PR Reminder & Alert

Never chase a code reviewer again. PR Reminder & Alert watches the GitHub pull requests (PRs) you create, politely nags your reviewers for you on Google Chat and/or WhatsApp until they review, and shouts at you inside VS Code when something happens (a review, a comment, a merge).

By Santhosh James C · MIT License

Contents

1. What does it do? (30-second version)
2. Before you start: what you need
3. Install
4. Setup, step by step (about 10 minutes)
5. Using it every day
6. What your reviewers see
7. Settings you may want to change
8. Something is wrong? Fix it here
9. Privacy and safety
10. FAQ
11. Quick reference for AI assistants
12. Developers

What does it do?

Imagine you open a pull request on GitHub and ask Priya to review it. Priya is busy and forgets. Normally you would have to message her yourself, again and again.

With this extension:

It only reads GitHub. It never approves, merges, comments on or edits anything.

Good to know: reminders are sent while VS Code is open (and your computer is awake). If you close VS Code, they pause and catch up when you reopen it. To keep them going after you close VS Code, turn on the setting PR Reminder › Service › Keep Running When Closed.

Before you start

You need:

• VS Code version 1.100 or newer (Help → About shows your version).
• A GitHub account and some pull requests you created.
• Only if you want reviewers messaged on Google Chat: a Google Workspace account (work or school email, e.g. you@company.com). A normal @gmail.com address cannot do this.
• Only if you want reviewers messaged on WhatsApp: WhatsApp on your phone and Google Chrome, Edge, Brave or Chromium on your computer.

No messaging account? You can still use the alerts-for-yourself part. Just skip steps 3 and 4 below.

Install

Option A: from the Marketplace (when published)

1. In VS Code, click the Extensions icon on the left (four squares), or press Cmd+Shift+X (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+X (Windows/Linux).
2. Search PR Reminder & Alert and click Install.

Option B: from a .vsix file

1. Open the Extensions panel (as above).
2. Click the … (three dots) at the top of the panel → Install from VSIX…
3. Pick the pr-reminder-alert-x.y.z.vsix file.

When it installs, a PR Reminder icon appears in the left bar and a Get Started page may open. You can follow that page or this manual; they say the same thing.

Tip: The Command Palette is VS Code's "search for any action" box. Open it with Cmd+Shift+P (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux), then type the command name. Every "run X" below means this.

Setup, step by step

Step 1: Create a GitHub token (a read-only key)

A token is a long secret text that proves to GitHub "this extension may look at my PRs".

1. Go to https://github.com/settings/personal-access-tokens/new (log in if asked).
2. Token name: type PR Reminder.
3. Expiration: choose 90 days. (When it expires, just make a new one and repeat step 6.)
4. Repository access: choose Only select repositories and pick the repositories you want watched.
   • If the repos belong to a company/organization, change Resource owner to that organization first. Its admin may need to approve the token.
5. Scroll to Repository permissions and set these four to Read-only:
   • Pull requests
   • Issues
   • Commit statuses
   • Checks
6. Click Generate token. Copy it immediately. GitHub only shows it once.
7. In VS Code, open the Command Palette and run PR Reminder: Set GitHub Personal Access Token. Paste the token and press Enter.

✅ Your token is saved in your computer's secure keychain, not in any file.

Step 2: Run the setup wizard

1. Command Palette → PR Reminder: Run Setup Wizard.
2. Answer each question. If you are not sure, just press Enter: the defaults are safe.

The first time it syncs, it only remembers what already exists. You will not get alerts for old comments. That is normal.

Step 3 (optional): Let reviewers be messaged on Google Chat

Reviewers get a private Google Chat message sent from your account. They install nothing.

Google requires a one-time free setup (about 5 minutes) so it knows which app is sending. You are creating your own private key; nobody else shares it.

Easier: if a teammate already did this, ask them for the Client ID and Client secret and jump to B.

A. Create the Google "OAuth client"

1. Go to https://console.cloud.google.com/projectcreate, name it PR Reminder, click Create.

2. Open https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/library/chat.googleapis.com and click Enable.

3. Open https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/api/chat.googleapis.com/hangouts-chat (the Configuration tab). Fill in: App name PR Reminder, any avatar image URL, a short description. Turn Interactive features OFF. Click Save.

4. Open https://console.cloud.google.com/auth/audience:

   • If it says Internal, leave it. (Best: everyone in your company can use it.)
   • If it asks you to choose, pick Internal if you can, otherwise External. For External, click Add users and add your work email under Test users. (External apps in "Testing" ask you to sign in again every 7 days.)

