Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.codeant.ai/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
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.
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
Options
Review Scope
| Option | Description |
|---|
--all | Review committed + uncommitted changes (default) |
--committed | Review only unpushed commits |
--uncommitted | Review only uncommitted changes |
--staged | Review only staged files |
--last-commit | Review 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 |
Filtering & Thresholds
| Option | Description |
|---|
--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 |
CI / Headless Mode
| Option | Description |
|---|
--headless | Output clean JSON to stdout (disables spinners and interactive UI) |
--headless when running inside CI pipelines or AI agents. In this mode:
- All results are written to stdout as JSON
- Progress and status messages are written to stderr
- No interactive prompts are shown
# Use in CI — parse JSON output with jq
codeant review --headless --all | jq '.suggestions[] | select(.severity == "CRITICAL")'
How It Works
The review runs in a multi-phase pipeline:
Phase 1: Per-File Analysis
Each changed file is analyzed independently and in parallel. For each file, the agent:
- Receives the diff and full file content
- Can use tools to read other files, search the codebase, and explore directory structures
- Iterates through up to 5 conversation turns to gather context and form suggestions
- Returns file-specific suggestions with severity labels
Agent Tools Available:
| Tool | Description |
|---|
| Read | Read file contents with optional line ranges |
| Glob | Find files matching glob patterns |
| Grep | Search file contents with regex patterns |
| LS | List directory contents |
Phase 2: Reflector
After all per-file analyses complete, the reflector phase:
- Combines all per-file suggestions
- Runs a final analysis pass to deduplicate, refine, and prioritize
- Produces the final set of code suggestions
Severity Levels
Each suggestion is assigned a severity based on its label:
| Label | Severity |
|---|
security | CRITICAL |
bug | MAJOR |
performance | MAJOR |
maintainability | MINOR |
code quality | MINOR |
best practice | MINOR |
--fail-on flag determines the exit code:
0 — No suggestions at or above the threshold1 — Suggestions found at or above the threshold
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
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.
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
Terminal UI
The review displays a live progress indicator in your terminal:
⠋ Analyzing... (12s)
Step 2/4: Reviewing src/auth.ts (turn 3/5)
- Init — Initializing review session
- Fetch — Gathering diffs and file contents
- Analyze — Per-file agent analysis (parallel)
- Reflect — Final reflector pass
When complete, suggestions are displayed with color-coded severity and file locations.
