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What is the PR summary

CodeRabbit appends a generated summary to the bottom of the PR description after a review. The summary groups changes by type — new features, bug fixes, documentation updates, and so on — so reviewers can quickly understand the scope of a PR before diving into individual files.
CodeRabbit Summary
The summary is regenerated on every incremental push, so it always reflects the latest state of the branch.

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Controlling placement

By default the summary is appended to the bottom of the description. You can pin it to a specific location by adding a @coderabbitai summary placeholder anywhere in the description:
GitHub PR description editor showing the @coderabbitai summary placeholder wrapped in separator lines
When the review runs, CodeRabbit replaces that placeholder with the generated summary. The placeholder text itself is configurable via high_level_summary_placeholder and defaults to @coderabbitai summary.

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Customizing the summary

The recommended way to configure summary settings is via the .coderabbit.yaml file. You can also adjust them through the CodeRabbit web interface at Configuration → Review → Settings.
high_level_summary_instructions accepts free-form text that tells CodeRabbit what to include and how to structure the summary. CodeRabbit follows these instructions on every review. 
reviews:
  high_level_summary_instructions: |
    Divide the summary into five sections:

    1. **📝 Description**: Describe the main change in the pull request in 60 words max. Explain what was changed, why it was needed, and the approach taken.
    2. **📓 References**: A list of links to discussions, issues and pull requests related to the changes. You can look up for documentation, issues, or other pull requests that provide context or background for the changes.
    3. **📦 Dependencies & Requirements**: List any new dependencies added or updated. Mention environment variable changes, configuration updates, or version requirements.
    4. **📊 Contributor Summary**: A table showing contributions (lines of code added, removed, files changed) made by the contributor in this pull request. Format: `| Contributor | Lines Added | Lines Removed | Files Changed |`

    Use bullet points or numbered lists for clarity. Keep it short and each section should be no more than 200 words. The Changes Summary table should be concise with only essential file paths (relative to repo root).

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Moving the summary to the walkthrough

To keep your PR description clean and consolidate all CodeRabbit output in one place, set high_level_summary_in_walkthrough to true. The summary will appear at the top of the walkthrough comment instead of the description.
.coderabbit.yaml
reviews:
  high_level_summary_in_walkthrough: true

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Disabling the summary

Set high_level_summary to false to stop CodeRabbit from writing a summary.
.coderabbit.yaml
reviews:
  high_level_summary: false
When high_level_summary is false, the summary is still generated and inserted if the @coderabbitai summary placeholder is present in the description. The setting only suppresses the automatic append behaviour.
For the full list of summary options with types and defaults, see the configuration reference.