GitLab + Slack Setup Guide

Before you start

• A gitlab.com account (self-managed GitLab is not supported yet)
• The Maintainer role on the projects you want to connect, which GitLab requires to create webhooks. Only the person running the connect step needs it. Teammates need no special role.
• Permission to add an app to your Slack workspace
• About five minutes

Setup steps

Six steps, start to finish. Every screenshot below shows the real screen with placeholder data.

1

Log in with your GitLab account

Open the GitLab login page and click "Continue with GitLab". This is a standard OAuth sign-in against gitlab.com. There is nothing to install and no token to paste.

One clickAlready signed in with GitHub? Log out first. A session belongs to one provider, and your GitLab groups only appear in a GitLab session.

Step 1: sign in at pullnotifier.com/gitlab-login

2

Authorize API access

PullNotifier asks for API access to your GitLab account. It uses this to list the groups you belong to and to register merge request webhooks on the projects you choose.

ScopesThe token reads merge request metadata and writes webhooks. Creating a webhook is a write, so the read-only read_api scope is not enough for this step. It never reads your source code, and you can revoke it at any time from GitLab under Settings, Applications.

Step 2: grant API access so webhooks can be registered for you

3

Choose the group to connect

Pick the GitLab group you want notifications for. Subgroups are supported, so connecting a parent group lets you pick projects from any subgroup underneath it.

Maintainer roleOnly groups where you hold the Maintainer role appear here. GitLab requires that role to create project webhooks, so a Developer or Reporter cannot complete this step.

Step 3: groups you can connect, filtered by your role

4

Pick the projects to notify on

Tick the projects that should send merge request notifications. Start with one or two noisy repositories, then add more later. Nothing is all-or-nothing.

Per projectWebhooks are registered per project, which is available on every GitLab tier including Free. Group webhooks, a Premium feature, are not required.

Step 4: select projects, then click Connect

5

Confirm the webhooks were registered

PullNotifier registers the merge request webhooks for you and takes you to your dashboard. There is no YAML to write and no webhook URL to copy.

AutomaticYou can verify the result in GitLab under each project, Settings, Webhooks. Reconnecting later is safe: hooks are repaired rather than duplicated, and your settings survive.

Step 5: webhooks registered, heading to the dashboard

6

Connect your Slack channel

On the dashboard, click "Select Slack Channel" next to your group. Slack asks you to approve the app and pick the channel that should receive merge request notifications.

Slack OAuthFor a private channel, invite the app after connecting with /invite @PullNotifier. Public channels need no extra step.

Step 6: pick the default channel for the group, or one per project

That is it, you are live

Your dashboard now shows the group, its connected projects, and the Slack channel each one posts to. The next merge request opened in any of them lands in Slack as a single message that keeps updating itself as the MR moves.

A connected group, its projects, and the channel each one posts to

Fine-tune it (optional)

The defaults work out of the box. These three settings are the ones teams reach for first.

Set per-project rules

Open the gear icon on any project to set the approvals it needs, mute comment notifications, route by label, or send a specific author or reviewer to a different channel.

Per-project settings, including label and reviewer routing

Add a daily digest

Team Daily Reminders posts a summary of open and stale merge requests at a time you choose, in the timezone you choose. It is the fastest way to unblock reviews without nagging.

A weekday digest of stale merge requests

Map GitLab users to Slack users

Mapping turns notifications into real @mentions, so a review request actually pings the reviewer instead of printing their username as plain text.

Map once, then every mention resolves correctly

What you get

Troubleshooting

• Your group is not in the list: you need the Maintainer role on it. Ask an owner to raise your role, or have them run the connect step instead.
• Nothing arrives in a private channel: invite the app to it with /invite @PullNotifier. Public channels do not need this.
• You logged in with GitHub by mistake: log out and sign back in with GitLab. Each session shows one provider's connections.
• A project is missing after connecting: open "Configure Projects / Add New Project" on the dashboard and tick it there.
• Mentions show as plain text: map the GitLab user to a Slack user on the mapping screen shown above.

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