Change Stack

|

​

Overview

Change Stack is CodeRabbit’s PR inspection interface. It 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 Change Stack from the Review Change Stack → button that CodeRabbit posts in the comment. Inside, they navigate cohorts and layers with the keyboard. On GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, they can also drop inline comments against specific ranges and submit native review feedback without leaving the Change Stack tab.

​

Why Change Stack

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. A git provider’s or IDE’s default diff view can present those files alphabetically without reflecting the logical dependencies between them. Change Stack 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, such as sequence diagrams for new call flows, state machines for lifecycle changes, and ERDs for data model updates. Layers that do not warrant a diagram do not get one.

​

Opening Change Stack

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

​

The three-panel layout

Change Stack uses a fixed three-panel layout tuned for rapid navigation:

​

Overview

The left rail includes an Overview entry above the numbered layers when the Overview surface is available. Use it for a high-level read on the pull request: the PR description, CodeRabbit’s Walkthrough, and anything that needs attention before merge, including blockers, unresolved CodeRabbit issues, and required actions. The Needs your attention section focuses on pre-merge blockers, including CodeRabbit findings, minor findings, changes-requested reviews, build status signals, and merge conflicts. Use All Reviews to inspect the complete review history. Opening a review card displays the review-conversation viewer in Change Stack. The Activity panel also opens matching reviews and comments in the in-app viewer when a target is available, and falls back to the host platform when no in-app target can be found. The Overview rail entry shows merge status at a glance. Its status icon and subtitle summarize whether the pull request is ready to merge, has warnings, is blocked, is closed, or is already merged. Hover the Overview entry to see a richer status breakdown. Overview has its own /overview path for sharing and browser navigation. A bare Change Stack deep link opens Layer 1 by default; use the Overview entry or the /overview path to open the summary view directly.

​

Security Agent integration

​

Architecture Review

For reviews covered by Security Agent, Overview can include a Security Architecture Review when CodeRabbit finds enough evidence for a useful architecture-level assessment. It explains the overall security architecture risk, retained concerns, affected trust boundaries and controls, Security Blast Radius, and supporting code evidence. Select See review details to expand the assessment, then select an evidence link to open the relevant file and layer.

​

Security Blast Radius

The left rail also can include Security Blast Radius. This view maps changed components to the dependencies they use, the downstream consumers they may affect, related tests, and supporting repository context. Select a component or relationship to inspect the code ranges that support it and jump back to the corresponding Change Stack layer. When Security Architecture findings are available, the graph can highlight the components associated with all findings or with one selected finding. If CodeRabbit does not find evidence of impact outside the pull request, the view shows the changed-code structure without inferring unsupported relationships.

​

Architecture Impact

Architecture Impact compares the affected architecture before and after a pull request change, showing which higher-level system responsibilities and relationships changed. When a Security Architecture review is available, the Security control shows the number of findings mapped to the diagram and the highest mapped severity. The control is disabled when a review exists but none of its findings map to the current diagram; this differs from having no Security Architecture review available. Expand the Security findings legend to see each finding’s stable label (F1, F2, and so on), severity, summary, and number of affected changed-architecture steps. Click a finding to keep it selected, or hover over it or move keyboard focus to it for a temporary preview. Clearing the preview restores the selected finding or the broader Security view. Finding focus emphasizes affected nodes and groups while dimming unrelated elements. Only findings mapped to the changed architecture appear. A relationship is highlighted only when both endpoints share the same finding, and finding emphasis applies to the changed-architecture snapshot, not the existing-architecture snapshot. Opening Security Blast Radius from an affected architecture node or group preserves the security context in the focused graph.

​

All Reviews

The All Reviews section is open by default and consolidates the complete pull request review history on a chronological timeline. It includes human and automated (bot) Approved, Comment, and Changes requested reviews, pending reviews, and pull-request-level comments. Filter the timeline by review state or reviewer, toggle between all entries and only the most recent entry per reviewer, and sort from oldest to newest or newest to oldest. Bot approvals and changes-requested reviews are shown by default, while bot Comment entries are hidden until you opt in with the bot Comment state filter. Each entry shows the reviewer’s action, relative time, unresolved inline-comment count when available, and a one-line content preview. Use View review or View comment to open the entry in the review-conversation viewer. Empty reviews with no body or inline content may not include a view action.

