Zero2Commit: The visual fast-track to your first commit

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  Architecture

Inspiration

Every engineering team has felt the hidden cost of onboarding. A new developer joins, and senior engineers are pulled into repeated knowledge-transfer sessions: architecture walkthroughs, data-flow explanations, ownership handoffs, historical decision context, best practices, and "who should I ask about this?" conversations.

We built Zero2Commit around a simple idea: if GitLab Orbit can understand the structure of a codebase, an agent should be able to turn that context into a visual onboarding experience. Not just another chat answer, but a generated artifact a new teammate can watch, inspect, and use before making their first commit.

What it does

Zero2Commit is a local-first GitLab Duo agent skill that generates a complete onboarding package for a repository.

It produces:

• An onboarding report
• A Mermaid architecture diagram
• Mermaid MCP validation and render proof
• A code ownership map
• A storyboard
• A narration script
• Natural-sounding ElevenLabs narration audio
• A first-commit implementation plan
• A HyperFrames/HeyGen-ready explainer video workflow

The generated walkthrough explains the architecture, important code paths, recent decisions, blast radius, reusable patterns, active owners, and a practical first contribution path.

How we built it

Zero2Commit runs as a custom GitLab Duo agent through the GitLab VS Code Extension. The agent uses a project-level skill that orchestrates several context sources and tools:

• GitLab Orbit for structured codebase context
• GitLab Duo repository tools for files, commits, issues, merge requests, vulnerabilities, and pipelines
• DuckDB/code graph tools when available for dependency and symbol analysis
• Mermaid MCP tools to validate and render architecture diagrams
• ElevenLabs MCP tools for natural narrator voice generation
• HyperFrames/HeyGen video generation through npm-based run_command workflows

The project includes a system prompt, reusable skill definition, artifact contract, tool map, storyboard template, app banner, and validator script. We also added guardrails so generated videos must include narration audio, voice-generation metadata, and architecture diagrams verified through Mermaid MCP before being treated as final.

Challenges we ran into

The hardest part was turning repository understanding into a reliable multi-modal workflow.

It is easy for an agent to summarize a repo in text. It is much harder to make it produce a structured artifact bundle with evidence, diagrams, narration, voice audio, video composition files, and validation checks.

We also ran into a practical video-generation issue: the first generated MP4 had no audio stream. HyperFrames requires audio to be wired as a separate <audio> element, so we updated the Zero2Commit skill and validator to require a narration audio asset, an audio clip in the composition, and audio-stream verification with ffprobe.

Another challenge was making Mermaid validation explicit. We did not want raw diagram text to be treated as "done", so the skill now requires validate_and_render_mermaid_diagram output, a saved render artifact, and a verification JSON file.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud that Zero2Commit unifies many onboarding needs into one workflow instead of treating them as disconnected chat prompts.

It covers:

• Unfamiliar code-path explanation
• Architecture and data-flow walkthroughs
• Dependency and blast-radius investigation
• Vulnerability and risk tracing
• Reusable pattern discovery
• Active owner mapping
• Feature idea to implementation planning
• Video-based contributor onboarding

We are also proud of the artifact contract. The agent does not just talk; it has to generate files that can be inspected, validated, reused, and improved.

What we learned

We learned that context is only valuable when it becomes action.

GitLab Orbit gives the agent structured understanding, but the developer experience improves when that understanding is transformed into something concrete: a diagram, a map, a plan, narration, and a video.

We also learned that multi-modal agent workflows need strict validation. Without explicit checks, it is easy to accidentally ship a silent video, an unverified diagram, or a claim with no evidence. Zero2Commit now treats those as validation failures instead of acceptable output.

What's next for Zero2Commit: The visual fast-track to your first commit

Next, we want Zero2Commit to become a repeatable onboarding layer for any GitLab project.

Planned improvements include:

• Adding richer Orbit queries for ownership, dependency centrality, and architectural drift
• Supporting multiple onboarding modes: newcomer, security reviewer, feature implementer, and incident responder
• Generating short role-specific videos for frontend, backend, DevOps, and security contributors
• Adding CI integration so onboarding artifacts can refresh automatically after major architecture changes
• Improving HyperFrames composition quality, ElevenLabs narration, and captions for polished demo-ready videos

Built With

• gitlab
• mermaid
• orbit