Is there a way to see merge request information on the pipeline run after the merge request is merged?

I’m trying to set up a job that after merge will deploy everything to production and create a gitlab release. I currently have most of that, but I’d like to be able to use information from the gitlab merge request inside the creation of the release. For example, we’ll put some release notes and images there - I then want those to be copied to the release.

While the Merge Request is active, I know that CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE and CI_MERGE_REQUEST_DESCRIPTION are populated - I’m trying to get those a stage later. So if possible, a variable would be available if that pipeline/push was triggered from the merging of a pull request. Any ideas? There’s various hacks like checking the merge request that is referenced in the commit message, but I was looking for something easier.

I’ve currently tried doing this, but as in the docs, all the CI_MERGE_REQUEST variables are only available while the MR is open.

Thanks,
Steve