In GitLab, labels are the columns. The board is a view over them, which means the label is the real signal — so labels are what this one listens to.
What it does
- Add your analyze label to an issue, and the AI posts a repo-grounded breakdown in the issue.
- Comment back, and it replies in the discussion and refines what is being built.
- Move to your build label, and it opens a merge-request-ready pull request.
- A token-verified relay routes issue and note events, so both new issues and new comments wake it.
What it will not do
It never changes labels, never closes issues, and never merges.
Issues and notes, not just issues
Listening to note events as well as issue events is what makes the back-and-forth work: a comment is a first-class trigger, not something the agent notices the next time the issue happens to change. Both event types are verified against your token before anything runs.
Setup takes about five minutes
Clone the repo, run ./setup.sh, pick GitLab Issues, and answer a few questions — your IDs, your tokens, your conventions. The installer copies the recipe into your repository, sets your secrets, and prints whatever manual steps are left with your real values already filled in. No server to host, no database to run, nothing to pay for beyond the AI you already use.
Honest status: beta. It is built and smoke-tested, and it carries a live-fire checklist in its README that I am working through one tool at a time. It has not yet been run against a live self-managed instance. If you hit an edge, open an issue — that is exactly what the beta label is asking for.
The recipe is MIT-licensed and open source: ai-automations. It is one of 35 — see the series overview for the full list and the rules every recipe follows. If your tool is not on the list, name it and I will build the automation for it, free.
FAQ
Why labels rather than a board column?
In GitLab the board is a view over labels, so the label is the real signal. That is what this recipe listens to.
Does a comment wake it, or only a label change?
Both. It routes issue events and note events, so a comment is a first-class trigger rather than something noticed at the next issue change.
Does it work on a self-managed instance?
It is built for it, but has not yet been run against a live self-managed instance — this recipe is beta and that is the gap in its live-fire checklist.
More in this series: GitHub Issues · all 35 automations
Working on something similar?
If you are wiring AI into the tools your team already uses, I am happy to look at it with you. Thirty minutes, no deck — bring the workflow that costs your team the most time and we will work out whether it is automatable. Get in touch.