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Integrating an AI code reviewer into a GitHub workflow

Sara Verdi
Sara Verdi
Graphite software engineer
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Table of contents

Pull requests (PRs) are often a bottleneck in the development cycle. Even small delays in assigning reviewers, triaging comments, or waiting on reviewer bandwidth add up. An AI code reviewer can help by:

  • Surfacing low-hanging feedback (style, naming, anti-patterns) before a human looks
  • Catching obvious bugs or security issues early
  • Reducing back-and-forth cycles by preempting common reviewer comments
  • Improving consistency (same rule set applied uniformly)
  • Freeing human reviewers to focus on high-level design, domain logic, and architecture

Used well, this can cut PR turnaround time significantly — especially for routine checks and small PRs.

To integrate AI code review, you need a mechanism to invoke the AI tool on PR events and publish feedback back to GitHub. The typical flow is:

  1. A pull request (or commit push) triggers a webhook or action (GitHub’s pull_request event)
  2. The AI review system clones (or fetches) the diff/patch, along with relevant context (files changed, lines, project metadata)
  3. Static analysis or linters run first (e.g., ESLint, flake8)
  4. The diff + context is passed to an AI model (LLMs or fine-tuned models), which analyzes intent, patterns, possible issues, naming, etc.
  5. The AI tool generates review comments, suggestions, potentially “fix proposals”
  6. Via GitHub’s Review APIs (or as comments/status checks), the tool posts feedback to the PR
  7. Optionally, the review tool can gate merging (fail status, require review) or annotate with severity/badness
  8. Human reviewers jump into that feedback, accept or override, and finish the review

This architecture ensures AI acts as a first-pass reviewer, catching what’s mechanical so humans don’t repeat tedious checks.

There are multiple patterns to hook an AI reviewer into your GitHub workflow:

ApproachProsCons / Challenges
Dedicated webhook / external serviceDecoupled, scalable, can support multiple reposYou need to host/maintain the service; latency matters
GitHub Actions (self-hosted or marketplace)Easy to configure, versioned, part of your repoAction runtime limits, may incur cost, must integrate securely
GitHub bot / app with review privilegesCan comment/approve automaticallyNeed to manage permissions, rate limits, and avoid high false positives
Hybrid (webhook triggers an action or Lambda)Flexibility, offload heavy workloadsMore moving parts to maintain

In many AI review tool setups, the vendor provides a GitHub app that you install into your organization or repo; behind the scenes, it handles the webhook, computing, and comment feedback. Graphite is such a tool: it offers a GitHub app for code review layers atop GitHub.

With GitHub Actions, you might have a YAML like:

Terminal
name: ai-review
on:
pull_request:
types: [opened, edited, synchronize]
jobs:
run-ai-review:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: invoke ai reviewer
run: |
# call your AI service, passing diff or using CLI
ai-reviewer analyze --pr ${{ github.event.pull_request.number }}
- name: post comments
run: |
ai-reviewer post-comments

The AI tool (or its client) uses the GitHub API to post line comments, status checks, or request changes.

You should also think about:

  • Permissions: the AI bot must have write or comment permissions
  • Rate limits / concurrency
  • Secrets (API keys) stored securely
  • Incremental runs (only analyze changed files, not whole repo)

Graphite is a developer platform built on top of GitHub that enhances the code review and pull request experience. It introduces features like:

  • A stacked changes / stacked PR model (breaking a big change into a series of dependent PRs) to make each PR smaller, more digestible, and reviewable independently
  • A PR inbox / review queue abstraction so reviewers can see prioritized PRs in one place
  • Merge protections, reviewer assignment logic, automations, and code owner integrations
  • Real-time syncing with GitHub so Graphite acts as a “layer” over your GitHub repos

On top of Graphite’s review features, Graphite offers an AI code reviewer product named Graphite Agent. Graphite Agent can:

  • Detect bugs, style inconsistencies, security vulnerabilities, performance issues, documentation gaps, naming issues, etc.
  • Propose actionable fixes or suggestions
  • Integrate seamlessly into Graphite’s review pipeline and PR inbox, surfacing AI feedback inline with human reviews
  • Operate with high speed, reducing feedback loops massively (Graphite claims going from ~1 hour to ~90 seconds)
  • Maintain developer trust: Graphite reports 96% positive feedback on AI comments and ~67% of suggested changes are implemented

Because Graphite Agent is tightly integrated with Graphite’s review model, you get:

  • AI feedback aligned with the stacked PR approach (so each small PR can get AI review)
  • A unified experience (Graphite UI + AI comments)
  • Support for gating merges or flagging issues before human review
  • Less friction in adoption (you don’t have to bolt on an AI tool separately)
  • Start small / pilot: roll out AI review to a subset of repos or teams first.
  • Tweak the false-positive budget: avoid overly aggressive AI feedback.
  • Human-in-the-loop always: humans must review nontrivial logic, architecture, and domain decisions.
  • Monitor metrics: track PR latency, comment counts, reviewer time, merge failures.
  • Establish guidelines: define which AI suggestions are “must-fix” vs “optional”.
  • Contextual awareness: AI models sometimes miss domain or business logic context.
  • Security & privacy: ensure the AI reviewer does not leak sensitive code or data.
  • Review large diffs carefully: AI sometimes struggles with very large or monolithic diffs.
  • Expect an adoption curve: engineers must trust the tool.

Start with conservative thresholds (only flag issues with high confidence), disable lower-impact suggestions initially, and gather team feedback. Iterate configuration so AI does not become a distraction.

Support depends on the AI tool, but Graphite Agent targets general-purpose use across common backend/frontend stacks. Check documentation for details.

Graphite asserts that Graphite Agent does not train on your private codebase, preserving code confidentiality.

Graphite claims a reduction in AI feedback loop time from ~1 hour to ~90 seconds (~40× faster). Results may vary based on repo size, diff size, and latency.

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