AI Review

About 530 wordsAbout 2 min

With AI capabilities, you can let pipelines automatically review Pull Requests (PRs), quickly discovering potential issues and improving code quality.

Cloud Native Build supports two ways to perform AI code reviews. You can choose the method that suits your scenario.

Token Overview

The pipeline provides three NPC-related environment variables. They all have the same permissions and represent the pipeline trigger, only differing in which NPC role they represent:

Environment Variable	Description
`CNB_TOKEN`	When mentioning a custom NPC role, represents the mentioned custom role
`CNB_TOKEN_FOR_CODEBUDDY`	When mentioning the system role CodeBuddy, represents the system role CodeBuddy
`CNB_TOKEN_FOR_AI`	Can be used by users in non-NPC pipelines as needed

Comparison

Comparison	Method 1: AI Review Plugin	Method 2: NPC Event
Trigger	Automatic via pipeline	Mention NPC in PR comment
Token used	`CNB_TOKEN_FOR_AI`	`CNB_TOKEN` (custom role) or `CNB_TOKEN_FOR_CODEBUDDY` (system role)
Use case	Auto-review every PR event	On-demand review, flexible control
Config location	`.cnb.yml` pipeline config	`.cnb.yml` + `.cnb/settings.yml` (custom role)

Method 1: Use AI Review Plugin

Use the cnbcool/ai-review image as a pipeline plugin to automatically perform code review when PR events are triggered.

Configuration Example

.cnb.yml
main:
  pull_request:
    - stages:
        - name: Code Review
          image: cnbcool/ai-review:latest
          settings:
            type: code-review

How It Works

When a PR is created or updated on the main branch, the pipeline is automatically triggered.
The pipeline can use the CNB_TOKEN_FOR_AI environment variable to call the OpenAPI AI capability.
The AI reviews the code changes in the PR and submits review results as comments on the PR.

Use Cases

Automatically get AI review feedback on every PR
Enforce quality checks before merging code

Method 2: Trigger NPC Event

Mention an NPC role in a PR comment to trigger the NPC event pipeline and perform AI review.

How to Trigger

System NPC: Simply mention @CodeBuddy in the PR comment, for example:

@CodeBuddy Code review

Custom NPC: First configure a custom NPC role in your repository, then mention it in the PR comment, for example:

@cnb/feedback(评审专家) Code review

NPC Event How It Works

When someone comments and mentions an NPC in a PR, it triggers the pull_request.comment@npc event.
The system loads the .cnb.yml configuration from the NPC's repository and parses the corresponding role's event pipeline.
The pipeline calls the OpenAPI AI capability using the token:
- When mentioning a custom NPC, uses CNB_TOKEN, representing the mentioned custom role
- When mentioning the system role CodeBuddy, uses CNB_TOKEN_FOR_CODEBUDDY, representing the system role CodeBuddy
The review results are submitted to the PR comment with the NPC's identity.

For detailed configuration, see NPC.

NPC Event Use Cases

Trigger review on demand instead of every PR automatically
Use custom review roles and styles
Let NPC perform other automation tasks during the review

Notes

Both methods require ensuring the pipeline has sufficient permissions to access the code repository and submit comments.
When the NPC event pipeline runs, its TOKEN permissions are limited to the current repository.
If you need to make code changes during review, you can enable NPC Work Mode.