PR Reviewer – Copilot Edition 🎬
A VS Code extension that reviews your pull request diff using GitHub Copilot, narrated by an animated character with a choice of reviewer personalities.
Features
| Feature |
Description |
| 🤖 Copilot-powered review |
Uses the VS Code Language Model API to send your branch diff to Copilot and get back structured findings |
| 🧍 Animated sidebar character |
Your character lives in the Activity Bar — idle while waiting, walking while reviewing |
| 🔴🟡🔵 Inline decorations |
Findings are highlighted directly in your editor with coloured gutters and hover tooltips |
| ⚙️ Configurable persona |
Choose from multiple built-in reviewer personalities (sarcastic, encouraging, formal…) |
| 🌐 Response language |
Pick any of 65+ supported languages for findings output — default English, Hungarian and many others included |
| 📋 Findings panel |
All findings listed in the sidebar; click any to jump to the relevant file and line |
| ✨ Fix with Copilot |
One-click to send a finding (or all findings) to GitHub Copilot Chat for an automated fix |
| 📊 Status bar indicator |
Bottom-left corner shows live review progress and a summary when done |
Requirements
- VS Code 1.90 or later
- GitHub Copilot extension installed and authenticated
Usage
- Open a Git repository in VS Code
- Click the PR Reviewer icon in the Activity Bar (left navigation)
- Configure the review in the sidebar panel:
- Compare Against — pick the branch to diff against
- Model — choose the Copilot model
- Reviewer Personality — pick a personality (Sarcastic Cynic, Boring Senior Developer, The Politician…)
- Response Language — select the language for all findings (default: English)
- Extra Instructions — optionally add free-text instructions for the review
- Click Start Review — or run
PR Reviewer: Review Current PR / Branch Diff from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P)
- Watch your character walk while Copilot reviews the diff
- Findings appear in the sidebar and are highlighted inline in your editor
- Click any finding to jump to the relevant file and line, or use ✨ Fix with Copilot to send it to Copilot Chat
The sidebar panel exposes the following controls before starting a review:
| Control |
Description |
| Compare Against |
Branch to diff against (defaults to current branch uncommitted changes) |
| Model |
Copilot language model to use |
| Reviewer Personality |
Character persona for the review narration |
| Response Language |
Language for all findings, titles, and suggestions (default: English). The list of supported languages is provided by the extension and validated server-side — arbitrary values are rejected and fall back to English. |
| Extra Instructions |
Free-text instructions appended to the review prompt |
| Button |
Action |
| ▶ |
Start a review |
| ⟳ |
Reset the panel to its initial state |
| ⚙ |
Open PR Reviewer settings |
Configuration
Open settings via the ⚙ gear icon in the sidebar toolbar, or go to File → Preferences → Settings and search prReviewer.
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
prReviewer.customIdleSprite |
"" |
Path to a custom PNG sprite sheet for the idle animation |
prReviewer.customWorkSprite |
"" |
Path to a custom PNG sprite sheet for the working animation |
prReviewer.idleSpriteRows / idleSpriteCols |
5 |
Grid dimensions of the idle sprite sheet |
prReviewer.workSpriteRows / workSpriteCols |
5 |
Grid dimensions of the work sprite sheet |
prReviewer.debugOutput |
false |
Enable verbose debug output in the PR Reviewer output channel |
Reviewer personality, model, base branch, extra instructions, and response language are all configured directly in the sidebar panel and are persisted automatically across VS Code sessions — no settings.json edits needed.
Example settings.json (sprite customisation only):
"prReviewer.customIdleSprite": "C:/sprites/my-idle.png",
"prReviewer.idleSpriteRows": 4,
"prReviewer.idleSpriteCols": 4
Installation
Option 1 — Build and install in one step (recommended)
Requires Node.js, npm, and VS Code on your PATH.
Windows (PowerShell):
.\build_and_install.ps1
Linux / macOS:
./build_and_install.sh
This compiles the TypeScript, packages a .vsix, and installs it directly into your VS Code extensions folder.
Then reload VS Code: Ctrl+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window.
Option 2 — Build the VSIX, then install manually from VS Code
Step 1 – build the VSIX:
.\build.ps1 # Windows
./build.sh # Linux / macOS
This produces a file like pr-reviewer-1.0.0.vsix in the repo root.
Step 2 – install from VS Code:
- Open the Extensions view (
Ctrl+Shift+X)
- Click the
… menu (top-right of the Extensions panel)
- Select Install from VSIX…
- Browse to the generated
.vsix file and confirm
Then reload VS Code: Ctrl+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window.
Option 3 — Install a pre-built VSIX from the command line
If you already have a .vsix file:
.\install.ps1 # Windows
./install.sh # Linux / macOS
Or directly via the VS Code CLI:
code --install-extension pr-reviewer-1.0.0.vsix
Development loop
npm install
npm run compile # one-shot build
npm run watch # watch mode (recompiles on save)
Press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host without packaging.
Commands
| Command |
Description |
PR Reviewer: Review Current PR / Branch Diff |
Run the review |
PR Reviewer: Clear All Review Decorations |
Remove all inline highlights |
PR Reviewer: Settings |
Open settings filtered to prReviewer |
License
Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.
