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Overview

Customize the messages that Kody sends at the beginning and end of code reviews. This feature allows you to personalize the communication style and add specific context or instructions for your team. In the sidebar, open Code review → What Kody writes. The messages are in the Comments during the review section, with one tab per message: Review starts, Review ends and Review fails. Each tab has a Message box and a Reset to… menu (restore the inherited message, or the default message at Global).

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Default Behavior

When you haven’t customized any messages, Kody works as follows:
  1. Initial Message: Kody sends a standard start review message
  2. Suggestions: Kody provides all code review suggestions
  3. Final Message: Kody updates the initial message with a summary of the review

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Custom Message Behavior

Once you edit either the start or end review message for the first time, Kody’s behavior changes to:
  1. Initial Message: Kody sends your custom start review message
  2. Suggestions: Kody provides all code review suggestions
  3. Final Message: Kody sends your custom end review message (without updating the initial message)
This creates a complete timeline: Initial Message → Suggestions → Final Message

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Message Configuration Options

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Post this message

On the Review starts and Review ends tabs, use the Post this message select to decide when Kody should post that message (each message has its own setting):
  • Important: Messages are only sent when a review actually runs.
    If your review cadence is Manual, messages are posted only when someone runs @kody start-review.
  • On every push (every_push): posted when the pull request opens and again after every new push that triggers a review. This happens automatically only when cadence is Automatic or Auto-pause.
  • Only when the PR opens (only_when_opened): posted only once, right after the first review run. If cadence is Manual, the first review run is when you call @kody start-review. Future pushes just add review suggestions plus the usual reaction so authors know the review reran.
  • Never (off): the message is not posted; the text is kept for later. Kody still runs the review and posts suggestions.
When a message is set to On every push or Only when the PR opens, Kody uses whichever templates you have filled in. If you only customize the start message, only that message is sent; same for the end message. This keeps the familiar timeline of Initial Message → Suggestions → Final Message whenever the behavior allows messages to be posted. Example (Manual cadence)
PR opened → no message yet
@kody start-review → start message → suggestions → end message

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Dynamic Context

You can enhance your custom messages with dynamic context using the Add context menu next to Message (on the Review starts and Review ends tabs). This allows you to include:

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changedFiles

A summary of changed files, showing additions and deletions per file. This provides a detailed breakdown of what was modified in the pull request.

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changeSummary

A comprehensive summary of all changes in the pull request, giving an overview of the entire modification scope.

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reviewOptions

A reflection of the team’s configured review settings, showing which review categories are enabled or disabled for the review.

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reviewCadence

Provides the exact follow-up review policy so authors know what happens after the first automated review:
  • Automatic: Kody re-reviews every push as soon as it lands.
  • Auto-pause: Kody re-reviews pushes automatically, but if it detects a “push burst” (for example, 3 pushes within 15 minutes, based on your thresholds) it pauses follow-up reviews until you resume them. The cadence context includes the push and time limits so the team knows when the pause can be triggered.
  • Manual: Kody waits for someone to run @kody start-review before doing another pass.

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reviewScope

Shows which configuration level — global, repository, or directory — was used to review this pull request, so authors know which settings applied.

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agentPrompt

End review message only. It bundles the review’s line-comment suggestions, which don’t exist until the review has run — so it isn’t offered on the start message.
Bundles every suggestion from the review into a single, copy‑paste prompt block (rendered as a collapsible Open Agent Prompt). Paste it into your coding agent to apply all of the review’s fixes at once.
These context variables will be automatically populated with the actual data from your pull request when Kody sends the message.
In kodus-config.yml these are written with an @ prefix — @changedFiles, @changeSummary, @reviewOptions, @reviewCadence, @reviewScope, @agentPrompt — placed anywhere inside the message content. The Add context menu inserts the same tokens for you in the web UI.

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Error message

Separate from the start/end pair, you can append your own text to the comment Kody posts when a review fails — for example when no BYOK provider is configured, or the provider rejected the request. Write it on the Review fails tab. There is no on/off setting for this message: the text itself is the switch.
  • Empty (default) — Kody posts its standard error comment unchanged.
  • Filled in — your text is appended below the standard error comment.
Use it to point people at the right internal owner or runbook instead of leaving them with a generic failure:
Leaving content empty keeps the default error message unchanged.

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Comment visibility (global settings)

Two toggles that apply to every Kody comment, not just custom messages. They are in the Comment visibility section of What Kody writes:
You can always revert to the default behavior by disabling both custom messages or clearing the message content.