Issue closing pattern

Note: This is the administration documentation. There is a separate user documentation on issue closing pattern.

When a commit or merge request resolves one or more issues, it is possible to automatically have these issues closed when the commit or merge request lands in the project's default branch.

Change the issue closing pattern

In order to change the pattern you need to have access to the server that GitLab is installed on.

The default pattern can be located in gitlab.yml.example under the "Automatic issue closing" section.

Tip: You are advised to use http://rubular.com to test the issue closing pattern. Because Rubular doesn't understand %{issue_ref}, you can replace this by #\d+ when testing your patterns, which matches only local issue references like #123.

For Omnibus installations

1. Open /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb with your editor.

2. Change the value of gitlab_rails['issue_closing_pattern'] to a regular expression of your liking:

   gitlab_rails['issue_closing_pattern'] = "((?:[Cc]los(?:e[sd]|ing)|[Ff]ix(?:e[sd]|ing)?) +(?:(?:issues? +)?%{issue_ref}(?:(?:, *| +and +)?))+)"

3. Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

For installations from source

1. Open gitlab.yml with your editor.

2. Change the value of issue_closing_pattern:

   issue_closing_pattern: "((?:[Cc]los(?:e[sd]|ing)|[Ff]ix(?:e[sd]|ing)?) +(?:(?:issues? +)?%{issue_ref}(?:(?:, *| +and +)?))+)"

3. Restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.