Approver notification enhancements

Problem to solve

Merge request approvers, added by approval rules or code owners, are immediately treated as participants when a merge request is created. When subscribed to Participant notifications for a project, this means they receive notifications for every single merge request.

Proposal

If the user has subscribed to Participant notifications for the project:

• if they are a named eligible approver, they should:
  • receive a notification on the creation of the merge request
  • only receive subsequent notifications on the merge request when they participate in the merge request (e.g. leaving a comment or a mentioned – existing participant logic)

In summary: do not make approvers participants unless they actively participate on the merge request.

Links / references

Customer ticket -> https://gitlab.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/89619 (internal)