GitLab 18.2 adds Duo Agent Platform in the IDE, custom workflow statuses for issues & more

GitLab 18.2 brings notable enhancements for development workflows, security, and compliance. The release introduces the Duo Agent Platform in beta, letting users interact naturally with codebases and GitLab projects through chat and agent flows integrated directly into Visual Studio Code and JetBrains IDEs. This platform also supports Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling AI tools to draw on context from external data sources beyond GitLab.

Building on workflow improvements, this version adds configurable status for work items, letting teams move beyond the basic open or closed model to track tasks across all stages of their process. A new merge request homepage now prioritizes review workload with both workflow-based and role-based viewing modes.

Further advancing artifact and deployment security, new immutable container tags help prevent tampering with container images after creation. Compliance managers gain an aggregated group compliance dashboard, providing a comprehensive overview across all projects, and centralized security policy management now streamlines policy enforcement through a single compliance group.

Following infrastructure updates, administrators can map workspace Kubernetes agents for the entire instance, allowing workspace creation from any group or project. Security dashboards can now be exported as PDF documents to aid in audit and reporting requirements. Numerous other improvements and bug fixes address overall stability and usability of the DevOps platform.