| name | pr-review-feedback |
| description | Applies PR review feedback with critical evaluation, then replies to and resolves the threads. Covers automated reviewers (Copilot, CodeRabbit, etc.). Activates when applying review comments, addressing PR feedback, responding to code review, or resolving review threads — including terse and Dutch phrasings: fix comments, fix the comments, fix PR comments, fix review comments, fix comments issue 1234, resolve/mark comments resolved, verwerk de comments, comments fixen. A bare number is resolved to the PR or its linked issue (Phase 0). |
| argument-hint | [PR number] |
| metadata | {"boost-tags":"github","schema-required":"^1"} |
Applying PR Review Feedback
A disciplined approach to addressing PR review comments: evaluate first, apply selectively, and never auto-act on another human colleague's comments.
Core Principle
Never blindly apply all feedback. And, by default, never auto-act on another human colleague's comments — though your own self-review comments are fair game, and a project can opt out of the colleague gate via review.colleague_gate (see Colleague gate toggle).
- Fetch the PR and its review comments
- Filter out resolved conversations
- Classify each thread by author — bot vs. self (you) vs. other human colleague
- Critically evaluate each piece of feedback
- Bots and self: apply/skip, reply, and resolve automatically
- Other colleagues (default,
review.colleague_gate: true): evaluate, then present findings + proposed actions to the user; let the user decide whether to apply, reply, or resolve. When the gate is false, handle them like bot threads.
Close the loop. Applying the code is half the job — an applied-but-unresolved thread reads as ignored to the author and re-surfaces in the next review. The skill is not done until every bot/self thread is resolved (replied to where useful) and Phase 7 confirms zero unresolved bot/self threads remain.
Author Classification
First, resolve who you are — the authenticated GitHub account running this skill:
gh api user --jq .login
Every comment author falls into one of three roles — self (author.login equals your authenticated gh api user login), bot (matches the automated-reviewer set below), or colleague (any other human login).
A comment author is a bot when author.login matches any of the built-in set:
- The literal string
copilot-pull-request-reviewer
- The literal string
github-actions
- The literal string
codex
- A login ending in the literal four-character suffix
[bot] (regex \[bot\]$) — e.g. dependabot[bot], renovate[bot]. Note: [bot] is a literal suffix here, not a regex character class.
Plus any additional logins this project declares as automated reviewers: none — built-in set only.
These extend the built-in set; they do not replace it.
Classify the thread by scanning all its comments, not just the first. A thread is bot/self (auto-handled) only if every comment in it was authored by a bot or by you. If any comment — including follow-ups — was authored by another human colleague, classify the whole thread as colleague: a colleague jumping into your or a bot's thread is the signal that this thread now needs the user's judgement.
The "every comment" rule only holds if you actually fetched every comment. The Phase 1 query pulls comments(first: 100) with totalCount; if a thread's totalCount exceeds the fetched nodes (a thread with 100+ comments), you cannot prove it is all bot/self — fail safe and classify it as colleague, or page the remaining comments before classifying. Never treat a truncated thread as bot/self.
| Classification | Rule | Auto-handling allowed? |
|---|
| bot / self | Every comment in the thread is from a bot login (built-in set + review.bot_reviewers) or from your own login | Yes — apply/skip, reply, resolve |
| colleague | At least one comment is from another human, or any login is ambiguous | Gated — when review.colleague_gate is true (default), no auto-act: discuss with user. When false, handle like a bot thread. |
Self covers the common case: you open your own PR, manually review it, leave feedback comments, then run this skill to pick them up. Those are your own notes-to-self — apply them automatically like bot feedback (still evaluating each critically).
When in doubt (ambiguous login that is neither a clear bot nor a match for your own login), treat the thread as colleague and discuss with the user.
