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The codeant review command runs an AI-powered code review using an agentic architecture. The agent analyzes your code changes, reads surrounding context from your codebase, and provides detailed suggestions with severity levels.

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Basic Usage

# Review all changes (committed + uncommitted) — default
codeant review

# Review only uncommitted changes
codeant review --uncommitted

# Review only staged files
codeant review --staged

# Review only unpushed commits
codeant review --committed

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Options

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Review Scope

OptionDescription
--allReview committed + uncommitted changes (default)
--committedReview only unpushed commits
--uncommittedReview only uncommitted changes
--stagedReview only staged files
--last-commitReview the last commit
--last-n-commits <n>Review the last n commits (max 5)
--base <branch>Compare against a specific base branch
--base-commit <commit>Compare against a specific commit SHA

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Filtering & Thresholds

OptionDescription
--fail-on <level>Fail threshold: BLOCKER, CRITICAL, MAJOR, MINOR, INFO (default: CRITICAL)
--include <patterns>Comma-separated glob patterns to include files
--exclude <patterns>Comma-separated glob patterns to exclude files

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How It Works

The review runs in a multi-phase pipeline:

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Phase 1: Per-File Analysis

Each changed file is analyzed independently and in parallel. For each file, the agent:
  1. Receives the diff and full file content
  2. Can use tools to read other files, search the codebase, and explore directory structures
  3. Iterates through up to 5 conversation turns to gather context and form suggestions
  4. Returns file-specific suggestions with severity labels
Agent Tools Available:
ToolDescription
ReadRead file contents with optional line ranges
GlobFind files matching glob patterns
GrepSearch file contents with regex patterns
LSList directory contents

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Phase 2: Reflector

After all per-file analyses complete, the reflector phase:
  1. Combines all per-file suggestions
  2. Runs a final analysis pass to deduplicate, refine, and prioritize
  3. Produces the final set of code suggestions

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Severity Levels

Each suggestion is assigned a severity based on its label:
LabelSeverity
securityCRITICAL
bugMAJOR
performanceMAJOR
maintainabilityMINOR
code qualityMINOR
best practiceMINOR
The --fail-on flag determines the exit code:
  • 0 — No suggestions at or above the threshold
  • 1 — Suggestions found at or above the threshold

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File Filtering

The review automatically excludes files that are unlikely to benefit from code review: Lock files: package-lock.json, yarn.lock, pnpm-lock.yaml, composer.lock, Gemfile.lock, Cargo.lock, poetry.lock, Pipfile.lock, go.sum Binary/compiled: .exe, .dll, .so, .dylib, .bin, .o, .a, .class, .pyc, .wasm, .jar, .war Media: .png, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .svg, .webp, .mp3, .mp4, .wav, .avi, .mov Fonts: .woff, .woff2, .ttf, .eot, .otf Archives: .zip, .tar, .gz, .bz2, .7z, .rar Generated/minified: .min.js, .min.css, .map, .pb Documents: .pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx System: .DS_Store, Thumbs.db

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Size Limits

  • Maximum file size: 5,000 lines per file
  • Maximum files per review: 10 unique files
Files exceeding these limits are skipped with a warning.

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Examples

# Review all changes with default settings
codeant review

# Review against a specific branch
codeant review --base develop

# Review against a specific commit
codeant review --base-commit abc1234

# Review last 3 commits
codeant review --last-n-commits 3

# Only review TypeScript files, fail on MAJOR and above
codeant review --include '**/*.ts' --exclude '**/*.test.ts' --fail-on MAJOR

# Review staged files only
codeant review --staged

# Review uncommitted changes, include MINOR severity
codeant review --uncommitted --fail-on MINOR

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Terminal UI

The review displays a live progress indicator in your terminal: 
⠋ Analyzing... (12s)
  Step 2/4: Reviewing src/auth.ts (turn 3/5)
Progress steps:
  1. Init — Initializing review session
  2. Fetch — Gathering diffs and file contents
  3. Analyze — Per-file agent analysis (parallel)
  4. Reflect — Final reflector pass
When complete, suggestions are displayed with color-coded severity and file locations.