Open Merge Requests (MRs) Count Feature for User Profile

Summary

Implement functionality to fetch and display the number of open merge requests authored by a user in the Account Statistics dashboard. This enhances user visibility into their current development workload and activity status.

Problem to Solve

As a GitLab user, I want to see my open merge requests count so that I can track my ongoing contributions and review workload easily.

Intended Users

Developers
Contributors
Project Maintainers
Team Leads

User Experience Goal

Users should be able to view their open merge request count directly in the Account Statistics panel, without navigating into GitLab manually.

Proposal

Extend GitLab API client to fetch open merge requests authored by the user.
Compute total count.
Display the result in the Account Statistics UI as "Open MRs".
Handle API failures and permission restrictions gracefully by returning 0 or N/A.

Expected Flow:

User Login → Fetch User ID → Fetch Open MRs → Display Count → Show in Dashboard

Further Details

This feature improves:

Productivity tracking
Activity awareness
Project monitoring

Technical considerations:

GitLab API rate limits
Token permission validation
Network error handling

Security or Permissions Considerations

Requires GitLab API token with read_api permission.
Must ensure secure token handling via environment variables.
No elevated permissions required.

Documentation Impact

Update README.md to include:
- Required token permissions
- Description of Account Statistics metrics

Testing Considerations

Unit test for API response handling
Edge case testing:
- No merge requests
- Invalid token
- API downtime
UI validation

Milestone & Labels

Milestone: User Profile Dashboard
Labels: feature, backend, gitlab-api, enhancement