Colleague gate toggle
This project's colleague-gate setting: true (default) — colleague threads are never auto-acted on.
true (default, and when unset) — the colleague handling below applies in full: evaluate, present a recommendation, and let the user decide whether to apply, reply, or resolve. Never auto-act on a colleague thread.false — the project has opted into full automation: handle colleague threads the same way as bot threads (apply/skip, reply, resolve without a confirmation step). The Phase 3b discussion gate is skipped. Bot-thread handling is identical either way.
The rest of this skill describes the true (default) behavior; under false, treat every colleague thread as a bot thread for action purposes.
When to Use This Skill
Use this skill when:
- Applying review comments on a PR
- Addressing reviewer feedback
- Responding to code review suggestions
- The user asks to "apply feedback" or "address comments"
- The user asks, tersely, to "fix the comments", "fix PR comments", or "fix comments issue 1234" — treat the number as a PR or issue ref and resolve it via Phase 0
Workflow
Phase 0: Resolve the PR Number
This skill operates on a PR, but users name the work loosely — "fix comments issue 1234" can mean PR #1234 or the issue #1234 whose PR you should apply feedback to. A bare number is ambiguous: it may be either the PR ID or the issue ID the PR was created for. Resolve it to a concrete PR before Phase 1:
- No number, but you're on the PR branch — use the current branch's PR:
gh pr view --json number,title --jq '{number, title}'
- A number
<N> was given — disambiguate, don't assume. Ask GitHub what <N> is (note the if/elif: a bare A && echo PR || B && echo ISSUE chain prints both when <N> is a PR):
if gh pr view <N> --json number >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "PR"
elif gh issue view <N> --json number >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "ISSUE"
fi
<N> is a PR — use it directly.<N> is an issue (this repo links every PR to an issue) — find the open PR for it. Prefer the one whose branch starts with the issue number, then fall back to an explicit issue reference in the body — never a bare-digit substring (a raw <N> matches version strings, dates, and stack traces, selecting the wrong PR):
gh pr list --state open --json number,title,headRefName \
--jq '[.[] | select(.headRefName | test("(^|/)'<N>'-"))]'
gh pr list --search 'in:body <N>' --state open --json number,title,headRefName,body \
--jq '[.[] | select(.body | test("(#|[Cc]los(e|es|ed)|[Ff]ix(es|ed)?|[Rr]esolv(e|es|ed)) *#?'<N>'\\b"))]'
- Resolution check — if exactly one PR matches, use it. If several match, or none, list the candidates and ask the user which PR to apply feedback on rather than guessing. A body-link match is weaker than a branch match — when only the body matches, confirm the PR actually targets issue
<N> before acting.
Phase 1: Gather Feedback
-
Get PR details and unresolved review threads via GraphQL. gh substitutes {owner}/{repo} from the current repository — replace only <NUMBER> with the PR number:
gh api graphql \
-F owner='{owner}' -F repo='{repo}' -F number=<NUMBER> \
-f query='
query ($owner: String!, $repo: String!, $number: Int!) {
repository(owner: $owner, name: $repo) {
pullRequest(number: $number) {
headRefName
baseRefName
reviewThreads(first: 100) {
nodes {
id
isResolved
isOutdated
comments(first: 100) {
totalCount
nodes {
body
url
author { login }
path
line
diffHunk
createdAt
}
}
}
}
}
}
}' --jq '{
headRefName: .data.repository.pullRequest.headRefName,
baseRefName: .data.repository.pullRequest.baseRefName,
threads: [.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.nodes[] | select(.isResolved == false)]
}'
-
If the threads array is empty, report "No unresolved review comments" and stop.
-
Switch to the PR branch
- Extract branch name from
headRefName
git checkout <branch-name> && git pull origin <branch-name>
Phase 1b: Sync the Branch With Its Base
Apply feedback on top of an up-to-date branch — a branch that has drifted from its base can produce changes that pass locally but conflict or break once merged. Bring the base (baseRefName from Phase 1) in first.
