PR reviews
Choose which pull requests get reviewed, and teach the reviewer your team's rules.
Reviews run through the GitHub App. Everything below lives on the repository in the dashboard, under Code review. Organization owners can set defaults for every repository under Organization › Review defaults.
What lands on the pull request
- One status comment, updated as the review runs, with a link to it in the dashboard.
- Findings on the changed lines, each with a severity, a category and an explanation.
- One-click fixes as GitHub suggestions, when the fix lands exactly on the changed lines.
- A summary of what the change does, plus any finding that does not fit on a line.
Every finding is also listed under Findings in the dashboard, where you resolve or dismiss it.
When a review runs
| Switch | Default |
|---|---|
| A pull request is opened or reopened | on |
| New commits are pushed (re-reviews only what changed) | off |
Someone comments @patch-light review | on |
On a public repository, pull requests from outside contributors are not reviewed automatically, so
a stranger cannot spend your balance. An owner, member or collaborator can still start one by
commenting @patch-light review. Private repositories review every author.
Filters narrow it down: skip draft pull requests, review only pull requests into certain
branches (like main or release/*), or ignore authors like dependabot[bot].
For anything else, Automation flow is a visual editor of the same rules: an event (opened, new commits, ready for review, merged, a comment), conditions (branches, paths, labels, author, draft), and an action.
Team rules
Write your standards in plain English, like "All API routes validate input with zod". The reviewer checks every pull request against them, and a broken rule shows up as a finding. Up to 30 per repository, plus 30 workspace-wide.
Limits
A review typically costs a cent or two. Set a monthly budget on the repository (under Repository) or a monthly spend cap for the workspace (under Billing). When either is reached, new reviews are skipped.
Not on GitHub? The same reviewer runs from any CI: see Review in CI.