Merge requests – commonly known as pull requests in other tools such as GitHub or BitBucket – are tasks that are assigned to someone that requests that they want to merge one branch into another. Using the GitLab flow described in Chapter 3, GitLab Flow, this is usually merging a feature branch into the master, or merging the master into a release, production, or pre-production/staging branch.

In this chapter, we'll continue using our example project to demonstrate the features of GitLab by creating a branch, completing some work, and then beginning a merge request. Next, we'll explore different parts of the merge request, including code review, assigning reviewers, and linking/closing issues from merge requests.