Native GitLab Merge Request ref support by JDanRibeiro · Pull Request #4851 · GitTools/GitVersion

JDanRibeiro · 2026-03-11T03:28:52Z

Description

This PR adds native GitLab Merge Request ref support so GitVersion can treat GitLab MR pipelines as pull request branches without CI workarounds (no need to create synthetic refs under refs/heads/...).

GitLab exposes merge requests as:

refs/merge-requests/<iid>/head
refs/merge-requests/<iid>/merge

GitVersion now detects these refs and exposes the internal branch name as pull-requests/<iid>, so existing GitVersion.yml configuration works (e.g. pull-request.regex, pull-request.label).

Type of change

Related Issue

Resolves #XYZ

Motivation and Context

GitVersion currently relies on pull request refs under refs/heads/* or provider-specific refs like refs/pull/*. In GitLab CI, Merge Requests use refs/merge-requests/<iid>/(head|merge), which are not under refs/heads/*, so GitVersion did not detect them unless CI created synthetic refs. This PR adds first-class detection for GitLab MR refs and maps them to the standard pull-requests/<iid> naming.

Scope / Impact

Affected projects: GitVersion.Core, GitVersion.BuildAgents, GitVersion.LibGit2Sharp, docs
User-visible behavior: GitLab MR pipelines are recognised as pull-request branches; branch name becomes pull-requests/<iid>
Backward compatibility: No change for existing providers; existing pull-request config continues to work

How Has This Been Tested?

cd src
dotnet build GitVersion.App.Tests\GitVersion.App.Tests.csproj -f net8.0
dotnet test --project GitVersion.App.Tests\GitVersion.App.Tests.csproj -f net8.0 --filter "FullyQualifiedName~VerifyPullRequestInput"

VerifyPullRequestInput includes GitLab refs: refs/merge-requests/15/head and refs/merge-requests/15/merge → Friendly = pull-requests/15, IsPullRequest = true (6 tests passed).

Screenshots (if appropriate)

N/A

Public API / Compatibility notes

Public API changed: yes
Files updated: src/GitVersion.Core/PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt (added ReferenceName.TryParseGitLabMergeRequestRef)

Checklist

My code follows the code style of this project.
I have added/updated tests to cover my changes.
All new and existing tests passed locally.
I updated documentation (gitlab.md, docker.md).
I verified the change does not break other providers/agents (GitHub/Azure/Bitbucket/etc.).
I updated src/GitVersion.Core/PublicAPI.Unshipped.txtt for the new public API.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds first-class support for GitLab Merge Request refs (refs/merge-requests/<iid>/(head|merge)) so GitVersion recognizes MR pipelines as pull-request branches and normalizes them to pull-request/<iid> across core logic, build-agent detection, and docs.

Changes:

Extend ReferenceName to recognize GitLab MR refs and expose them as pull-request/<iid> (plus new public helper API).
Update repository normalization / branch resolution to map GitLab MR refs to local refs/heads/pull-request/<iid>.
Adjust GitLab CI agent and docs to use CI_MERGE_REQUEST_REF_PATH; add unit coverage for MR ref parsing.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 9 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/GitVersion.LibGit2Sharp/Git/GitRepository.mutating.cs	Creates a local `refs/heads/pull-request/<iid>` branch when the remote ref is a GitLab MR ref.
src/GitVersion.Core/PublicAPI.Shipped.txt	Ships the new `ReferenceName.TryParseGitLabMergeRequestRef` public API surface.
src/GitVersion.Core/Git/ReferenceName.cs	Detects GitLab MR refs and shortens them to the friendly `pull-request/<iid>` form.
src/GitVersion.Core/Core/RepositoryStore.cs	Resolves GitLab MR ref inputs to the corresponding local `pull-request/<iid>` branch when present.
src/GitVersion.Core/Core/GitPreparer.cs	Normalizes GitLab MR refs into a local `refs/heads/pull-request/<iid>` branch for consistent downstream behavior.
src/GitVersion.BuildAgents/Agents/GitLabCi.cs	Prefers `CI_MERGE_REQUEST_REF_PATH` over `CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME` to identify MR pipelines correctly.
src/GitVersion.App.Tests/PullRequestInBuildAgentTest.cs	Adds unit cases validating `ReferenceName` behavior for GitLab MR refs.
docs/input/docs/usage/docker.md	Documents required GitLab CI env vars (incl. MR ref path) when running GitVersion via Docker.
docs/input/docs/reference/build-servers/gitlab.md	Documents native GitLab Merge Request pipeline support and the `pull-request/<iid>` mapping.

