roborak

AI code review from the terminal — local diffs, GitLab MRs, and GitHub PRs.

Severity-graded, line-anchored findings with committable fix suggestions.

Documentation · Install · Usage · How it works · Configuration · Security · License

What it does

Status: feature complete. Local diffs, GitLab MRs, GitHub PRs, issue context, static analysis, custom rules, posting and every output mode work end to end.

Install

uvx roborak review       # try it without installing anything

uv tool install roborak             # or: pipx install roborak
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...        # or OPENAI_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, …
roborak review           # review everything that differs from the base branch

rk is a shorter alias for the same command. That is the whole quick start. Everything below is optional.

uv sync                  # or: uv sync --all-extras, for tree-sitter AST context
uv run roborak review

llm:
  api_keys:
    anthropic: sk-ant-...
    openai: sk-...
  api_base: http://localhost:11434   # optional: proxy, Azure, or a local Ollama

Use

uv run roborak review                       # everything that differs from the base branch
uv run roborak review --base main           # compare against a specific ref
uv run roborak review --uncommitted         # staged and unstaged edits only
uv run roborak review --committed --base main
uv run roborak review --include-untracked
uv run roborak review --no-llm              # static analysis only; no API key needed
uv run roborak review --no-static           # model only, skip the linters
uv run roborak review --no-walkthrough      # skip the overview; one model call, not two
uv run roborak review --full                # add the agent prompts and the review info
uv run roborak review --panels              # one finding to a panel, not the report
uv run roborak review > review.md           # piped: the raw markdown, chrome on stderr

Forges

uv run roborak review --mr 298              # a GitLab merge request
uv run roborak review --mr https://gitlab.com/acme/web/-/merge_requests/298
uv run roborak review --pr 42               # a GitHub pull request
uv run roborak review --mr 298 --post       # publish inline threads + a summary
uv run roborak review --mr 298 --post --repost   # re-post findings already sent
uv run roborak review --mr 298 --no-discussions # ignore existing MR discussion
uv run roborak review --mr 298 --no-post    # review it, never ask about publishing

Issue context

uv run roborak review --issue 42            # review whatever MR/PR implements issue 42
uv run roborak review --issue https://gitlab.com/acme/web/-/issues/42
uv run roborak review --mr 298 --issue 42   # review MR 298, judged against issue 42
uv run roborak review --issue 42 --base main     # local diff, judged against issue 42

Output and filtering

uv run roborak review --json                # full result as JSON
uv run roborak review --agent               # JSON for another agent to act on
uv run roborak review --prompt-only         # findings as fix instructions
uv run roborak review --markdown report.md  # walkthrough-style markdown report
uv run roborak review -m openai/gpt-5       # any LiteLLM model string
uv run roborak review -s major              # only major and critical
uv run roborak review --fail-on critical    # non-zero exit for CI

Other commands

uv run roborak describe                     # title, overview, per-file table, mermaid flow
uv run roborak improve                      # suggestions only, every one committable
uv run roborak ask "why is this locked?"    # a question answered from the diff

uv run roborak rules init                   # scaffold .roborak/rules/ with an example
uv run roborak rules list                   # what roborak will apply here
uv run roborak rules test <rule.md> <file>  # validate a rule and check its scope
uv run roborak setup                        # guided first run: model, key, forge tokens
uv run roborak config init                  # write a commented .roborak.yaml
uv run roborak config init --global         # …or ~/.config/roborak/config.yaml, mode 600
uv run roborak config show                  # the effective config, all layers merged

Each accepts the same --mr / --pr / --issue / --base targeting as review.

Tokens

--mr needs GITLAB_TOKEN (or ROBORAK_GITLAB_TOKEN, or CI's CI_JOB_TOKEN). --pr needs GITHUB_TOKEN, or an existing gh auth login session, which roborak will use automatically. --issue needs whichever of the two matches the issue's forge, inferred from the URL or the git remote.

