Process Pr Comments

Process PR / MR Review Comments

End-to-end workflow for addressing unresolved review comments on a GitHub PR, GitLab MR, or Bitbucket PR. Forge-agnostic: a small per-forge cheat-sheet supplies the few commands that differ. Use the term PR for GitHub/Bitbucket and MR for GitLab in all user-facing text.

Modes

Usage: process-pr-comments [pr-number] [simple|advanced] [review|auto]

• Scope — simple (default): resolve → fetch → score → decide → implement → commit. advanced (the words "advanced", "deep", or "thorough"): also extracts reusable rules, validates design comments against the design tool, and offers a REST fallback when no CLI is present.
• Per-comment handling — review (default): each comment is presented for approval. auto: valid comments are applied without per-comment approval, gated only by the plan (step 6).

Steps tagged [advanced] are skipped in simple mode. Ask for the PR number and both mode choices in one prompt (step 1).

Working fast

Run independent calls together in one message; put slow commands (fetch, merge, validation build) in the background and join before the step that needs them. Never background approval prompts or file edits.

Forge cheat-sheet

Prefer the official CLI (gh / glab / bb). Without one, call the same REST endpoints and filter with jq so only the needed fields enter context. Always pass the explicit PR number — never a bare command that defaults to the current branch.

| Forge | Meta | Unresolved comments | |---|---|---| | github (gh) | gh pr view --json title,body,headRefName,baseRefName,reviewRequests,url | GraphQL reviewThreads where isResolved==false + gh api repos/{o}/{r}/issues/{n}/comments | | gitlab (glab) | glab mr view -F json | glab api projects/:id/merge_requests/:n/discussions — notes where resolvable && !resolved | | bitbucket (bb/REST) | GET {BASE}/pull-requests/{n} → fromRef/toRef/reviewers | GET {BASE}/pull-requests/{n}/activities — keep action=="COMMENTED" state OPEN (tasks: severity=="BLOCKER") |

[advanced] REST fallback (no CLI): use a token from an env var (GH_TOKEN / GITHUB_TOKEN / GITLAB_TOKEN / BITBUCKET_TOKEN) in the auth header — GitHub Authorization: Bearer + Accept: application/vnd.github+json, GitLab PRIVATE-TOKEN, Bitbucket Authorization: Bearer. Never echo a token (it leaks into the transcript). If none is set, ask the user for a token or to paste the PR details and comment threads by hand. Bitbucket = Server / Data Center only — Bitbucket Cloud uses a different API and is unsupported; confirm the REST base URL with the user.

Steps

1. Resolve inputs & context

Ask once, up front (single prompt): the PR/MR number — mandatory, never inferred from the current branch — and the mode choices (scope + per-comment handling). Then:

• Detect the forge from git remote get-url origin: github.com → github, gitlab.com or self-managed → gitlab, a Bitbucket host → bitbucket. Strip a trailing .git and any user@. Anything else → ask the user.
• Access: run command -v gh / glab / bb and check auth (gh auth status, glab auth status). If a CLI is present and authenticated, use it. Otherwise fall back to the [advanced] REST fallback above.
• Fetch PR metadata via the cheat-sheet and extract: title (parse a ticket id — [A-Z]+-[0-9]+ Jira or #NNN issue ref), source branch, target branch, description, and reviewers.

Everything else is looked up only when first needed, not now:

• Conventions file (used for scoring in step 4) — first match of AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .claude/CLAUDE.md, .github/copilot-instructions.md, .cursorrules, CONTRIBUTING.md; none → fall back to general best practices.
• Validation command (used in step 6) — inferred from package.json / build.gradle(.kts) / Makefile / Cargo.toml / pubspec.yaml / Podfile. Prefer a command the conventions file prescribes.
• commit-suggest skill (used in step 7) — .claude/skills/commit-suggest/SKILL.md locally or under $HOME.

2. Set up the branch

Checkout the source branch if not already on it (tell the user inline, no confirmation), then fetch and merge the target so a stale branch doesn't hide conflicts:

git fetch origin && git merge origin/

A clean merge auto-creates a merge commit — expected; do not push. May run in the background alongside step 3; join before step 4. On conflicts: show git diff --name-only --diff-filter=U, ask whether to resolve them for the user or let them do it; if resolving, follow the conventions file, then git add && git merge --continue.

3. Fetch unresolved comments

Via the cheat-sheet, fetch all unresolved threads and filter every response before it enters context (CLI --json/--jq, or curl | jq; REST fallback follows the forge's pagination). For each thread, walk the full tree and capture:

• author + body of the original comment and each reply — the real request is often in a reply.
• anchor — path + line for inline comments; none for general ones.
• open tasks where the forge has them (Bitbucket severity=="BLOCKER").
• Skip bot / system comments.