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src/GitVersion.BuildAgents/Agents/GitLabCi.cs

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

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src/GitVersion.Core/PublicAPI.Shipped.txt

src/GitVersion.BuildAgents/Agents/GitLabCi.cs

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

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src/GitVersion.Core/PublicAPI.Unshipped.txt

src/GitVersion.Core/Git/ReferenceName.cs

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

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src/GitVersion.Core/Core/RepositoryStore.cs

src/GitVersion.Core/Git/ReferenceName.cs

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

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src/GitVersion.Core/Core/GitPreparer.cs

src/GitVersion.LibGit2Sharp/Git/GitRepository.mutating.cs

src/GitVersion.Core/Core/RepositoryStore.cs

src/GitVersion.Core/Core/GitPreparer.cs

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

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src/GitVersion.Core/Core/GitPreparer.cs

Copilot

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Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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src/GitVersion.Core/Git/ReferenceName.cs

arturcic

The Git primitives should not have knowledge of the build agent specifics, so please do not include anything GitLab specific logic in Core ot LibGit2Sharp.

gittools-bot · 2026-03-17T23:49:26Z

@JDanRibeiro please rebase only your changes onto main instead of merging main into your branch

…ing with project convention

…tached HEAD

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

… in GitPreparer

…Preparer

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

sonarqubecloud · 2026-03-20T00:39:59Z

Quality Gate passed

Issues
0 New issues
0 Accepted issues

Measures
0 Security Hotspots
0.0% Coverage on New Code
1.6% Duplication on New Code

See analysis details on SonarQube Cloud

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings March 11, 2026 03:28

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arturcic self-requested a review March 12, 2026 06:38

arturcic force-pushed the main branch 4 times, most recently from fae75da to 5cc0855 Compare March 13, 2026 00:07

JDanRibeiro requested a review from Copilot March 13, 2026 03:31

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JDanRibeiro requested a review from Copilot March 13, 2026 04:47

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arturcic force-pushed the main branch 5 times, most recently from ea01ec3 to 329d120 Compare March 16, 2026 19:10

arturcic requested changes Mar 17, 2026

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arturcic force-pushed the main branch 2 times, most recently from 860c000 to 143e2a8 Compare March 18, 2026 00:18

JDanRibeiro force-pushed the feature/gitlab-merge-request-support branch from cab1a2e to fb48a1a Compare March 18, 2026 00:32

JDanRibeiro requested a review from arturcic March 18, 2026 02:34

arturcic force-pushed the main branch from 65c588b to 74f0b76 Compare March 18, 2026 15:56

jduarteamaggi and others added 12 commits March 19, 2026 20:11

feat: add support for GitLab merge-request refs

1d25c72

docs(contributing): add support for GitLab merge-request refs

a0f1779

test: add support for GitLab merge-request refs

f1c3744

fix(build-agents): use constants for GitLab CI env vars and align nam…

91554a2

…ing with project convention

fix(gitlab): use pull-requests/<iid> for MR branch and fix IID 0 / de…

01aba44

…tached HEAD

fix(gitlab): adjusting comment in xml format

c98d824

Update src/GitVersion.Core/Git/ReferenceName.cs

97188cd

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

fix(gitlab): MR branch as pull-requests/<iid>, fix local branch match…

3947eaa

… in GitPreparer

fix(gitlab): match GitLab MR ref to local pull-requests branch in Git…

55f7089

…Preparer

refactor(core): neutral merge-requests ref API and single prefix source

c250482

Update src/GitVersion.Core/Git/ReferenceName.cs

4e98511

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

fix(gitlab): ReferenceName.cs

754c8c2

JDanRibeiro force-pushed the feature/gitlab-merge-request-support branch from 74686e4 to 754c8c2 Compare March 20, 2026 00:37

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JDanRibeiro commented Mar 11, 2026 •

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