Auto review
Let Limn review new pull requests and new commits by itself, within your spend budget.
On this page
With auto review on, Limn reviews each new pull request a person opens in the workspace, and reviews it again when new commits arrive. You do not press anything. It uses the same models and the same rules as a review you start, and it runs on your own AI sign-in, so it is off until you switch it on.
#Turn it on
- Open Settings, choose the AI review tab and pick the workspace at the top.
- Under Auto review, tick Review new PRs automatically.
- Choose Auto reviews use: Claude + Codex (the default), or your default provider only.
- Choose When an auto review finishes: Post to GitHub (the default) or Keep it in Limn.
- With posting on, choose Which PRs its reviews post on: Your own PRs, and PRs you are asked to review or have reviewed or commented on (the default), or Every PR auto review covers.
Nothing is reviewed until AI is set up on this machine. Auto review is set per workspace, so each workspace can have its own choice.
#What starts a review
| What happens on GitHub | What Limn does |
|---|---|
| A person opens a pull request | Reviews it within about a minute. A draft waits until it is marked ready. |
| New commits | Reviews at once after a quiet spell. Pushes during a review or within 5 minutes of one wait until the pull request has been quiet for 5 minutes, or 20 minutes at most. |
| A reply on one of your Limn's posted findings | A short replies pass after 5 quiet minutes, at most 5 a day per pull request. |
| A new comment by a person or a review bot in an open thread | A light Check threads pass, at most 30 a day per workspace. |
| A thread is resolved, CI finishes, a deploy bot comments, your Limn posts | Nothing. |
A review that is running is never cancelled by a new push; the new commit is reviewed after it. Pull requests opened by bots, and pull requests opened before you switched auto review on, are not reviewed. See Replies to findings and Check threads for the two lighter passes.
First in the queue: a verdict a teammate is waiting for
Some pull requests go ahead of the rest. A teammate reviewed their own pull request with their Limn, which can never approve it, so your Limn gives the verdict; one their Limn would have approved goes first. Also first: new commits on a pull request that only teammates' Limns reviewed before. Never your own pull requests. See Reviewing as a team.
After a break
When Limn starts, or your computer wakes after five minutes or more, auto review waits until your repositories have synced, so it never reviews a commit that has since moved. It waits 30 minutes at most. Then it reviews what changed while you were away, the verdicts teammates wait for first, within the daily limit and the spend budget.
When a pull request has failing checks, the CI review looks at them on its own too. See CI review.
#Limits and the spend budget
- A daily limit: 20 automatic reviews a day per workspace by default, from 1 to 500 (UTC days). A Claude + Codex review counts once. The rest wait for the next day.
- The spend budget: every automatic run asks it first. When your budget is used up, the run is skipped, not queued. A review you start yourself is never refused. See AI usage and spend.
- Retries: a failed automatic review is tried again only when the error was temporary, at most 3 tries per commit (after an hour, then four hours, or when your usage limit resets).
- Teammates: when a teammate's Limn is already reviewing a commit with the same model, yours steps aside and spends nothing. See Reviewing as a team.
- Reviews you start yourself always go first.
#What you see
- In the AI Review tab: Auto review queued or Auto review running beside the Run button, or Auto review waiting for pushes to settle while it waits. A review queued first says why: Queued: needs a verdict (alex’s own review would approve).
- A failed automatic review shows one line with Retry.
- On Open pull requests, Run auto reviews now reviews every pull request that is due at once, within the daily limit, and retries failed runs. See The AI review column.
#Auto AI Fix
On the same tab, Auto AI Fix on your own PRs prepares an AI Fix after an auto review of a pull request you opened. It is off by default, and off while auto review is off. Unless Push automatically is also on, the fix waits for you to press Push. See Push the fix, and auto fix.
#Turn it off
Untick Review new PRs automatically. Running reviews finish; nothing new starts. If you switch it on again later, only pull requests opened after that moment are reviewed.