Description templates

Introduced in GitLab 8.11.









Creating issue templates


Creating merge request templates


Using the templates


Description templates

Setting a default template for merge requests and issues (STARTER)


The visibility of issues and/or merge requests should be set to either "Everyone with access" or "Only Project Members" in your project's Settings / Visibility, project features, permissions section, otherwise the template text areas won't show. This is the default behavior so in most cases you should be fine.

Go to your project's Settings and under the Merge requests header, click Expand and fill in the "Default description template for merge requests" text area. Under the Default issue template, click Expand and fill in "Default description template for issues" text area. Since GitLab merge request and issues support Markdown, you can use special markup like headings, lists, etc.

Default merge request description templates Default issue description templates

After you add the description, hit Save changes for the settings to take effect. Now, every time a new merge request or issue is created, it will be pre-filled with the text you entered in the template(s).

Description template example



Here is an example for a Bug report template:


(Summarize the bug encountered concisely)

Steps to reproduce


Example Project



What is the current bug behavior?

(What actually happens)

What is the expected correct behavior?

(What you should see instead)

Relevant logs and/or screenshots


Possible fixes


/label ~bug ~reproduced ~needs-investigation
/cc @project-manager
/assign @qa-tester