| name | managing-gerrit |
| description | Use when working with Gerrit — gerrit code review system management including
change review workflows, submit rules, label configuration, group permissions,
and Prolog-based submit rules. Use when managing Gerrit review policies,
change management, and approval workflows.
|
| connection_type | gerrit |
| preload | false |
Managing Gerrit
Overview
Manage Gerrit code review workflows, including change review processes, submit rules, label definitions, project permissions, and reviewer configuration.
Key Capabilities
- Configure review labels (Code-Review, Verified, custom labels)
- Define submit rules using Prolog or simple configuration
- Manage project access controls and group permissions
- Set up change submission requirements and strategies
- Configure reviewer suggestions and attention sets
- Manage topic-based change grouping and submission
Workflow
1 — Label Configuration
REVIEW LABELS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Code-Review:
-2 This shall not be merged
-1 I would prefer this is not merged as is
0 No score
+1 Looks good to me, but someone else must approve
+2 Looks good to me, approved
[ ] Verified:
-1 Fails
0 No score
+1 Verified
[ ] Custom labels:
Label: ___ Range: ___ to ___
2 — Submit Rules
SUBMIT REQUIREMENTS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Required labels for submit:
- Code-Review: +2 (at least one)
- Code-Review: no -2 (block on negative)
- Verified: +1
[ ] Submit type: merge / rebase / cherry-pick / fast-forward
[ ] Author must not self-approve: YES / NO
[ ] Require all inline comments resolved: YES / NO
3 — Project Access Control
ACCESS CONTROL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Groups:
- Developers: push, code-review -1..+1
- Senior Devs: code-review -2..+2
- CI System: verified -1..+1
- Project Leads: submit, abandon
[ ] Branch permissions:
refs/heads/main: restricted push
refs/heads/*: allow push for Developers
[ ] Inherit from parent project: YES / NO
4 — Reviewer Configuration
REVIEWER SETUP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Default reviewers by path:
src/api/** -> backend-reviewers
src/ui/** -> frontend-reviewers
*.proto -> api-reviewers
[ ] Attention set management: auto / manual
[ ] Reviewer suggestions enabled: YES / NO
Common Operations
Query Open Changes
List open changes pending review, filter by project, branch, or reviewer.
Submit Rule Validation
Test submit rules against pending changes to verify policy compliance.
Access Control Audit
Review project permissions to ensure least-privilege access.
Troubleshooting
| Issue | Cause | Fix |
|---|
| Cannot submit change | Missing required label score | Check submit requirements for all labels |
| Reviewer cannot +2 | Insufficient permissions | Add user to group with Code-Review +2 range |
| Submit rule not applied | Prolog syntax error | Validate rules.pl in project refs/meta/config |
| Change stuck in review | Attention set stale | Update attention set to notify appropriate reviewer |
Output Format
Present results as a structured report:
Managing Gerrit Report
══════════════════════
Resources discovered: [count]
Resource Status Key Metric Issues
──────────────────────────────────────────────
[name] [ok/warn] [value] [findings]
Summary: [total] resources | [ok] healthy | [warn] warnings | [crit] critical
Action Items: [list of prioritized findings]
Target ≤50 lines of output. Use tables for multi-resource comparisons.
Anti-Hallucination Rules
- NEVER assume resource names — always discover via CLI/API in Phase 1 before referencing in Phase 2.
- NEVER fabricate metric names or dimensions — verify against the service documentation or
--help output.
- NEVER mix CLI commands between service versions — confirm which version/API you are targeting.
- ALWAYS use the discovery → verify → analyze chain — every resource referenced must have been discovered first.
- ALWAYS handle empty results gracefully — an empty response is valid data, not an error to retry.
Counter-Rationalizations
| Shortcut | Counter | Why |
|---|
| "I'll skip discovery and check known resources" | Always run Phase 1 discovery first | Resource names change, new resources appear — assumed names cause errors |
| "The user only asked for a quick check" | Follow the full discovery → analysis flow | Quick checks miss critical issues; structured analysis catches silent failures |
| "Default configuration is probably fine" | Audit configuration explicitly | Defaults often leave logging, security, and optimization features disabled |
| "Metrics aren't needed for this" | Always check relevant metrics when available | API/CLI responses show current state; metrics reveal trends and intermittent issues |
| "I don't have access to that" | Try the command and report the actual error | Assumed permission failures prevent useful investigation; actual errors are informative |