-
Confirm the working tree is clean first. git merge-tree only compares HEAD to the base, so it can report a clean merge while the actual git merge below aborts on local changes. Right after the Phase 1 checkout the tree should already be clean; verify with git status --porcelain and, if anything is staged or modified, stash it (git stash -u) before merging and pop it after, or skip this phase if the changes can't be safely set aside.
-
Fetch and check for conflicts without side effects (Git ≥ 2.38):
git fetch origin <baseRefName>
git merge-tree --write-tree --name-only HEAD origin/<baseRefName>
- Exit 0 — clean. Merge it in:
git merge --no-edit origin/<baseRefName>. The merge commit rides along with the feedback commits pushed in Phase 5 (if no feedback changes are applied, push the sync merge on its own).
- Exit 1 with file names on stdout — conflicts. Do not force a resolution here. Hand off to the
resolve-conflicts skill, then return to this skill once the merge is committed. (Exit 1 with empty stdout and a merge-tree: line on stderr is a bad ref, not a conflict — fix the ref name and retry.)
- Already up to date (base is an ancestor of HEAD) — nothing to do; continue.
git merge-tree --write-tree unavailable (Git < 2.38) — skip the probe and run git merge --no-edit origin/<baseRefName> directly. A clean merge proceeds as in Exit 0; if it stops with conflicts, hand off to resolve-conflicts (which documents an older-Git temp-worktree fallback) instead of resolving inline. Do not let an old Git client stall the rest of the skill.
-
If the merge changed any files, the Phase 1 thread snapshot no longer lines up with the working tree. GitHub does not recompute thread positions or isOutdated until the merge commit is pushed (Phase 5), so re-running the Phase 1 query here returns the same pre-merge path/line/diffHunk — it cannot refresh them. Don't rely on those line numbers after the merge. In the later phases, locate each comment's target by content — match its diffHunk against the current merged file — rather than by line. Thread IDs are unaffected, so reply and resolve still target the right thread.
-
If the user explicitly asked to only apply comments and not touch the branch's history, skip this phase.
Phase 2: Classify and Evaluate Each Comment
First, split threads into buckets by author (see Author Classification above):
- Bot + self bucket — proceed through evaluation, application, reply, and resolution automatically (Phases 3, 6). Self comments are your own self-review notes; treat them like bot feedback. Track each thread as one unit by its
id from Phase 1 (evaluate → apply/skip → reply → resolve); a thread isn't handled until it's resolved.
- Colleague bucket — other humans. Handling depends on
review.colleague_gate (see Colleague gate toggle). Under the default (true): evaluate to form a recommendation, but do not apply, reply, or resolve — surface every colleague thread to the user and let them decide (Phase 3b); the user replies/resolves themselves, or explicitly tells you to do it on their behalf. Under false: treat the colleague bucket exactly like the bot/self bucket (auto apply/reply/resolve), and skip Phase 3b.
Handle outdated threads carefully:
- If
isOutdated: true, use diffHunk, path, and the current file contents to understand how the code changed
- Decide whether the feedback is now obsolete or still applicable
- If Phase 1b merged the base locally, treat every thread's
line as unreliable — not just isOutdated: true ones. GitHub won't recompute positions until the merge is pushed (Phase 5), so a clean sync merge can shift lines while isOutdated stays false. Locate each comment's target by matching its diffHunk against the current merged file before applying.
For each comment, ask yourself:
| Consider | Action |
|---|
| Does it improve code quality? | Apply it |
| Does it follow the project's patterns? | Apply it |
| Is it a subjective preference? | Consider context |
| Does it contradict project guidelines? | Skip or discuss |
| Is it from an automated reviewer (Copilot)? | Evaluate critically - these can be wrong |
Common Bot False Positives
Be skeptical of automated feedback suggesting:
- "Dead code" — May be intentionally unused for now
- Generic security warnings — Verify whether a real vulnerability exists
- "Missing type hints" — Check if the project already has strict PHPStan rules covering this
Phase 3: Apply Changes (Bots + Self)
For each bot or self thread you deemed valid:
- Read the relevant file to understand context
- If the feedback is a bug or edge case, write the test first. When a comment flags a runtime fault — a wrong type, a bad boundary condition, a feature/permission edge, a regression — add a failing test that reproduces it before touching the fix, then make the change so the test passes. The fix isn't done until the case is covered — don't just patch and move on. (Pure style/refactor feedback needs no test — see Phase 4 for the split.)