Like the LLM keys, these can live in the config file instead of the shell:

forge:
  tokens:
    gitlab: glpat-...
    github: ghp_...

A configured token wins over GITLAB_TOKEN / GITHUB_TOKEN and over the gh session, while ROBORAK_GITLAB_TOKEN / ROBORAK_GITHUB_TOKEN still win over the file. They are secrets on disk, so the same advice applies: keep them in ~/.config/roborak/config.yaml (roborak config init --global creates it mode 600) or in a .roborak.yaml your repo ignores. roborak config show redacts them.

Self-hosted instances

A bare --mr 705 has to work out which server it means, which it normally reads off the repository's git remote. Name the instance in the config for the cases where that does not answer it — no remote, or a remote pointing at a mirror:

forge:
  hosts:
    gitlab: gitlab.acme.com
    github: http://gh.local:8080   # https is assumed unless you say otherwise

The git remote still wins: a domain configured user-wide can never hijack a checkout whose remote plainly says otherwise, and a full URL passed to --mr / --pr / --issue beats both. ROBORAK_GITLAB_HOST / ROBORAK_GITHUB_HOST set the same thing from the environment.

A configured host also teaches roborak which forge an unrecognisable domain is, so --issue 24 works in a repo whose remote is something like git.acme.com rather than failing with "could not tell which forge".

How it works

One directional pipeline; each stage only knows the stage before it.

