CodeRabbit Review

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Overview

CodeRabbit Review takes any pull request and reorganizes it into a small number of independent change cohorts — logical groupings of related work — each broken into ordered layers that reflect the natural reading order of the change. Every layer anchors to specific line ranges in the diff, each with its own summary. Reviewers open CodeRabbit Review from the Review Change Stack → button that CodeRabbit posts in the comment. Inside, they navigate cohorts and layers with the keyboard, drop inline comments against specific ranges, and submit native review feedback without leaving the CodeRabbit Review tab.

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Why CodeRabbit Review

AI-assisted development has made pull requests larger and more frequent, a single AI-authored change can touch dozens of files across multiple layers of a codebase. GitHub’s or IDE’s default diff view presents those files alphabetically, without reflecting the logical dependencies between them. CodeRabbit Review reorganizes the diff into cohorts and layers that reflect the structure of the change:

• Cohorts group related files and hunks that belong together conceptually.
• Layers order those groups so foundational changes (data shapes, contracts) come before the code that depends on them (consumers, call sites, tests).
• Range summaries explain each contiguous block of changed lines in plain language.
• Diagrams are generated inline for layers where a visual earns its place — sequence diagrams for new call flows, state machines for lifecycle changes, ERDs for data model updates. Layers that do not warrant a diagram do not get one.

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Opening CodeRabbit Review

Every pull request review comment from CodeRabbit includes a Review Change Stack → button above the standard walkthrough. Clicking it opens the review in the CodeRabbit Review interface. CodeRabbit Review is opt-in per reviewer. Teammates who prefer the default GitHub review experience can ignore the button — nothing about the PR workflow changes for them.

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The three-panel layout

CodeRabbit Review uses a fixed three-panel layout tuned for rapid navigation:

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Keyboard navigation

CodeRabbit Review is designed to be driven from the keyboard: Reviewers can also switch between unified, split, and semantic diff views, step through the review order using the arrow controls in the diff header, and use the All files view to search the reviewed file tree. Diff lines wrap automatically in all views.

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Reviewing in CodeRabbit Review

CodeRabbit Review supports native review workflows on the host platform, including inline comments and review submission without leaving the CodeRabbit Review interface. Reviews post back to GitHub or GitLab natively, so comments and approvals land exactly where your team expects them.

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Inline comments

Every range summary in the right panel has an Add block comment action that opens a comment against the exact line range covered by the summary. Comments accumulate into a pending review, which you submit from the Submit review menu in the top-right corner. The comment composer supports platform-native autocomplete for user and team mentions, issue references, pull request references, metadata references, and emoji shortcodes.

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Code Peek

Click a variable, function, class, or type name to look up its definition and usages. Code Peek uses GitHub code search to show likely definitions and references with surrounding context, so you can follow the code without leaving the review. Code Peek is available in GitHub CodeRabbit Review sessions when CodeRabbit has the GitHub access it needs for the repository. If GitHub needs to be reconnected or code search is unavailable for the session, Code Peek is not shown. When a result points to a changed file in the pull request, Open in CodeRabbit Review jumps to that file. CodeRabbit Review keeps an in-page back trail so you can return to where you started.

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Files viewed

On GitHub, marking a file as viewed in CodeRabbit Review syncs with GitHub’s Viewed state on the same file, so your progress is visible to other reviewers and persists if you switch back to the GitHub UI.

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Snapshots and stale-state protection

Every time the PR author pushes a new commit, CodeRabbit Review generates a new snapshot of the change and retains previous ones. A snapshot dropdown in the header lets reviewers switch between snapshots to answer the question “what changed since I last looked?” — even across rebases and force-pushes.

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Access and permissions

CodeRabbit Review authenticates with a repo-scoped Git provider grant and preserves your return path through SSO, so links work end-to-end even on organizations with enforced SSO. Public-link sharing is supported within the limits of the underlying repository’s access controls, so a reviewer without access to the repo will not be able to open CodeRabbit Review.

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What’s next