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# Merge Request Approvals **(CORE)**

> - [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/580) in GitLab Enterprise Edition 7.2. Available in GitLab Core and higher tiers.
> - Redesign [introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/1979) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 11.8 and [feature flag removed](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/10685) in 12.0.

Code review is an essential practice of every successful project, and giving your
approval once a merge request is in good shape is an important part of the review
process, as it clearly communicates the ability to merge the change.

## Optional Approvals

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/27426) in GitLab 13.2.

Any user with Developer or greater [permissions](../../permissions.md) can approve a merge request in GitLab Core and higher tiers.
This provides a consistent mechanism for reviewers to approve merge requests, and makes it easy for
maintainers to know when a change is ready to merge. Approvals in Core are optional and do
not prevent a merge request from being merged when there is no approval.

## Required Approvals **(STARTER)**

> [Introduced](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/2015/06/22/gitlab-7-12-released/#merge-request-approvers-ee-only) in GitLab Enterprise Edition 7.12. Available in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) and higher tiers.

Required approvals enable enforced code review by requiring specified people
to approve a merge request before it can be merged.

Required approvals enable multiple use cases:

- Enforcing review of all code that gets merged into a repository.
- Specifying reviewers for a given proposed code change, as well as a minimum number
  of reviewers, through [Approval rules](#approval-rules).
- Specifying categories of reviewers, such as backend, frontend, quality assurance,
  database, and so on, for all proposed code changes.
- Designating [Code Owners as eligible approvers](#code-owners-as-eligible-approvers),
  determined by the files changed in a merge request.
- [Requiring approval from a security team](#security-approvals-in-merge-requests)
  before merging code that could introduce a vulnerability.**(ULTIMATE)**

### Approval Rules

Approval rules define how many approvals a merge request must receive before it can
be merged, and optionally which users should do the approving. Approvals can be defined:

- [As project defaults](#adding--editing-a-default-approval-rule).
- [Per merge request](#editing--overriding-approval-rules-per-merge-request).

If no approval rules are defined, any user can approve a merge request, though the default
minimum number of required approvers can still be set in the [project settings for merge request approvals](#merge-request-approvals-project-settings).

You can opt to define one single rule to approve a merge request among the available rules
or choose more than one. Single approval rules are available in GitLab Starter and higher tiers,
while [multiple approval rules](#multiple-approval-rules) are available in
[GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) and above.

NOTE: **Note:**
On GitLab.com, you can add a group as an approver if you're a member of that group or the
group is public.

#### Eligible Approvers

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/10294) in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 13.3, when an eligible approver comments on a merge request, it appears in the **Commented by** column of the Approvals widget.

The following users can approve merge requests:

- Users who have been added as approvers at the project or merge request levels with
  developer or higher [permissions](../../permissions.md).
- [Code owners](#code-owners-as-eligible-approvers) of the files changed by the merge request
  that have developer or higher [permissions](../../permissions.md).

An individual user can be added as an approver for a project if they are a member of:

- The project.
- The project's immediate parent group.
- A group that has access to the project via a [share](../members/share_project_with_groups.md).

A group of users can also be added as approvers. In the future, group approvers may be
[restricted to only groups with share access to the project](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/2048).

If a user is added as an individual approver and is also part of a group approver,
then that user is just counted once. The merge request author, as well as users who have committed
to the merge request, do not count as eligible approvers,
if [**Prevent author approval**](#allowing-merge-request-authors-to-approve-their-own-merge-requests) (enabled by default)
and [**Prevent committers approval**](#prevent-approval-of-merge-requests-by-their-committers) (disabled by default)
are enabled on the project settings.

When an eligible approver comments on a merge request, it appears in the **Commented by** column of the Approvals widget,
indicating who has engaged in the merge request review. Authors and reviewers can also easily identify who they should reach out
to if they have any questions or inputs about the content of the merge request.

##### Implicit Approvers

If the number of required approvals is greater than the number of assigned approvers,
approvals from other users will count towards meeting the requirement. These would be
users with developer [permissions](../../permissions.md) or higher in the project who
were not explicitly listed in the approval rules.

##### Code Owners as eligible approvers

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/7933) in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 11.5.

If you add [Code Owners](../code_owners.md) to your repository, the owners to the
corresponding files will become eligible approvers, together with members with Developer
or higher [permissions](../../permissions.md).

