: assigned-to-me or scope: all.
author	Username of the author without @.	author: fatihacet
assignee	Username of the assignee without @.	assignee: timzallmann

Examples

• title: new merge request widget author: fatihacet assignee: jschatz1 labels: frontend, performance milestone: 10.5
• title: multiple group page author: annabeldunstone assignee: timzallmann label: frontend

Important notes

• : after the token name is necessary. label : is not a valid token name and may return parsing error. Hence label: should be used. However, space after the token name is optional. Both label: frontend and label:frontend is valid. This rule is valid for all tokens above.
• You don't need to add quotes around multiple words for title token. title:"new merge request widget" may return parsing error. title: new merge request widget should be used.
• You can have labels and label tokens at the same time. labels: fronted discussion label: performance is a valid query and all labels will be included in your search query. It's equal with labels: fronted discussion performance. You can also have multiple label tokens. label: frontend label: discussion label: performance is valid and equals to labels: fronted discussion performance.

Search with Advanced Search

GitLab provides Advanced Search feature which is backed by Elasticsearch. Please see Advanced Search syntax for more details.

Create snippet

You can create a snippet from selection or entire file. You can also select visibility level of your snippet.

Insert snippet

You can insert public and private project snippets. The insert supports multi-file snippets.

Create and apply snippet patch

Creating a snippet patch is a great way to suggest a multi-file change during MR review.

1. Locally check out the branch where you want to suggest changes.
2. Edit the project's code.
3. Run command GitLab: Create snippet patch. This stores the result of the git diff command in a GitLab snippet in your project.
4. VS Code opens a GitLab web page with the snippet patch. The snippet's description contains instructions on how to apply the patch.
5. Other team members can apply the snippet using the GitLab: Apply snippet patch command.

Compare with default branch

You can see changes on GitLab by comparing your branch with the repository's default branch.

Open active file

This command allows you to see active file on GitLab. Extension sends active line number and selected text block to GitLab UI so you can see them highlighted.

Validate GitLab CI/CD Configuration

Using this command, you can quickly validate GitLab CI/CD configuration.

Show merged GitLab CI/CD configuration

This command displays a preview of your merged CI/CD configuration file, with all includes and references resolved.

CI/CD variable autocompletion

Quickly find the CI/CD variable you are looking for with the CI/CD variable autocompletion.

Clone GitLab projects

This extension integrates with the built-in Git Extension and allows you to search for and clone projects from GitLab (command Git: Clone).

• You can search for projects on each GitLab instance for which you added an access-token.
• Only projects where you are a member of are displayed.
• You can clone with SSH or HTTPS
• With HTTPS your access-token will be used for cloning the repository and fetching/pushing commits. This is also the case for all GitLab projects that are cloned manually with HTTPS and then opened in VS Code.

NOTE: Using the access-token for cloning with HTTPS does not work with VS Code version 1.53.x (See discussion)

Browse a repository without cloning

With this extension, you can browse a GitLab repository without cloning it. While similar to the GitHub Repositories extension, remote GitLab repository browsing is read-only.

Prerequisite:

• You have registered an access token for that GitLab instance.

To open and browse a repository, either:

• Run the GitLab: Open Remote Repository command
• Select Choose Project option.
• Select GitLab instance, project and branch/tag that you would like to browse

Alternatively, run the GitLab: Open Remote Repository command and select "Enter gitlab-remote URL" option or manually add a gitlab-remote URL to your workspace file. For information about how to create GitLab remote URL, please see GitLab remote URL format documentation

Code Suggestions (Beta)

Write code more efficiently by using generative AI to suggest code while you’re developing. To learn more about this feature, see the Code Suggestions documentation.

This feature is in Beta. Code Suggestions is a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model. GitLab currently leverages Google Cloud’s Vertex AI Codey API models

No new additional data is collected to enable this feature. Private non-public GitLab customer data is not used as training data. Learn more about Google Vertex AI Codey APIs Data Governance

Beta users should read about the known limitations.

Report issues in the feedback issue.

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Contribution

This extension is open source and hosted on GitLab. Contributions are more than welcome. Feel free to fork and add new features or submit bug reports. See CONTRIBUTING for more information.

A list of the great people who contributed this project, and made it even more awesome, is available. Thank you all! 🎉