Code Review Workflow Examples

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Step-by-step examples for merge request review workflows. Each example shows the natural language prompt and the meta-tool actions the server performs.

MR review workflow

sequenceDiagram
    participant U as User
    participant AI as AI Assistant
    participant MCP as MCP Server
    participant GL as GitLab API

    U->>AI: "Review MR !42"
    AI->>MCP: gitlab_merge_request (action: list)
    MCP->>GL: GET /projects/:id/merge_requests
    GL-->>MCP: MR list
    MCP-->>AI: Open MRs
    AI->>MCP: gitlab_merge_request (action: changes)
    MCP->>GL: GET /projects/:id/merge_requests/:iid/changes
    GL-->>MCP: Diff data
    MCP-->>AI: File changes
    AI->>MCP: gitlab_analyze_mr_changes (sampling)
    MCP-->>AI: Review findings
    AI->>MCP: gitlab_merge_request (action: note_create)
    MCP->>GL: POST /projects/:id/merge_requests/:iid/notes
    AI->>MCP: gitlab_merge_request (action: approve)
    MCP->>GL: POST /projects/:id/merge_requests/:iid/approve
    AI->>U: "Review complete, MR approved"

List MRs awaiting review

Prompt: “Show me all merge requests assigned to me for review in the backend project”

gitlab_merge_request → action: list, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  reviewer_username: "johndoe", state: "opened"

Returns: MR titles, authors, branches, labels, and review status.

Read MR changes

Prompt: “Show me the file changes in MR !42”

gitlab_merge_request → action: changes, project_id: "my-group/backend", merge_request_iid: 42

Returns: list of changed files with additions, deletions, and full diffs.

Check MR approval status

Prompt: “Who has approved MR !42 and who still needs to approve?”

gitlab_merge_request → action: approval_state, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42

Returns: approval rules, required approvals, current approvals, and eligible approvers.

Approve an MR

Prompt: “Approve merge request !42 in the backend project”

gitlab_merge_request → action: approve, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42

AI-powered code review

Full code review

Prompt: “Review the code changes in MR !42 for bugs, security issues, and best practices”

gitlab_analyze_mr_changes (sampling) → fetches diff, sends to LLM for comprehensive review

Returns: structured findings organized by severity (critical, warning, suggestion) with file locations and recommended fixes.

Security-focused review

Prompt: “Do a security review of MR !78 in the backend project”

gitlab_review_mr_security (sampling) → examines diff for security vulnerabilities

Checks for: SQL injection, XSS, hardcoded secrets, authentication bypasses, insecure deserialization, and OWASP Top 10 issues.

Review summary

Prompt: “Summarize all review comments on MR !42”

gitlab_summarize_mr_review (sampling) → consolidates review threads into summary

Returns: key discussion points, unresolved threads, action items, and overall review sentiment.

MR discussions and notes

Add a review comment

Prompt: “Add a comment to MR !42 saying ‘The error handling in auth.go needs a retry mechanism‘“

gitlab_merge_request → action: note_create, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42, body: "The error handling in auth.go needs a retry mechanism"

Create a discussion thread

Prompt: “Start a discussion on MR !42 about the database migration strategy”

gitlab_merge_request → action: discussion_create, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42, body: "Let's discuss the database migration strategy..."

List unresolved threads

Prompt: “Show me all unresolved discussion threads in MR !42”

gitlab_merge_request → action: discussion_list, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42

Filter the results for threads where resolved: false to find outstanding review items.

Use draft notes

Prompt: “Create a draft review note on MR !42 — I’ll publish all my comments together”

gitlab_merge_request → action: draft_note_create, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42, note: "Consider using a context timeout here..."

Draft notes are only visible to you until you publish them all at once with action: draft_note_publish_all.

MR lifecycle

Create an MR

Prompt: “Create a merge request from branch feature/auth-refactor to main in the backend project”

gitlab_merge_request → action: create, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  source_branch: "feature/auth-refactor", target_branch: "main",
  title: "Refactor authentication module"

Merge after approval

Prompt: “Merge MR !42 using squash commit”

gitlab_merge_request → action: merge, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42, squash: true

Rebase before merge

Prompt: “Rebase MR !42 against the latest main branch”

gitlab_merge_request → action: rebase, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 42

Close without merging

Prompt: “Close MR !99 — the approach was superseded by MR !105”

gitlab_merge_request → action: update, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  merge_request_iid: 99, state_event: "close"

Compare branches

Diff between branches

Prompt: “Compare the develop branch with main in the backend project”

gitlab_repository → action: compare, project_id: "my-group/backend",
  from: "main", to: "develop"

Returns: list of commits, changed files, and diff statistics between the two branches.