Source → ChangeSet → Compressor → Static pass → LLM → Validator → Renderer

• ChangeSet is the universal IR. Local git, GitLab, GitHub and raw paths all normalise into it, so nothing downstream knows where the code came from.
• Line anchoring is the correctness-critical part. Findings are always in new-file coordinates; Hunk.line_map records each line's position within the diff, and only the publishers translate that into a forge's position payload. tests/test_local_git.py checks the computed numbers against the real files on disk, so an off-by-one cannot agree with itself and pass.
• The validator drops findings that do not point at a changed line, snapping near misses onto the nearest one, then filters by confidence and severity and collapses duplicates. Most of roborak's usefulness is in what it refuses to say.
• The static pass runs whichever of ruff, mypy, semgrep, eslint and phpstan the repo actually has, using the project's own config — the rules a team already agreed to. Findings on lines the change did not touch are dropped, so a linted file's pre-existing debt never lands on the author. What survives is fed to the model as evidence to confirm or explain, rather than reported raw.
• Every finding is routed, not just printed. A finding that points at a changed line and is worth interrupting for goes inline on the diff, where the author is already looking. A nitpick is folded into the summary instead, so the small stuff cannot drown the review. And one that cannot be anchored is reported in the summary under a warning banner rather than discarded — roborak used to count those as failures and show them only in the terminal, which meant nobody reading the merge request learned they existed. roborak.core.buckets is the one place that decides, so the terminal, the markdown report, the summary comment and the publisher cannot disagree about where a finding belongs.
• Publishing translates new-file coordinates into each forge's position payload, and only there. GitLab needs all three of base_sha/start_sha/ head_sha from the MR's own diff_refs; GitHub takes one review containing every comment, always as COMMENT — roborak never approves or requests changes on your behalf. A rejected comment never costs you the rest of the review.
• Incremental review fingerprints each finding independently of its line number, so re-running on a new push posts only what is genuinely new instead of repeating itself. State lives in .roborak/state.json; --repost overrides it.
• Existing review discussion is context, not instruction. Forge reviews include bounded unresolved human comments by default, while dropping system notes, bots, stale positions and roborak's own output. --no-discussions disables it.
• Deciding to publish comes after reading the review. --post has to be chosen before the model has said anything, so an interactive run ends by asking instead — post it, save it as markdown, or neither — showing first how many inline comments are new and how many an earlier run already sent. A local diff has nowhere to post, so only saving is offered. The question is asked only on a terminal: a pipe, a script and a CI job are never prompted, and --no-post or output.confirm_post turns it off for good.
• The overview is a second pass. review asks for a walkthrough after it has the findings, which is what fills the summary comment and the markdown report's file table. It runs on a copy of the changeset, because compression mutates and shrinking the diff the findings were anchored against would corrupt every line number already reported. A failed overview is logged, never fatal: a review without one is still a review, and must still exit clean. --no-walkthrough skips it.
• An overview is written once per shape of a change. The published summary carries a digest of its changed files and hunk headers. Re-posting to the same merge request compares that digest against the diff in front of it: unmoved means the story is unmoved, so the model is not asked again and the existing comment stays put. When it has moved, the overview is rewritten and that same comment is edited in place rather than a second one appended. --repost forces a fresh overview, as it does for inline findings.
• Output modes share one result object, so the terminal report, the markdown file, the JSON payload and the forge comment can never disagree. --json, --agent and --prompt-only write to stdout alone, so they stay pipeable.
• The report is built for skimming. Findings are grouped into collapsible sections by where they belong, badged with category, severity and the effort a fix will cost, and each one carries a 🤖 prompt a coding agent can act on — plus one collated block for the whole review. A <!-- roborak:v1:… --> marker records each finding's identity in the comment itself, so a published review carries a record of itself that does not depend on local state.
• There is one document, and you read it before you publish it. One renderer builds it, so what --markdown writes, what a pipe gives back and what --post publishes are byte for byte the same thing — asserted by a test, because it is the invariant a refactor would quietly break. It means the comment repeats the findings that also went out as inline threads, which is the deliberate half of the trade: a comment that omitted them would be a fourth document nobody had read before it was published.
• How it reaches you depends on who is reading. Redirected or piped it is the raw markdown, so roborak review > review.md gives back exactly the publishable file. At a terminal it is rendered — headings, tables, severity in colour, the flagged lines shown in context from your working tree, syntax-highlighted fixes. Everything roborak says about a run — spinners, errors, the closing question — goes to stderr either way.
• A terminal cannot fold a section, so it leaves them out instead. A report is built to be skimmed by opening what you want, and every <details> opened at once is the opposite of that: on a twenty-finding review the per-finding agent prompts alone outweigh the findings. The rendered form drops the sections written for a machine — the agent prompts, the review-info tree — and puts what a reader must not lose (an omitted file, a skipped file, an error) in a one-line footer instead. --full restores them. What it never drops is the review: every finding, every badge, every body and every fix is in both forms, which is what tests/test_render.py asserts. --panels is the older view, one finding to a bordered panel.
• Large diffs are reviewed in several passes, not truncated. The chunker splits by directory so related files stay together, each pass inherits the parent's metadata, and one failed pass never discards the others. Compression — which does drop things — is the last resort, and always reports what it skipped.
• Issue context turns "is this code good?" into "does this code do what was asked?". --issue 42 fetches the issue's title, body, labels and discussion and puts them in the prompt, and — when no other target was named — reviews the merge or pull request linked to it, so --issue 42 alone is enough. Findings of kind requirement_gap name what the issue asked for that the diff does not do. A gap is the one finding with no honest line to point at, so it is exempt from line anchoring and is published in the summary comment rather than inline.
• AST context (optional, via tree-sitter) names the function or class each hunk sits inside. A diff hunk is a window with arbitrary edges; a model that knows it is looking at the middle of run() stops guessing at the surrounding control flow, which is where many false positives come from.

Configuration

.roborak.yaml in the repo root. Precedence: CLI flags > ROBORAK_* env vars > project config > ~/.config/roborak/config.yaml > defaults. config init writes the first, config init --global the second; both get the same commented template, which ships inside the package rather than being read out of a source checkout.

roborak setup is the guided path to the same files: it asks for a model, a credential for it, and optional forge tokens, then writes only those keys — a sparse file, so every other default stays live across upgrades. It chmods 600 whatever it writes that holds secrets, wherever it wrote it. config init remains the manual path, and the full annotated file to edit.