- Make the change following the project's patterns
- Run code style checks —
vendor/bin/pint --dirty --format agent
Do not edit any file in response to a colleague thread in this phase. Other-colleague feedback goes through Phase 3b first.
Phase 3b: Discuss Colleague Feedback With User
(Skipped entirely when review.colleague_gate is false — see Colleague gate toggle. Under that setting, colleague threads are handled like bot threads in Phase 3.)
For every other-colleague thread (not bot, not self), build a short proposal and present it to the user before taking any action on that colleague thread (apply, reply, or resolve). This gate blocks action on the colleague thread itself, not the whole skill run — bot and self threads continue through Phase 3 in parallel. The proposal covers:
- What the colleague said — 1-2 line summary + link
- Your evaluation — valid, partially valid, contradicts conventions, subjective, blocked on missing context, etc.
- Recommended action — one of: apply (describe the diff), partially apply, push back with reasoning, ask clarifying question, no change
- Draft reply — the text you'd post if the user wants you to reply
Then ask the user, per thread, how they want to handle it:
| User says | You do |
|---|
| "apply it" / "go ahead" | Make the code change. Do not auto-reply or auto-resolve — user handles the thread themselves. |
| "apply it and reply/resolve" | Make the change, post the reply, resolve the thread. |
| "skip" / "I'll handle it" | Do nothing. Leave the thread untouched. |
| "reply with X" / "post this reply" | Post the requested reply. Do not resolve unless the user also says to. |
| "resolve it" | Resolve the thread (with reply if requested). |
| Anything ambiguous | Ask one focused follow-up question; default to no action. |
Never post a reply or resolve a colleague thread without an explicit instruction in the current conversation. A general "apply the feedback" at the start of the task is not consent to reply or resolve on the user's behalf.
Phase 4: Verify Quality
After applying feedback, use the backend-quality skill (Tier 1: Pint + related tests).
Confirm every fix is covered by a test (the test should already exist from Phase 3, step 2 — verify it here, add it now if you skipped ahead):
- If the feedback was a bug fix, a regression test must reproduce the bug and pass — unless existing tests already cover the scenario.
- If the feedback surfaced an edge case (a boundary condition, a feature/setting combination, a permission edge), a test must pin that edge down — an edge left untested ships as a latent bug.
- If the feedback changed behavior, update the existing test expectations to match.
- Pure style/refactor feedback needs no new tests, but existing tests must still pass.
Phase 5: Commit and Push
If any code changes were applied (from the bot/self bucket or user-approved colleague items):
- Stage changes:
git add <specific-files>
- Commit with descriptive message:
Apply PR review feedback
- <change 1>
- <change 2>
- Push to the branch:
git push origin <branch-name>
If no code changes were applied but Phase 1b created a sync merge commit, still push it: git push origin <branch-name>. The branch must reach GitHub for the base sync to take effect and for thread positions to recompute. Only skip this phase entirely when there are neither feedback changes nor a pending sync merge.
Phase 6: Reply to Review Threads
Reply/resolve permissions depend on the thread's author bucket from Phase 2.
