GitLab reviewer vs assignee: who does what, and how to request a review

Every GitLab merge request has two lists of people in its right sidebar, Assignees and Reviewers, and teams use them differently enough that it’s easy to get confused. Here is what each role means in 2026, how to request and re-request a review, and how reviewer status relates to approvals.

Assignee vs reviewer

	Assignee	Reviewer
What they do	Owns the merge request and is responsible for its progress	Reviews the changes and gives feedback
Usually	The author	A teammate or subject expert
Can approve	If eligible under the approval rules	If eligible under the approval rules
Set with	/assign @name, or Assignees › Edit	/assign_reviewer @name, or Reviewers › Edit
How many	One on Free, several on Premium and Ultimate	One on Free, several on Premium and Ultimate

Neither list decides whose approval counts. On Premium and Ultimate, approval rules do that; see can you approve your own GitLab merge request?

Request a review

When your changes are ready, either:

• comment /assign_reviewer @alex in any text field on the merge request (on Premium and Ultimate, several names work, separated by spaces), or
• in the right sidebar’s Reviewers section, select Edit and pick the person.

On Premium and Ultimate, select Assign in the same section to open the Assign reviewers drawer. It lists, for each approval rule and for the Code Owners of the changed files, the people who would satisfy it.

The reviewer gets a to-do item, the merge request appears among their review requests on the Merge requests homepage, and, depending on their notification settings, an email.

Re-request a review

After you address the feedback, select the Re-request a review icon next to the reviewer’s name in the Reviewers section, or comment /request_review @alex. GitLab resets their review status, creates a new to-do item for them and sends a notification email.

The same command adds a new reviewer if the person isn’t one yet: /assign_reviewer and /reviewer are aliases of /request_review. To swap reviewers use /reassign_reviewer; to remove them, /unassign_reviewer.

What the reviewer statuses mean

The Reviewers section shows where each review stands:

• Awaiting review: requested, not started.
• Reviewer started review: they have pending comments that aren’t published yet.
• Reviewed and approved.
• Reviewed and requested changes: on Premium and Ultimate this blocks the merge. The merge request shows “Change requests must be approved by the requesting user” until that reviewer re-reviews and approves or selects Remove. If they’re unavailable, someone else with permission to merge can Bypass it.

Doing the review

Reviewers work in batches rather than one comment at a time:

1. On the merge request’s Changes tab, write a comment and select Start a review. It stays unpublished; Add comment now would publish it straight away.
2. Add more comments with Add to review.
3. Select Your review at the upper right, check your pending comments, and choose an outcome: Approve, Comment or Request changes.
4. Submit. GitLab publishes the comments together and sends one email to everyone who should be notified.

Selecting Approve in the merge request widget also submits your review, and Discard review throws away unpublished comments for good.

Let GitLab pick reviewers

Both options are Premium and Ultimate:

• Automatic reviewer assignment (GitLab 19.1 and later). In Settings › Merge requests, select Automatically assign all code owners as reviewers. GitLab adds every Code Owner of the changed files when a merge request is created ready, or when a draft is marked ready. It skips drafts and merge requests that already have a reviewer, not counting @GitLabDuo. The project needs a CODEOWNERS file.
• Recommend Reviewers Flow (generally available in 19.5). It suggests reviewers in the sidebar based on your approval rules, Code Owner rules included. It runs on the GitLab Duo Agent Platform, so GitLab Duo must be on, and a top-level group Owner must turn on Allow flow execution, Allow foundational flows and Recommend Reviewers.

GitLab Duo can be a reviewer too: assign @GitLabDuo. More in can Claude or ChatGPT review a GitLab merge request?

Review requests on your phone

A review request is a to-do, so it reaches MergeBell’s inbox and sends a push, checked every five minutes on the free tier. Open it to read the diff, comment on a line and approve, all on the free tier. Review drafts with Request changes are part of Pro. See how to review a GitLab merge request on your phone.