First time GitLab user and I'm a bit confused when reviewing someone's merge request. Whenever I add a comment I get prompted with 2 options [Submit review] and [Add comment now].
What's the difference between the 2? Why is there a need for 2 options?
Just heard this from my colleagues, so not sure if this is 100% accurate:
Add comment now: instantly adds the comment to the review and notifies the reviewer that a comment has been added. So if you choose this option X times, the reviewer receives X notifications.
Submit review: You can add as many comments as you want in as many files as you want. If you choose this option at the end of your review, the reviewer will receive only 1 notification containing all of your comments.
An additional difference: the submit review now (Aug. 2022) comes with a summary.
See GitLab 15.3 (August 2022)
Submit merge request review with summary comment
When you finish reviewing a merge request, there are probably some common things that you do, like summarizing your review for others or approving the changes if they look good to you.
Those common tasks are now quicker and easier: when you submit your review, you can add a summary comment along with any quick actions like
/approve.
See Documentation and Issue.