Bot and self threads (applied or skipped) — after committing and pushing, reply to each thread and resolve it, no confirmation needed. Resolving is mandatory for every bot/self thread; the reply is recommended (and optional for self notes). Resolving without a reply is fine — leaving a thread unresolved is not. You need each thread's id (from Phase 1) here — if those IDs are no longer in context, re-run the Phase 1 query to re-fetch them; never skip resolve because the IDs scrolled off.
gh api graphql -f query='
mutation($threadId: ID!, $body: String!) {
addPullRequestReviewThreadReply(input: { pullRequestReviewThreadId: $threadId, body: $body }) {
comment { url }
}
}' -f threadId="<THREAD_ID>" -f body="<REPLY>"
gh api graphql -f query='
mutation($threadId: ID!) {
resolveReviewThread(input: { threadId: $threadId }) {
thread { id }
}
}' -f threadId="<THREAD_ID>"
Colleague threads (other humans) — handling depends on review.colleague_gate (see Colleague gate toggle):
- Gate
true (default) — never auto-reply, never auto-resolve. The user owns these threads. Only reply or resolve when the user explicitly says so in the current turn ("post that reply", "resolve thread 3", "reply and resolve all of these") and the instruction is specific enough to know which thread(s) it covers. Default to leaving colleague threads untouched on GitHub even after applying their suggested code change — the user can reply/resolve themselves once they're happy with the diff.
- Gate
false — the project opted into full automation: reply and resolve colleague threads the same way as bot threads above, no per-turn confirmation needed.
Reply guidelines (when you do reply):
- Applied feedback: "Fixed as suggested." or a brief note on what was changed
- Skipped feedback: Brief explanation of why
- Discussion needed: Ask a clarifying question — present planned reply to the user first
Keep replies concise. Do not repeat the reviewer's comment back to them.
Phase 7: Verify Threads Resolved (Hard Gate)
The skill is not done until this passes. Re-run the Phase 1 reviewThreads query and confirm zero unresolved bot/self threads remain. Colleague threads under the default gate are excluded — they stay open by design; include them only when review.colleague_gate is false.
List every still-unresolved thread with its authors, so you can confirm none are bot/self:
gh api graphql \
-F owner='{owner}' -F repo='{repo}' -F number=<NUMBER> \
-f query='
query ($owner: String!, $repo: String!, $number: Int!) {
repository(owner: $owner, name: $repo) {
pullRequest(number: $number) {
reviewThreads(first: 100) {
nodes { isResolved comments(first: 100) { nodes { author { login } } } }
}
}
}
}' --jq '[.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.nodes[]
| select(.isResolved | not)
| {authors: ([.comments.nodes[].author.login] | unique)}]'
Read the result:
- Empty list → gate passes; the loop is closed. Every bot/self thread is resolved.
- Non-empty → each remaining entry must be a colleague thread (contains a human who is not you), legitimately left open under the default gate. If any entry is all-bot or all-you (self), that is unresolved bot/self work — resolve it (Phase 6 mutations; re-fetch the
id if needed) and re-run this query until only colleague threads remain. Under colleague_gate: false, the list must be empty.
The one allowed exception: a bot/self thread where viewerCanResolve is false (you lack permission). Don't loop on it — report it to the user with the reason instead of treating the gate as failed.
Response Template
Summarize once Phases 3 + 3b + the Phase 7 gate are complete. Bot and self items are already applied and resolved on the PR — state the verified count (e.g. "All 3 bot/self threads resolved"). Colleague items are presented as proposals — the user decides next steps (unless review.colleague_gate is false, in which case they're already handled too).
## Bot & Self Feedback — Applied (resolved)
1. **[File]** — [bot/self login]
- Comment: [Brief summary]
- Change: [What was done]
## Bot & Self Feedback — Skipped (resolved)
1. **[File]** — [bot/self login]
- Comment: [Brief summary]
- Reason: [Why it was skipped]
## Colleague Feedback — Awaiting Your Decision
1. **[File]** — [colleague login] · [link to comment]
- Comment: [Brief summary]
- My evaluation: [valid / partially valid / contradicts convention / subjective / needs context]
- Recommended action: [apply / partially apply / push back / clarifying question / no change]
- Draft reply (if you want me to post it): "[Draft text]"
How would you like to handle this — apply, skip, reply with something else, or resolve?
