Wrapping Up My First GitLab Hackathon: 91 MRs, 30 Projects, and One Mistake

Description and use

The author participated in a GitLab Hackathon, opened 91 merge requests across 30 projects, merged 38, learned to handle reviews, project rules, and avoid large‑scale automation of issue labels.

Problem

Contributing to a large open‑source project during a hackathon while managing merge requests, reviews, and project-specific rules.

Outcome

Author merged 38 MRs, closed 28 issues, learned key contributor etiquette, and avoided a large‑scale labeling mistake.

Workflow

• Open issues and create MRs in smaller GitLab projects
• Read each project's CONTRIBUTING.md for commit and labeling rules
• Submit MRs and monitor review comments
• Fix review comments before opening new MRs
• Resolve own threads and close related issues
• Use contributor platform to request reviewers
• Avoid automating labeling on others’ issues
• Answer reviews and merge MRs before deadline

Evidence

91 merge requests opened during the event

Source

38 merged so far, 51 still in review, 2 closed

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On day one, all 20 MRs went to gitlab-org/gitlab, the main GitLab app

Source

Fork pipelines fail for reasons that aren't yours

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I used a script to add type and subtype labels to issues through the contributor platform

Source