Display the size of additional data being added in the merge request (including git LFS files)

Problem to solve

When reviewing merge requests it is sometimes hard to know how much data do they really bring to the target repository. It has happened to us at multiple occasions that commits in merge requests contained large binary blobs which were then removed in followup commits. So the diff itself has not revealed them. But they were still part of the history. And thus enlarged the target repository.

We prefer not to squash commits and merge requests to preserve development history. But such changes are hard to notice.

Intended users

Merge request reviewers.

Proposal

I propose that in the main view (summary of the merge request) there is some information about the amount of data being merged in. Similarly to how number of commits is shown.

Moreover, there could also be a column in commits section of a merge request where it would say the size of the commit itself, for every commit.

It should include (maybe as a separate number) also size of additional git LFS files being added.

Permissions and Security

No additional permissions or security changes needed.

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

Less rewrites of git repositories to remove large blobs.