​

Keyboard navigation

Change Stack is designed to be driven from the keyboard: Reviewers can also switch between unified, split, and semantic diff views, hide whitespace-only changes, 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.

​

Reviewing in Change Stack

Change Stack supports native review workflows on the host platform, including inline comments and review submission without leaving the Change Stack interface. Reviews post back to GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket natively. With repository write access, reviewers can add inline comments and replies, resolve or reopen eligible threads, approve or request changes, mark pull requests ready for review, run CodeRabbit commands, and start coding-agent tasks that create commits or stacked pull requests.

​

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. You can paste images into a review comment or add them from the composer. Accepted image types remain unchanged, and uploaded images are accessible by link.

​

Slack discussion threads

Use Subscribe with Slack to start a Slack thread for the review from inside Change Stack. You can choose a channel when the discussion belongs with a team, or start a direct-message thread when the discussion should stay between you and CodeRabbit. Channel subscriptions use the workspace Slack app installation and search the channels available to the installed bot. Direct-message subscriptions require your Slack identity to be connected; if it is not connected yet, CodeRabbit sends you through Slack linking and returns you to the review. You can create additional Slack discussion threads for the same pull request after one already exists. When a saved Slack channel destination is used for automatic PR thread subscriptions, new PR review threads start in that channel instead of falling back to a direct message.

​

PR auto fix settings

Use PR auto fix settings in the Slack settings area to auto-subscribe to pull requests you open. You can choose whether new PR threads start in your Slack direct messages or in a channel, select which future PR events are posted there, and decide whether CodeRabbit can start CI fixes or review-comment fixes automatically in those auto-created threads. CodeRabbit will not merge pull requests from this setting. It starts fix work in the configured thread so you can review the result before deciding what to do next.

​

Review conversations

Opening a finding or changes-requested review from Overview shows an in-app viewer with grouped review threads: the pull-request-level review body first, followed by inline conversations. Each thread includes replies and resolved or outdated indicators, and you can use the existing review actions to reply and resolve eligible conversations. Changes-requested cards identify the reviewer and show the number of unresolved inline conversations. For file-anchored conversations, See in layer context closes the viewer and selects the relevant code layer. Comments that CodeRabbit cannot map to a layer retain a validated link to the host platform. The viewer appears as a dialog on desktop and a bottom drawer on mobile.

​

Chat with AI

When AI chat is available for the session, the right rail can switch from review context into a dedicated chat panel. Reviewers can open chat from the main rail or directly from a range summary to ask follow-up questions about the current layer, file, or highlighted range. The chat composer also supports voice input. Use the microphone button to record a prompt, then let CodeRabbit transcribe it into the chat before sending.

​

Code Peek

Click a variable, function, class, or type name to look up its definition and usages. On GitHub, Code Peek uses GitHub code search to show likely definitions and references with surrounding context. On Bitbucket, Code Peek depends on code search being available for the connected account and installation. Code Peek is available in GitHub Change Stack 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 Change Stack jumps to that file. Change Stack keeps an in-page back trail so you can return to where you started.

​

Finishing touches and coding tasks

Reviewers with write access can trigger coding tasks from CodeRabbit Review feedback, including finishing touches, unit tests, docstrings, and supported comment-driven tasks. These tasks are available independently of whether the AI chat panel is available for the session. The coding panel tracks task progress as work moves through queued, running, patch-ready, and completed states, and it preserves the resulting patch, commit, or stacked PR details when those artifacts are created. If a task fails, CodeRabbit shows the failure and lets you retry when retry is available.

​

Files viewed

On GitHub, marking a file as viewed in Change Stack 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. On Bitbucket, viewed-file markers are stored in Change Stack.

​

Snapshots and stale-state protection

Every time the PR author pushes a new commit, Change Stack 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.

​

Access and permissions

Change Stack 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. For Bitbucket Cloud and Bitbucket Data Center, viewing requires an authenticated CodeRabbit connection and permission to view the pull request. Submitting reviews requires repository write or admin permission. Bitbucket Cloud uses its cloud sign-in and app-installation flow; Bitbucket Data Center uses the connected instance’s sign-in and installation flow.

​

Bitbucket limitations

• Bitbucket pull requests cannot be viewed anonymously or through public links.
• Change Stack cannot apply Bitbucket review suggestions as commits.
• File-level review comments are not available on Bitbucket.
• Code Peek may be unavailable for a Bitbucket account or installation.

​

What’s next