To enable this merge request approval rule:

1. Navigate to your project's **Settings > General** and expand
   **Merge request approvals**.
1. Locate **Any eligible user** and choose the number of approvals required.

![MR approvals by Code Owners](img/mr_approvals_by_code_owners_v12_7.png)

Once set, merge requests can only be merged once approved by the
number of approvals you've set. GitLab will accept approvals from
users with Developer or higher permissions, as well as by Code Owners,
indistinguishably.

Alternatively, you can **require**
[Code Owner's approvals for Protected Branches](../protected_branches.md#protected-branches-approval-by-code-owners). **(PREMIUM)**

#### Merge Request approval segregation of duties

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/merge_requests/40491) in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 13.4.

Managers or operators with [Reporter permissions](../../permissions.md#project-members-permissions)
to a project sometimes need to be required approvers of a merge request,
before a merge to a protected branch begins. These approvers aren't allowed
to push or merge code to any branches.

To enable this access:

1. [Create a new group](../../group/index.md#create-a-new-group), and then
   [add the user to the group](../../group/index.md#add-users-to-a-group),
   ensuring you select the Reporter role for the user.
1. [Share the project with your group](../members/share_project_with_groups.md#sharing-a-project-with-a-group-of-users),
   based on the Reporter role.
1. Navigate to your project's **Settings > General**, and in the
   **Merge request approvals** section, click **Expand**.
1. [Add the group](../../group/index.md#create-a-new-group) to the permission list
   for the protected branch.

![Update approval rule](img/update_approval_rule_v13_4.png)

#### Adding / editing a default approval rule

To add or edit the default merge request approval rule:

1. Navigate to your project's **Settings > General** and expand **Merge request approvals**.

1. Click **Add approval rule**, or **Edit**.
   - Add or change the **Rule name**.
   - Set the number of required approvals in **No. approvals required**. The minimum value is `0`.
   - (Optional) Search for users or groups that will be [eligible to approve](#eligible-approvers)
     merge requests and click the **Add** button to add them as approvers. Before typing
     in the search field, approvers will be suggested based on the previous authors of
     the files being changed by the merge request.
   - (Optional) Click the **{remove}** **Remove** button next to a group or user to delete it from
     the rule.
1. Click **Add approval rule** or **Update approval rule**.

Any merge requests that were created before changing the rules will not be changed.
They will keep the original approval rules, unless manually [overridden](#editing--overriding-approval-rules-per-merge-request).

NOTE: **Note:**
If a merge request targets a different project, such as from a fork to the upstream project,
the default approval rules will be taken from the target (upstream) project, not the
source (fork).

##### Editing / overriding approval rules per merge request

> Introduced in GitLab Enterprise Edition 9.4.

By default, the merge request approval rule listed in each merge request (MR) can be
edited by the MR author or a user with sufficient [permissions](../../permissions.md).
This ability can be disabled in the [merge request approvals settings](#prevent-overriding-default-approvals).

One possible scenario would be to add more approvers than were defined in the default
settings.

When creating or editing a merge request, find the **Approval rules** section, then follow
the same steps as [Adding / editing a default approval rule](#adding--editing-a-default-approval-rule).

#### Set up an optional approval rule

MR approvals can be configured to be optional.
This can be useful if you're working on a team where approvals are appreciated, but not required.

To configure an approval to be optional, set the number of required approvals in **No. approvals required** to `0`.

You can also set an optional approval rule through the [Merge requests approvals API](../../../api/merge_request_approvals.md#update-merge-request-level-rule), by setting the `approvals_required` attribute to `0`.

#### Multiple approval rules **(PREMIUM)**

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/1979) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 11.10.

In GitLab Premium, it is possible to have multiple approval rules per merge request,
as well as multiple default approval rules per project.

Adding or editing multiple default rules is identical to
[adding or editing a single default approval rule](#adding--editing-a-default-approval-rule),
except the **Add approval rule** button will be available to add more rules, even after
a rule is already defined.

Similarly, editing or overriding multiple approval rules per merge request is identical
to [editing or overriding approval rules per merge request](#editing--overriding-approval-rules-per-merge-request),
except the **Add approval rule** button will be available to add more rules, even after
a rule is already defined.

When an [eligible approver](#eligible-approvers) approves a merge request, it will
reduce the number of approvals left for all rules that the approver belongs to.

![Approvals premium merge request widget](img/approvals_premium_mr_widget_v13_3.png)

#### Scoped to Protected Branch **(PREMIUM)**

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/460) in [GitLab Premium](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 12.8.

