Planning for attention requests
Purpose of this issue
The purpose of this issue is to plan the iterative development of the “attention requests” feature. For example, to bring up any investigation work that must happen before implementation starts, or to decide on the most reasonable implementation order.
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🖼 Comment on the designs attached to this issue -
📹 Watch the short video walkthrough -
📐 Check design specs in Figma
💡 Solution
In https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/ux-research/-/issues/1387 we validated with users a new feature for MRs called “attention requests” that mimicks the common “ping-pong” that happens in the code review process.
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Users that have permissions to edit the MR are allowed to manually add or remove attention requests from existing Assignees or Reviewers by clicking on the orange chevron
▶ ️ icon in the MR sidebar.- Only these manual changes to attention requests are recorded as system notes, create to-dos for the target users, and send email notifications to participants.
- Assignees/reviewers have their attention request added automatically when:
- Someone adds them as an Assignee or Reviewer.
- Assignees/reviewers have their attention request removed automatically when:
- They approve the MR.
- They add someone as an Assignee or Reviewer.
- They request attention from an existing Assignee or Reviewer.
- Someone removes them as an Assignee or Reviewer.
- The MR is merged or closed.
- Attention requests are signaled by that same orange chevron icon in the MRs list and in the MR sidebar.
- In the MRs list, an improved tooltip displays additional information about the user's relationship with the MR. A
✅ icon is shown next to user's who have approved the MR. - In the MR sidebar, users that have an attention request have their name/username bolded and appear before users that don't have an attention request.
- In the MRs list, an improved tooltip displays additional information about the user's relationship with the MR. A
- MR lists can be filtered with a new
attention=@user
filter. - Assignees/reviewers can check the MRs that need their attention via a new option in the global MR dropdown, that directs users to a pre-filtered list using the new
attention=@user
filter. The count next to the global MR dropdown now only reflects the number of MRs that match theattention=@current_user
filter. - To introduce user's to these changes, an explanatory popover is shown when users open the global MR dropdown. When users click on
Got it!
, the popover is no longer shown.
Nice-to-haves
- Put all of the changes (even global ones, like the global MR dropdown) behind a feature flag, to better control the roll-out.
- Instrument the global MR dropdown links and the
Request attention
button. - Changes to the MRs list: orange chevron icon for attention, improved tooltip, and checkmark icon for approvers.
Possible future iterations
- Add quick action (e.g.
/attention @user
) - Enhance “submit review” (batch comments) flow to allow users to modify the attention requests before submitting their review.
Edited by Pedro Moreira da Silva