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Merge Requests: Code Review in Assembla
Merge Requests: Code Review in Assembla

Assembla Git, Subversion, and Perforce repositories come with lightweight code review tools built-in.

Toshi Dávila avatar
Written by Toshi Dávila
Updated over a week ago

Code Review in Assembla

Code review is integral to the development of high-quality software. All Assembla version control repos come with lightweight code review tools built-in. Simply add a comment to a commit under the Commits tab or start a Merge Request to start a code review.
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Merge Requests

Merge Requests are the most common—and recommended—way to facilitate code review in Assembla. A merge request (MR) is a request from someone to merge in code from one branch to another. You can create a MR from Assembla by clicking on New Merge Request button from Git, SVN, or Perforce repository tools in the Assembla web app.

You’ll be asked to select a “From” branch and a “To” branch. Once you do this you’ll see that the Create Merge Request button will be enabled—only if there are changes between them—and it’ll show you some initial information about the changes like commits, files affected, and tickets affected.

You need to enter a MR summary in order to enable the Create MR button. The description is an optional field.
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How to review code via merge requests

Once a merge request has been created, you can:

  • View information about the MR, including source branch, destination branch, create date, MR id, status, and instructions to update your local environment with the changes included in this MR;

  • Add followers to request their review;

  • @Mention teammates in the comments to let them know the MR is ready for them to take a look;

  • Add inline comments under the Files tab to make specific suggestions about changes to the code with file attachments, code snippets, screenshots and more;

  • Reply to other teammates' comments to keep distinct conversation threads together;

  • Mark comments as "Resolved" once requested changes have been made;

  • View a list of the commits included in the MR as well as the history of different versions of the MR over time;

  • Scroll through all the activity on the MR, including comments, commits, and votes;

  • Vote the current version of the MR up or down;

  • Jump to Assembla Tickets associated with the MR or any of the included commits;

  • And ultimately merge the changes into the destination branch once your team has approved!

Tips for getting the most out of Assembla Merge Requests

  1. Set a policy for the number of reviewers and upvotes required by your team to approve merge requests. Adding new commits to the "from" branch of your merge request will automatically reset the vote counts so that your team can re-review your updated changes.

  2. Integrate Assembla Merge Requests with your CI/CD tools via our built-in Jenkins integration (Git repos only) or Assembla API to show whether the changes pass or fail.

  3. Set up protections on Git branches or Subversion (SVN) directories to control which team members need to ultimately approve and merge requested changes into the master branch or trunk.

  4. Mark MR comments as "Resolved" once requested changes have been made as a handy indicator of what has been done and what is left to do.

  5. Associate Assembla Tickets with your merge request by referencing them in the MR description box ("re #1"), by manually adding them on the right-hand side of the request after you have created it, or searching for the merge request on the left-hand side of any ticket view. This allows you to provide quick links to any of the tickets associated with the changes included in your work and the status of connected merge requests from your Assembla tickets.

Look here for more detailed information about merge requests in SVN or Git repositories.


Need help? Contact us at support@assembla.com. 

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