In a terminal the closed questions — where the file goes, which model — are arrow-key lists rather than strings to type. Every list ends with Other (type it in)…, because the model list can only ever be a starting point: roborak takes any LiteLLM model string. Keys, tokens and a self-hosted domain stay free text, and keys are never echoed. Run it without a terminal — piped, or in CI — and the same questions come back as plain line prompts reading stdin, so printf '1\n\nsk-ant-…\n\n\n' | rk setup works; with nothing on stdin it writes nothing and exits 0 rather than waiting.

version: 1

llm:
  model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-5
  fallback_models: [openai/gpt-5]
  temperature: 0.2

review:
  categories: [security, bug, performance, logic]
  severity_floor: minor
  max_findings: 25
  committable_suggestions: true
  min_confidence: 0.5
  check_requirements: true   # with --issue, report requirements the change misses
  include_discussions: true  # use relevant unresolved MR/PR comments as context

static:
  enabled: true
  execution: auto     # local direct; CI sandboxed, or skipped if unavailable
  tools: null          # null = autodetect what is on PATH

output:
  walkthrough: true    # spend a second model call on the overview
  confirm_post: true   # offer to publish at the end of an interactive review
  panels: false        # one finding to a panel instead of the report
  full: false          # show the agent prompts and review info the terminal hides

ignore_paths:
  - "**/*.lock"
  - "**/vendor/**"
  - "**/node_modules/**"

language_instructions:
  php: "Laravel 10 with the repository pattern; controllers stay thin."

Custom rules

Standards a linter cannot express go in .roborak/rules/*.md as plain language:

---
id: no-raw-sql
paths: ["app/**/*.php"]
severity: major
category: security
---
Never build SQL by string concatenation. Use the query builder or bound parameters.

Only rules matching the changed files enter the prompt, so token cost stays flat as the rule set grows. Frontmatter is optional — a file containing one sentence is a valid rule, named after the file.

roborak also reads AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .roborak/context.md, or CONTRIBUTING.md (first one found) so reviews match the repo's own conventions. When a base revision is available, conventions are read from that revision so a change cannot rewrite the instructions used to review itself.

Static-analysis trust

[!IMPORTANT] Static analyzers load repository binaries, plugins, and configuration, which can execute code. Outside CI, static.execution: auto treats the checkout as trusted.

In CI it runs through Bubblewrap with a read-only filesystem and no network; when Bubblewrap is unavailable, the static pass is skipped rather than running untrusted code directly. --trust-static (or static.execution: trusted) is the explicit override for a checkout you control. Every static subprocess receives a credential-scrubbed environment in all modes.

CI also ignores .roborak.yaml from the working tree, since it could redirect an API key or opt into trusted execution. Put CI settings in environment variables, the user config, or pass a trusted base-controlled file with --config.

Design notes

Three decisions carry most of the weight:

1. ChangeSet is the only thing the pipeline knows. Four sources normalise into it, so adding a fifth touches nothing downstream.
2. Line numbers are new-file coordinates everywhere, translated to forge position payloads only at the publisher. tests/test_local_git.py checks the computed numbers against files on disk, so an off-by-one cannot agree with itself and pass.
3. The tool's value is mostly in what it refuses to say. Findings outside the change are dropped, low-confidence ones filtered, duplicates collapsed, pre-existing lint debt suppressed, and already-posted comments skipped.

Development

uv run pytest              # 502 tests
uv run ruff check src tests
uv run ruff format src tests
uv run mypy src/roborak

Live reviewer-quality evaluation is intentionally separate from deterministic PR CI. uv run python evals/run.py exercises 30 labeled defect and clean-control cases, writes token and quality metrics, and enforces the nightly recall, false-positive, anchoring, and parse-success gates.

Conventions, invariants and the PR checklist are in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Documentation

Full documentation lives at roborak.pages.dev — install, every command and flag, configuration reference, custom rules and CI recipes.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.md.