glab-label

glab label

Manage labels at project and group level.

Quick start

# Create project label
glab label create --name bug --color "#FF0000"

# Create group label
glab label create --group my-group --name priority::high --color "#FF6B00"

# List labels
glab label list

# Update label
glab label edit bug --color "#CC0000" --description "Software defects"

# Delete label
glab label delete bug

Decision: Project vs Group Labels?

Where should this label live?
├─ Used across multiple projects in a group
│  └─ Group-level: glab label create --group <group> --name <label>
└─ Specific to one project
   └─ Project-level: glab label create --name <label>

Use group-level labels when:

• You want consistent labeling across all projects in a group
• Managing organization-wide workflows
• Examples: priority::high, type::bug, status::blocked
• Reduces duplication and ensures consistency

Use project-level labels when:

• Label is specific to project workflow
• Team wants control over their own labels
• Examples: needs-ux-review, deploy-to-staging, legacy-code

Common workflows

Creating a label taxonomy

Set up priority labels (group-level):

glab label create --group engineering --name "priority::critical" --color "#FF0000"
glab label create --group engineering --name "priority::high" --color "#FF6B00"
glab label create --group engineering --name "priority::medium" --color "#FFA500"
glab label create --group engineering --name "priority::low" --color "#FFFF00"

Set up type labels (group-level):

glab label create --group engineering --name "type::bug" --color "#FF0000"
glab label create --group engineering --name "type::feature" --color "#00FF00"
glab label create --group engineering --name "type::maintenance" --color "#0000FF"

Managing project-specific labels

Create workflow labels:

glab label create --name "needs-review" --color "#428BCA"
glab label create --name "ready-to-merge" --color "#5CB85C"
glab label create --name "blocked" --color "#D9534F"

Bulk operations

List all labels to review:

glab label list --per-page 100 > labels.txt

When GitLab supplies a total in its pagination response, the text header reports that real total label count rather than merely the number returned on the current page. Use --page and --per-page to retrieve additional pages; do not infer that every label is present just because the displayed total is larger than the rows shown.

Delete deprecated labels:

glab label delete old-label-1
glab label delete old-label-2

Related Skills

Using labels:

• See glab-issue for applying labels to issues
• See glab-mr for applying labels to merge requests
• Script: scripts/batch-label-issues.sh for bulk labeling

Structured output

glab label get supports --output json / -F json for structured output, which is useful for agent automation.

# Get a label with JSON output
glab label get <label-id> --output json
glab label get <label-id> -F json

Command reference

For complete command documentation and all flags, see references/commands.md.

Available commands:

• create - Create label (project or group)
• list - List labels
• edit - Update label properties
• delete - Delete label
• get - View single label details