unravel-review 0.4.0

AI-powered CLI that decomposes PR diffs into causal threads for human code reviewers

Unravel

AI-powered CLI that decomposes PR diffs into causal threads for human code reviewers.

Instead of reviewing a diff file-by-file, Unravel groups changes by why they were made — each thread tells a story from root cause to effect, so reviewers build understanding progressively.

Installation

Pick whichever channel fits your setup — they all install the same package.

uv (recommended)

uv tool install unravel-review

pipx

pipx install unravel-review

pip

pip install unravel-review

Homebrew

brew tap roo-oliv/unravel
brew install unravel-review

brew install unravel works too — it's a tap-level alias.

One-liner (auto-detects uv/pipx)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/roo-oliv/unravel/main/install.sh | bash

Docker

docker run --rm -v "$(pwd):/repo" -e ANTHROPIC_API_KEY \
  ghcr.io/roo-oliv/unravel diff HEAD~1

Quick Start

# Analyze the last commit
unravel diff HEAD~1..HEAD

# Analyze a range
unravel diff main..feature-branch

# Analyze a GitHub PR (requires gh CLI)
unravel pr 42

# JSON output for piping
unravel diff HEAD~1..HEAD --json | jq .

# Compact tree view
unravel diff HEAD~1..HEAD --tree-only

Requirements

• Python 3.12+
• Git
• Either the Claude CLI installed and authenticated, or an Anthropic API key
• GitHub CLI (only for unravel pr)

Configuration

By default Unravel runs in auto mode: it uses the local Claude CLI if claude is on your PATH, and falls back to the Anthropic API otherwise. No extra configuration needed if you already have claude installed.

For the API path, set your key as an environment variable:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

Backends

Mode	When it's used	What it needs
auto (default)	Picks the first available backend	claude on PATH or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
claude-cli	Always use the local Claude CLI	claude binary, authenticated
claude-api	Always hit the Claude API	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY

Pin a specific backend any of these ways:

unravel conf set provider claude-api      # persistent
UNRAVEL_PROVIDER=claude-cli unravel ...   # one session
unravel diff HEAD~1 --provider claude-api # single invocation

CLI Options

Flag	Description
--model, -m	Model to use (default: claude-sonnet-4-6)
--provider, -p	LLM provider: auto, claude-cli, or claude-api (default: auto)
--json, -j	Output raw JSON
--tree-only, -t	Compact tree view
--thinking-budget	Extended thinking token budget (default: 10000)
--staged	Analyze only staged changes (diff command only)
--remote	Git remote name (pr command only, default: origin)

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	API key for the Claude API (not needed with claude-cli backend)
OPENAI_API_KEY	API key for OpenAI (future)
UNRAVEL_PROVIDER	Default provider: auto, claude-cli, or claude-api
UNRAVEL_MODEL	Default model
UNRAVEL_THINKING_BUDGET	Default thinking budget

How It Works

1. Extract — Pulls the diff from git or GitHub
2. Parse — Breaks the diff into hunks using unidiff
3. Analyze — Sends hunks to an LLM with a specialized prompt that decomposes changes into causal threads
4. Validate — Checks all hunks are covered and thread dependencies are consistent
5. Render — Displays threads in rich terminal output, JSON, or tree view

Multi-Provider Support

Unravel is designed to work with multiple LLM providers. Currently supported:

• Claude CLI (claude-cli) — uses your local, authenticated claude binary
• Claude API (claude-api) — direct HTTP via the Anthropic SDK, with extended thinking support

Planned: OpenAI, Gemini, and more. The provider abstraction is ready — contributions welcome.

Development

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full local setup, testing conventions, code style, and release process. TL;DR:

git clone https://github.com/roo-oliv/unravel.git
cd unravel
uv sync --extra dev
uv run pytest
uv run ruff check .

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later