Every 5 minutes

Get an email for each review request

Whenever you are added as reviewer on a merge request, you get its title and link by email.

Runs: Every 5 minutes
Apps: GitLab
AI: Not needed
Access: read_api

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 5 minutes, check GitLab for open merge requests where I'm a reviewer and email me any new ones with the title and link.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

On GitLab, being added as a reviewer produces a notification that is easy to miss, especially if you filter GitLab email or work in a different timezone from the author. The merge request then waits, the author asks in chat whether anyone has looked, and a change that could have merged in an hour takes three days because the request reached the wrong inbox at the wrong time.

Every 5 minutes, open merge requests where your username is the reviewer are listed. Any you have not been told about yet are emailed to you with the title and a link, and then remembered. The email is separate from GitLab's own notifications, so it still arrives if you have muted those.

Reviewers who split time across projects, and people who have turned GitLab email off to cut noise, will find it most useful.

What you get out of it

Requests reach you even with GitLab muted
A dedicated email is not affected by notification settings you changed for noise reasons, so a real review request still gets through to you. You only need one reliable channel for requests that matter.
Authors stop chasing for reviews
Prompt first responses mean fewer follow-up messages, which saves the author from interrupting you and makes it clear that requests to you are handled. That protects focus time for both of you.
Merge requests merge sooner
Cutting the delay before the first look shortens the whole cycle, which matters when a fix is blocking a release or a customer is waiting on a patch. Small delays add up, and this removes one of the biggest.
Each request is emailed once
Remembering seen merge requests prevents repeated mail every five minutes, so your inbox gets exactly one message per request and no reminder spam. Your inbox stays clean and trustworthy for every other message.
Easy to forward or snooze
Because it lands as ordinary email, you can snooze it until after lunch or forward it to a teammate if you cannot take it, using tools you already know. It fits the way you already manage email.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every five minutes ClickRuntime checks GitLab for open merge requests where you are a reviewer.
It skips any it has already emailed you about.
For each new review request you get an email with the title, project and a link.

Before it runs live

Connect GitLab

What you get

RunsEvery 5 minutes

Get an email for each review requesttoday, 9:00Succeeded

Email · Review requestedReview requested: Add retry to webhook sender acme/web-app!214 https://gitlab.com/acme/web-app/-/merge_requests/214

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other GitLab steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

email_me_when_i_m_asked_to_review_an_mr.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, notify, state, report_fetched

GITLAB = "https://gitlab.com/api/v4"

def gl_headers():
    return {"PRIVATE-TOKEN": credentials.secret("GITLAB_TOKEN")}

ME = "your-gitlab-username"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    mrs = http.get(f"{GITLAB}/merge_requests", headers=gl_headers(),
                   params={"scope": "all", "state": "opened", "reviewer_username": ME, "per_page": 100}).json()
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    new = [m for m in mrs if m["id"] not in seen]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        return {"new": 0}
    for m in new:
        notify.email_me(f"Review requested: {m['title']}", f"{m['references']['full']} by {m['author']['name']}\n{m['web_url']}")
    state.set("seen", list(seen | {m["id"] for m in mrs}))
    return {"new": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it work for group or team reviewers?

The check looks for merge requests where your own username is a reviewer, which is how GitLab lists individual review requests. Group approval rules are separate, so they do not trigger this email. Those follow different rules in GitLab.

What is in the email?

The merge request title, the project and a link straight to it. If you want more, such as the author and the number of changed files, that can be added to the message format. You can add more details to the message if needed.

Will I get an email for merge requests I already reviewed?

No. A request is emailed once when it first appears for you. After you review, it will not be emailed again, unless your username is added as a reviewer on a different merge request. It only reports new, pending review requests.

What permissions does it need?

read_api. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

The moment it happens