Get a second agent to review a pull request

Models score their own work too high, and they miss errors in their own output that they find in the output of others. Thus Rondar can give the pull request of a session to a second agent. The reviewer does not see the conversation of the author. It gets the task, the plan, the summary of the author, the pull request and the exact commits.

The reviewer runs in Plan mode, on the exact head of the pull request. It cannot change files, commit or push. It sends one result: a verdict, the strengths of the change, what it declined to judge, and findings. Each finding has a severity, a file and line, and a concrete failure scenario. The reviewer checks each finding against the code before it reports it.

Independent reviews are off until you turn them on.

Open the project Settings, then Reviews. You can also click Review settings in the Independent review panel of a session. Choose When to review:

• Off: no automatic review. You can still click Request independent review on the Changes tab of a session.
• When the pull request opens: one review of the first head of the pull request.
• On each new push: a review of each new head. A later round reviews the new commits and reports only critical and important findings.

Then click Save settings. The other settings on the page have useful defaults, and an empty value uses the default. Review rounds before Rondar asks you stops the loop: after that number of rounds, Rondar stops, and the Independent review panel of the session tells you so.

Wait for the pull request checks first starts a review only after the checks of the pull request finish, so that a reviewer does not read code that does not build.

Reviewer sets how independent the reviewer must be:

• A different agent: for example Codex reviews the work of Claude. This is the default.
• A different agent or model: also the same agent with a model of a different maker.
• Any agent, also the same model: the same model in a new context, when nothing else is connected.

Rondar records the independence of each review and shows it. When no agent qualifies, the review is skipped with the reason: connect a second agent in Settings > Connections. A reviewer that you choose as your infrastructure default always wins, and Rondar records its true independence.

Each review is a session of its own, with the label Independent review in the list of automated sessions. It uses your connection of the reviewer agent, so it costs the same as a short session of that agent.

The Changes tab of the session shows the panel Independent review: the verdict, the reviewer agent and model, the independence, the round, and the findings by severity. Each finding shows the file and line, the failure scenario and a suggested fix.

• Dismiss finding closes a finding that is wrong or that you accept.
• Send to author sends the critical and important findings to the session that wrote the code.
• Re-run review reviews the current head again.
• Retry queues a failed review again. A failed review shows its complete error and never blocks the pull request.
• Open reviewer session shows the work of the reviewer.

Send findings to the author session sets the fix loop:

• Do not send: the findings are information only.
• Ask me first: the Independent review panel of the session shows the review, and nothing is sent until you click Send to author.
• Send automatically: Rondar sends the findings when the review finishes.

The author session gets the findings and these rules: verify each finding against the code before a change, fix the most severe first, test each fix, and give evidence when a finding is wrong. It answers each finding with fixed, won't fix or needs clarification. When the author and the reviewer disagree, Rondar stops and you decide in the Independent review panel of the session.

Post the review on GitHub adds one review comment to the pull request with the verdict, the summary and the findings. Findings on changed lines are comments on those lines. Rondar also sets a commit status named rondar/review on the reviewed commit.

GitHub does not let you approve or request changes on your own pull request, and Rondar acts with your GitHub sign-in. Thus the GitHub review is always a comment. Rondar sets a commit status, not a check run. To make GitHub require the review, add rondar/review to the required status checks of the branch protection. The status fails on blocking findings only when the project holds releases on findings.

Hold the release on holds the pull request out of releases while critical (or important) findings are open. A later clean review or the dismissal of the findings releases the hold. Hold the release while a review runs also holds it until the review of the current head is done; without it, the release picker only says that a review is in progress.