Early exit: if nothing is unresolved, make sure any background merge finished cleanly, then report "No unresolved comments found on #{n} — nothing to address." and stop.

4. Score & validate each comment

Score every comment 1–5 and validate against the actual code — never on comment text alone (this holds in auto mode too; auto is not blind-apply):

| Score | Meaning | |---|---| | 5 | Critical — architecture violation, correctness bug, or security issue | | 4 | High — significant quality or maintainability problem | | 3 | Medium — style / naming, or a clearly valid improvement | | 2 | Low — subjective preference or minor nit | | 1 | Invalid — misunderstanding, outdated context, or factually wrong |

For each comment, Read the referenced code (inline: around the anchor line, ±~10 lines — never whole files; general: locate the area) and decide whether the issue genuinely exists or is already handled / outdated / a misread. If the code contradicts the comment, score 1 and note why. Keep the snippet — step 5 reuses it. If a conventions file exists, grep it for keywords relevant to the comment and read only the matched sections (never the whole file). Sort by score descending, number locally 1…N, and refer to comments only as Comment #N (never the forge's internal id). This step is internal — no user-facing output yet.

[advanced] Design comments: for comments about visual correctness (spacing, padding, color, typography, sizing, alignment, layout, or that name a screen / mockup), validate the implementation against the design tool (e.g. Figma MCP). If it's unavailable, tell the user and ask them to connect it; if the exact screen can't be resolved, ask for its URL. Fold the result into the score and evaluation.

5. Present & decide

review mode (default): work through the sorted comments in batches of up to 4 (highest score first). Print each comment as a full message — not inside the picker, so nothing truncates:

─────────────────────────────────────────────
Comment # of   [Score: /5]  ·  
File:  (line )        ← omit if no anchor
Thread:    ← omit if none

: ""
  ↳ : ""      ← one line per reply, in order; omit if none

Code (:):
>    ← omit if no code location

Evaluation: 
Suggested reply: 

For score 1, add a Validity issue: line directly above the suggested reply. Then ask for decisions on that batch with a multiple-choice prompt — one question per comment, up to 4 per call, options Apply / Skip (the auto-appended "Other" choice covers "apply with this modification, typed inline"). Track approved and skipped, and continue batch by batch. Suggested replies are demonstration-only — never post anything to the forge.

auto mode: skip the per-comment prompts. Decide automatically (score 2–5 → apply, score 1 → skip) and print one compact summary table — columns: local # · score · path:line (or general) · author · ≤10-word gist · decision (every skip carries a brief reason). Print suggested replies only for the skipped (invalid) comments. Then go straight to step 6 — the plan is the only gate.

6. Plan & implement

Summarize the approved list (score-ordered), then produce a detailed implementation plan and get approval before editing (Claude Code: EnterPlanMode → ExitPlanMode):

• Order by score, group changes that touch the same file. Per comment: the exact file(s), the nature of the change, and which conventions rule it satisfies (if any).
• End with a validation step using the project's build/lint command (detect it now if not already found; run it in the background).
• auto mode: also list the auto-skipped invalid comments with their reasons, so nothing disappears silently.

Plan approval is the last gate. Once approved, implement everything and flow straight through step 7 (and step 8 if advanced) — don't stop to ask whether to continue. Never commit without explicit instruction.

7. Commit message

Suggest a commit message: if the commit-suggest skill is available, invoke it; otherwise compose one following the project's commit conventions (guidance in the conventions file, or how_to_write_commit_messages.md at the repo root).

8. [advanced] Extract rules & learn

Turn what was processed into durable rules so the same comments don't recur.

• Derive concise, checkable rules from the applied comments (and the invalid ones + their replies) — the underlying principle, not the one-off fix (e.g. "Composables must accept modifier: Modifier = Modifier as the first optional parameter"). Skip anything already documented. If a reviewer repeatedly enforced a pattern that's absent from the conventions file, flag it as a candidate.
• Confirm the candidates with the user before writing anything — never write unapproved rules.
• Write approved rules to a single cumulative docs/pr-review-rules.md (create it if missing), under a dated / PR-tagged heading, de-duped against what's already there.
• Point to it from the conventions file (priority AGENTS.md → CLAUDE.md → .github/copilot-instructions.md → cursor rules) with one idempotent pointer line. If that file already prescribes its own extraction method, route new rules into docs/pr-review-rules.md and point to it rather than duplicating inline. If editing the file triggers a "sync to other repos" mandate, copy it only to real, resolvable paths; otherwise print a one-line manual-sync reminder.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: NaderNabil216
• Source: NaderNabil216/skillsmith
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.