gitlab-daily-note

Auto-generate daily notes from your GitLab MRs, issues, and todos.

Generates an action-based daily note with sections like Act Now, Approved, Threads to Close, Ping Reviewer, Waiting on Others, etc. — so you know what to work on first.

Setup

1. Install and authenticate glab
2. Run python gitlab_daily.py --init to generate a .daily-note.json config
3. Edit the config:

   {
     "base_dir": "daily-note",
     "tags": "",
     "gitlab_group": "my-org/my-project",
     "on_hold_patterns": [],
     "on_hold_label": "On Hold",
     "stale_days": 7
   }

4. Run python gitlab_daily.py

Usage

python gitlab_daily.py                          # Plain markdown
python gitlab_daily.py --format obsidian        # Obsidian callouts + frontmatter
python gitlab_daily.py --keep                   # Save a snapshot on first run of the day
python gitlab_daily.py --team                   # Include team MRs to review
python gitlab_daily.py --stdout                 # Print to stdout instead of saving
python gitlab_daily.py --no-cleanup             # Don't auto-dismiss stale todos
python gitlab_daily.py --config path            # Use a custom config file

How it works

Uses GitLab GraphQL API to batch MR data (discussions, approvals, pipeline, rebase status) into a single call. Falls back to REST for issue-MR links (GitLab GraphQL limitation).

API caching: Responses are cached for 5 minutes in .daily-note-cache/. Re-runs within that window are instant.

Change tracking: A JSON state file tracks MR/issue URLs between runs, so the "Changes Since Yesterday" section works without parsing previous markdown.

Output formats

Plain (--format plain, default)

Standard markdown with ## headings. Works in any markdown viewer.

Obsidian (--format obsidian)

Adds Obsidian-specific features:

• Callouts — [!danger] Act Now, [!tip] Approved, [!warning] Ping Reviewer, [!note] In Progress, [!quote] On Hold
• Dataview frontmatter — YAML fields for querying across notes
• Progress bar — ASCII bar showing ready-to-merge ratio
• Summary table — stats in a formatted table with avg MR age

Example Dataview query:

```dataview
TABLE build_failures, pending_threads, open_mrs, avg_mr_age
FROM "daily-note"
WHERE type = "daily-note"
SORT date DESC
LIMIT 7
```

Output sections

Section	What it means
Act Now	Pending review threads, build failures, merge conflicts
Threads to Close	Threads you opened where a colleague replied — resolve them
To Do	Issues with no open MR — work you haven't started yet
Ping Reviewer	MRs idle 7+ days waiting on review (sorted oldest first)
In Progress	Your draft MRs
Approved	Approved MRs ready to merge (sorted by most approvals)
Issues	All issues with their linked MRs (reference section)
On Hold	MRs/issues matching on_hold_patterns
To Review	Team MRs needing your review (--team flag), grouped by milestone and author. Drafts in a separate section.
Recently Merged	MRs merged in the last 3 days
Changes Since Yesterday	New/merged/closed MRs and issues since last run

MR annotations

Each MR line can show: FAILED | running | idle Xd | needs rebase | approved by @name | X pending (@author) | X to close | X answered

Config options

Key	Description
base_dir	Directory for daily notes (relative to script)
tags	Frontmatter line prepended to each note
gitlab_group	GitLab group path for --team mode
gitlab_groups	Array of group paths (overrides gitlab_group)
on_hold_patterns	Strings to match for on-hold items
on_hold_label	Section heading for on-hold items
stale_days	Days before flagging an MR for pinging (default: 7)

Legacy scripts

Previous versions are preserved in old_scripts/ for reference.