5. Open https://console.cloud.google.com/auth/scopes, click Add or remove scopes, and add these three (paste each in the filter box):

   • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.spaces.readonly
   • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.spaces.create
   • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.messages.create

   Click Update, then Save.

6. Open https://console.cloud.google.com/auth/clients/create. Application type: Desktop app. Name: PR Reminder. Click Create.

7. Copy the Client ID (ends in .apps.googleusercontent.com) and the Client secret (starts with GOCSPX-).

B. Sign in from VS Code

1. Command Palette → PR Reminder: Sign in to Google Chat.
2. Paste the Client ID, then the Client secret.
3. Your browser opens. Choose your work account and click Allow.
4. Command Palette → PR Reminder: Test Google Chat Connection → Send a test DM. Check your Google Chat.

✅ Got the test message? Chat is working.

C. Tell it your reviewers' emails

Google Chat needs an email, but GitHub only gives a username. So you connect them once:

1. Command Palette → PR Reminder: Open PR Dashboard.
2. Find Reviewer mapping.
3. Add rows like priya-dev → priya@company.com.

Team reviewers (like @my-org/backend-team) are groups, and Chat messages go to people. Map the team to one person (e.g. the team lead).

Step 4 (optional): Let reviewers be messaged on WhatsApp

1. Command Palette → PR Reminder: Link WhatsApp (scan QR code).
2. A Chrome window opens showing a QR code.
3. On your phone: WhatsApp → Linked devices → Link a device, then point the camera at the QR code.
4. The window closes by itself. Done.
5. In the dashboard's Reviewer mapping, add each reviewer's phone number with country code, e.g. +919876543210 (no spaces).
6. Command Palette → PR Reminder: Test WhatsApp Connection.

A reviewer can have an email, a number, or both. They get messages on every channel you gave them.

⚠️ WhatsApp does not officially support automated sending. Use it for normal reminder volumes only.

Step 5: Look at your dashboard

Click the PR Reminder icon on the left bar. You will see your open PRs, who still owes you a review, and any messages queued or failed. 🎉

Using it every day

You mostly do nothing. Open VS Code, work normally, and watch the status bar at the bottom for the counter of unread PR alerts.

Reminders stop automatically when a reviewer submits a review, when you remove them, or when the PR is merged or closed.

What your reviewers see

A normal chat message from you, like:

[my-org/my-app#42] Your review is requested Add login rate limiting, by you https://github.com/my-org/my-app/pull/42

Then, if they have not reviewed, short reminders like "Reminder 2 of 5: opened 1 hour ago". The [my-org/my-app#42] tag at the start tells them which PR it is about. Draft PRs are never messaged.

Settings you may want to change

Open VS Code Settings (Cmd+, / Ctrl+,) and search PR Reminder. The ones beginners usually touch:

Something is wrong?

First, two universal fixes: Command Palette → PR Reminder: Restart Notification Service, and PR Reminder: Show Service Logs (read the last lines for the reason).

Still stuck? Open an issue and attach the output of PR Reminder: Show Service Logs (emails and secrets are already hidden in the logs).

Privacy and safety

• Your tokens are stored in your operating system's keychain via VS Code Secret Storage. They are never written to settings files, never sent to the dashboard page, and never logged.
• Everything runs on your computer. There is no server run by the author, no tracking, and no analytics. The only network calls go to GitHub, Google Chat and (optionally) WhatsApp Web, using your own accounts.
• The extension only reads GitHub. It cannot merge, approve or edit.
• The small local helper listens only on 127.0.0.1 (your own machine) and requires a secret key.
• PR titles and reviewer emails are stored in a local database file on your computer.

Remove everything: Command Palette → PR Reminder: Delete Stored Credentials, then revoke the GitHub token at https://github.com/settings/personal-access-tokens and Google access at https://myaccount.google.com/permissions. For WhatsApp, run Unlink WhatsApp and remove "Chrome" under Linked devices on your phone.

FAQ

Do my reviewers need to install anything? No. They just receive a normal chat message.

Does it cost money? No. GitHub's API, Google Chat's API and local storage are free. (Google Chat needs a Workspace account you already pay for.)

Will it message people about other people's PRs? No. Only PRs you created, and only reviewers who were actually requested on them.

Can I use it with GitHub Enterprise? Yes. Change Github › Api Base Url to your server's API address.

Why did a reviewer not get a message for a PR that already existed? By design, the first sync does not message for existing PRs (to avoid spamming). They still get reminders one interval later. Turn on Chat › Send Initial Message For Existing Prs if you want the first message too.

