A beta version of our new “GitLab in your IDE” feature is now available. With it you can create, review, and merge GitLab merge requests without ever leaving your IDE. All with full source-tree and full file access, your favorite keybindings, and all the code intelligence embedded in your development environment. The MR functionality works with both GitLab Cloud and GitLab Self-Managed.

How to Request Access and Install

If you’d like early access to our GitLab beta please email us and we’ll send you instructions on where to download a .vsix file for VS Code or a .zip if you’re using any JetBrains editor such as Intellij, WebStorm, and PyCharm.

For instructions on how to install an extension via a file, please see the VS Code or JetBrains documentation.

If you’re new to CodeStream please see our Getting Started documentation on how to register and create a team. 

If you signed up via GitLab authentication you should see a Merge Requests section at the top of the CodeStream pane with a list of all of the MRs relevant to you.

Otherwise, you’ll see buttons for you to connect to GitLab or GitLab Self-Manged as appropriate.

If you were already on CodeStream, and connected to GitHub, you can also connect to GitLab by clicking on your headshot on the top of the CodeStream pane and then selecting “Integrations”.

Things to Try

Customize your list of MRs

In the Merge Requests section of the CodeStream pane you’ll see open MRs waiting on your review, assigned to you, and created by you. If you click the funnel icon in the heading of this section you can add additional sub-sections based on custom queries. For example, you might want to see all open MRs for a specific project. Click the gear icon if you’d like to see only MRs for repos you have open in your IDE.

Manage an MR

Click on any MR from the Merge Requests section, or select the “Load MR from URL” option to view any MR, and you’ll be able to see the MR in its entirety, just as you would at gitlab.com. Click anywhere in the sidebar at the right to edit any aspect of the MR. Add assignees. Change labels. Add a to do. 

Review changes with a full-file side-by-side diff

Click on the Changes tab, just as you would at gitlab.com, to start reviewing the changes. By default, you’ll get a full-file side-by-side diff, and you can comment on the changes simply by selecting some code from the right side of the diff and then clicking on the comment button that appears to the left. Unlike at gitlab.com, you can even comment on lines of code outside of the changeset. Try it!

Explore

We’re trying to support as much functionality from gitlab.com as we can, but this is just a beta. Please explore, check out what’s working, what isn’t, and what we need to add.

Feedback

Speaking of what may not be working yet and what we need to add, please share your feedback with us. We like raving compliments too. Please post any questions or general feedback to @teamcodestream on Twitter or reply to the tweet below. If encountering a bug please review our GitHub Issues  and please create a new issue if we’re not aware of it. Thanks!