Have you tried `hub`? https://github.com/github/hub

    ~/src/bar (foo =)$ hub pull-request
    https://github.com/foo/bar/pull/5

There is also `hub fork` and others:

    These GitHub commands are provided by hub:

       pull-request   Open a pull request on GitHub
       fork           Make a fork of a remote repository on GitHub and add as remote
       create         Create this repository on GitHub and add GitHub as origin
       browse         Open a GitHub page in the default browser
       compare        Open a compare page on GitHub
       release        List or create releases (beta)
       issue          List or create issues (beta)
       ci-status      Show the CI status of a commit

You mean something like this? GitLab just added the feature; it looks like what you're asking for.

https://about.gitlab.com/2016/08/22/gitlab-8-11-released/#mr...

Depending how small the fix is, you can edit a file in any project right from the GitLab interface, and a fork and merge request will be created automatically in the background! The only thing left to do is to remove the fork after the MR has been accepted.

This doesn't really help for anything except for content editing (e.g., markdown). Consider the above example: the original poster now has all these files they've changed on disk. The best case scenario now involves opening all those files up one by one and pasting them into the browser's textarea. (Can you change multiple files this way and wrap it up into a single atomic commit? Whatever the case, this actually results in a lot more pointy-clicky, not less.)

A patch is a unit of change. Historically, that's the type of unit that the open source world has operated with. The only reason we're having this conversation right now is because GitHub decided to build on top of pull requests instead of patches for lock-in reasons. GitLab has no such motivations, so it's silly to continue following them, especially since Git has had native support for patches from the beginning.

Just support patches already.

You can use GitHub's web UI to do all of that.

Right. But what I'm saying is that you have to use GitHub's web UI to do all of that.

GitLab has an API, and a it's possible to create merge requests through it. I scripted 'turn a commit into merge request' as a Gradle command at the company where I work. So, it's doable.

Someone else in this thread also linked to command line tools, I haven't looked at them, but those might promising.