Approval rules are often only relevant to specific branches, like `master`.
When configuring [**Default Approval Rules**](#adding--editing-a-default-approval-rule)
these can be scoped to all the protected branches at once by navigating to your project's
**Settings**, expanding **Merge request approvals**, and selecting **Any branch** from
the **Target branch** dropdown.

Alternatively, you can select a very specific protected branch from the **Target branch** dropdown:

![Scoped to Protected Branch](img/scoped_to_protected_branch_v12_8.png)

To enable this configuration, see [Code Owner’s approvals for protected branches](../protected_branches.md#protected-branches-approval-by-code-owners).

### Adding or removing an approval

When an [eligible approver](#eligible-approvers) visits an open merge request,
one of the following is possible:

- If the required number of approvals has _not_ been yet met, they can approve
  it by clicking the displayed **Approve** button.

  ![Approve](img/approve.png)

- If the required number of approvals has already been met, they can still
  approve it by clicking the displayed **Approve additionally** button.

  ![Add approval](img/approve_additionally.png)

- **They have already approved this merge request**: They can remove their approval.

  ![Remove approval](img/remove_approval.png)

NOTE: **Note:**
The merge request author is not allowed to approve their own merge request if
[**Prevent author approval**](#allowing-merge-request-authors-to-approve-their-own-merge-requests)
is enabled in the project settings.

Once the approval rules have been met, the merge request can be merged if there is nothing
else blocking it. Note that the merge request could still be blocked by other conditions,
such as merge conflicts, [pending discussions](../../discussions/index.md#only-allow-merge-requests-to-be-merged-if-all-threads-are-resolved),
or a [failed CI/CD pipeline](merge_when_pipeline_succeeds.md).

### Merge request approvals project settings

The project settings for Merge request approvals are found by going to
**Settings > General** and expanding **Merge request approvals**.

#### Prevent overriding default approvals

Regardless of the approval rules you choose for your project, users can edit them in every merge
request, overriding the rules you set as [default](#adding--editing-a-default-approval-rule).
To prevent that from happening:

1. Uncheck the **Can override approvers and approvals required per merge request** checkbox.
1. Click **Save changes**.

#### Resetting approvals on push

You can force all approvals on a merge request to be removed when new commits are
pushed to the source branch of the merge request. If disabled, approvals will persist
even if there are changes added to the merge request. To enable this feature:

1. Check the **Remove all approvals in a merge request when new commits are pushed to its source branch**
   checkbox.
1. Click **Save changes**.

NOTE: **Note:**
Approvals do not get reset when [rebasing a merge request](fast_forward_merge.md)
from the UI. However, approvals will be reset if the target branch is changed.

#### Allowing merge request authors to approve their own merge requests

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/3349) in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 11.3.

By default, projects are configured to prevent merge requests from being approved by
their own authors. To change this setting:

1. Go to your project's **Settings > General**, expand **Merge request approvals**.
1. Uncheck the **Prevent approval of merge requests by merge request author** checkbox.
1. Click **Save changes**.

Note that users can edit the approval rules in every merge request and override pre-defined settings unless it's set [**not to allow** overrides](#prevent-overriding-default-approvals).

#### Prevent approval of merge requests by their committers

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/10441) in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 11.10.

You can prevent users that have committed to a merge request from approving it. To
enable this feature:

1. Check the **Prevent approval of merge requests by their committers** checkbox.
1. Click **Save changes**.

#### Require authentication when approving a merge request

> [Introduced](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/5981) in [GitLab Starter](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/) 12.0.

NOTE: **Note:**
To require authentication when approving a merge request, you must enable
**Password authentication enabled for web interface** under [sign-in restrictions](../../admin_area/settings/sign_in_restrictions.md#password-authentication-enabled).
in the Admin area.

You can force the approver to enter a password in order to authenticate before adding
the approval. This enables an Electronic Signature for approvals such as the one defined
by [CFR Part 11](https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?CFRPart=11&showFR=1&subpartNode=21:1.0.1.1.8.3)).
To enable this feature:

1. Check the **Require user password to approve** checkbox.
1. Click **Save changes**.

### Security approvals in merge requests **(ULTIMATE)**

Merge Request Approvals can be configured to require approval from a member
of your security team when a vulnerability would be introduced by a merge request.

For more information, see
[Security approvals in merge requests](../../application_security/index.md#security-approvals-in-merge-requests).

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