Code Review Flow

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Overview

Kody reviews your PRs automatically or on demand, adds clear suggestions, and helps your team decide when to merge. Below is the simple, user-facing view of how it works. Reference: Figma board

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When Kody Runs

• PR opened
• New commit pushed to the PR (depending on cadence)
• Manual trigger via comment: @kody start-review

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When Kody Skips

• No new commits since the last run
• Only merge commits with no effective changes
• All changed files ignored by configured patterns
• PR exceeds the configured file limit
• Invalid or missing configuration

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What Kody Does

• Resolves which settings apply (global → repo → directory) and validates them
• Collects the relevant diffs and context for this PR
• Runs PR-level checks (e.g., custom rules and cross-file analysis when enabled)
• Reviews changed files with focus on the diff
• Filters and prioritizes suggestions to reduce noise (relevance, severity, dedupe, safeguards)
• Posts inline comments and, when applicable, a PR-level summary
• Optionally approves or requests changes if those policies are enabled
• Remembers the last analyzed commit to keep follow-ups incremental

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What You Get

• Inline comments with concrete suggestions
• Optional PR-level summary with highlights
• Optional status: approved or changes requested (if enabled)

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Status Reactions

Kody uses emoji reactions to show the live status of your code review directly in your Git provider. No guessing whether she’s working, done, or ran into a problem. She always replaces the previous emoji with the latest status (for example: 🚀 → 🎉, 👀, or 😕).

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What each emoji means

• 🚀 Processing — Kody is working on your code:
  • Analyzing files
  • Checking rules and policies
  • Generating suggestions
• 🎉 Completed — Review finished:
  • All comments posted
  • Analysis complete
  • You can review the suggestions
• 👀 Skipped — Review was skipped. Common reasons include:
  • No new commits since the last run
  • Only merge commits detected
  • PR/MR exceeds the configured file limit
  • No relevant files to review (ignored patterns)
  • Branch not configured for review
  • PR/MR in draft mode (if configured to skip drafts)
• 😕 Error — Something went wrong:
  • Temporary technical issue during the review
  • Try again; join our Discord community if it persists

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Where reactions appear

• Automatic review (PR opened or new commit): reaction on the PR/MR description (top of the thread)
• Manual review (comment @kody start-review): reaction on your comment where you invoked Kody

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Example scenarios

• New PR (automatic): 🚀 while running → 🎉 when finished
• Manual command: 🚀 on your comment → 🎉 when finished
• No changes since last run: 👀 reaction
• Temporary issue: 😕 reaction

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FAQs

I don’t see reactions

• GitHub/GitLab: ✅ | Azure DevOps/Bitbucket: ❌ (not supported yet)

Why did the emoji change?

• Normal—Kody replaces previous status (🚀 → 🎉/👀/😕)

I saw 👀 but wanted a review

• Likely skipped: no new commits, merge-only, ignored files, or file limit
• Fix: comment @kody start-review

I saw 😕

• Retry with @kody start-review. If persists, check Troubleshooting or Discord

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Settings That Matter

• Automated vs manual reviews and follow-up cadence
• Ignore patterns and base branches in scope
• Custom rules and cross-file analysis
• Suggestion controls: severity filter, grouping, and max suggestions
• File limits and timeouts

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Tips

• Keep PRs small—large diffs reduce review quality
• Link specs/tickets in PR description
• Re-run with @kody start-review after addressing feedback