Does a comment from a reviewer count as a review? Not by default. Only a submitted review (Approve / Request changes / Comment) does. Change it with Reminders › Count Comments As Response.

I use several VS Code windows. Will reviewers get duplicates? No. One shared helper handles all windows.

Not yet verified with live accounts: automated tests cover the logic with simulated GitHub/Google responses. Before depending on it, run the Test Google Chat Connection step with your own account.

Quick reference for AI assistants

This section is written so an AI coding/chat assistant can help a user set the extension up accurately. Facts here are authoritative; do not invent other commands or settings.

Identity: VS Code extension id santhoshjamesc.pr-reminder-alert, display name "PR Reminder & Alert". Requires VS Code ≥ 1.100. Local-only; no hosted backend.

Purpose: Poll GitHub for PRs authored by the user; message requested reviewers (Google Chat DM and/or WhatsApp) at the user's own identity until each reviews; show alerts in VS Code.

Minimum viable setup (alerts only), in order:

1. User creates a fine-grained GitHub PAT with read-only: Pull requests, Issues, Commit statuses, Checks.
2. Command prReminder.setGitHubToken ("PR Reminder: Set GitHub Personal Access Token").
3. Command prReminder.setup ("PR Reminder: Run Setup Wizard"). Only the GitHub username is mandatory.

Add reviewer messaging:

• Google Chat → needs Google Workspace (not consumer Gmail), Chat API enabled in a Google Cloud project, OAuth client type Desktop app, scopes chat.spaces.readonly, chat.spaces.create, chat.messages.create. Then command prReminder.signInGoogle; verify with prReminder.testChat. Client ID is stored in setting prReminder.chat.googleClientId; secret in Secret Storage.
• WhatsApp → prReminder.linkWhatsApp (QR scan), then prReminder.testWhatsApp. Needs a Chromium-based browser (optional override: prReminder.whatsapp.chromePath).
• Reviewer routing → setting prReminder.reviewers maps GitHub login → email (Chat); prReminder.whatsapp.numbers maps login → E.164 number (WhatsApp). Team reviewers are written "@org/team-slug" and must be mapped to one person.

Key commands (all prefixed prReminder.): setup, setGitHubToken, signInGoogle, signInGoogleCustomClient, signOutGoogle, manageGoogleChat, testChat, linkWhatsApp, manageWhatsApp, testWhatsApp, unlinkWhatsApp, openDashboard, refresh, pause, resume, pausePr, resumePr, snooze, acknowledgeAll, toggleQuietMode, setReminderInterval, retryMessages, clearFailedMessages, restartService, showLogs, clearSecrets ("Delete Stored Credentials"), previewBigAlert, simulateAlerts.

Key settings: prReminder.github.username, .github.repositories (array of owner/name; empty = all authored PRs), .github.pollIntervalSeconds (120), .reminders.intervalMinutes (30), .reminders.maxRemindersPerReviewer (5), .reminders.quietHours.{enabled,start,end,quietDays}, .reminders.timeZone, .alerts.size (normal|big), .alerts.soundEnabled, .alerts.quietMode, .service.keepRunningWhenClosed, .service.mode (local|remote).

Behaviour rules to rely on:

• First sync is a baseline: no alerts or initial DMs for pre-existing activity.
• A "response" = submitted review (APPROVED / CHANGES_REQUESTED / COMMENTED). Plain comments count only if reminders.countCommentsAsResponse is true.
• Reminders stop per reviewer on response/removal and for all on merge/close. Draft PRs are never messaged. Quiet hours defer messages, not drop them.
• Messages are deduplicated across restarts; an uncertain-delivery message is marked failed and is never auto-retried.
• Extension is read-only toward GitHub.

Troubleshooting order for an assistant to suggest: (1) prReminder.showLogs; (2) prReminder.restartService; (3) check token scope/repo access; (4) check reviewer mapping; (5) for Google errors map invalid_client → wrong/non-Desktop client, admin_policy_enforced → admin must allow client, org_internal → client belongs to another org, HTTP 403 → Chat API/Configuration page, 404 → email not a Workspace user.

Do not: ask the user to paste tokens into chat; suggest consumer Gmail for Chat; promise delivery while VS Code is closed unless service.keepRunningWhenClosed is on.

Developers

Architecture, full configuration reference, service API, building, testing and packaging are documented in docs/REFERENCE.md in the source code folder. In short: npm install && npm run check && npm run package.

© 2026 Santhosh James C. Released under the MIT License.