Glossary

This glossary covers terms specific to CodeRabbit, Git platform terminology that varies across GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps, and general software engineering concepts referenced in the documentation.

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CodeRabbit terms

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Code Guidelines

Files in your repository that describe your team’s coding standards, such as .cursorrules, CLAUDE.md, or AGENTS.md. CodeRabbit reads these files and applies them as review criteria. Different from Path-based Instructions, which are rules you write directly in CodeRabbit’s settings. See Knowledge Base.

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Finishing Touches

Automated actions in the PR for common cleanup tasks like generating docstrings and writing unit tests. Triggered through a checkbox in the Walkthrough or by commenting @coderabbitai. See Docstrings and Unit tests.

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Fortune

A random fun fact, tip, or trivia message displayed in the Walkthrough while CodeRabbit is still processing the review. Replaced by the actual review summary content once complete. Named after the Unix fortune command.

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High-Level Summary

An AI-generated summary of a PR’s purpose and key changes, written for human reviewers. By default appears in the PR description (at the end unless a placeholder string specifies a precise injection place) and can be moved to the Walkthrough comment.

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Incremental Review

When new commits are pushed to a PR that has already been reviewed, CodeRabbit can re-review focusing on just the new changes rather than starting from scratch. This avoids repeating comments already made on previous commits.

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Knowledge Base

The collected context CodeRabbit draws on during reviews. This includes Learnings from past review conversations, issues from your tracker, past PRs, Code Guidelines files, and integrations with Jira, Linear, and MCP servers. See Knowledge Base.

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Learnings

When you respond to CodeRabbit’s review comments (for example, “we prefer early returns over try-catch in this repo”), CodeRabbit remembers that preference and applies it to future reviews. These remembered preferences are called learnings. They can be scoped to a single repository or shared across your organization. See Learnings.

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Path Filters

Glob patterns that control which files CodeRabbit includes in or excludes from a review. For example, !dist/** excludes all files in the dist folder, and !*.lock excludes lock files. Files not matching any exclude pattern are included by default.

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Path-based Instructions

Custom review rules that only apply to files matching a glob pattern. For example, you can tell CodeRabbit to “ensure all tests have meaningful descriptions” only for files matching **/*.test.ts. Different from Code Guidelines, which are reference documents CodeRabbit reads. See Review instructions.

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Pre-Merge Checks

Validation rules CodeRabbit evaluates before a PR is merged. Built-in checks include docstring coverage, PR title quality, PR description completeness, and linked issue assessment. You can also define custom checks with your own pass/fail criteria. See Pre-merge checks.

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Profile (Chill / Assertive)

Controls how much feedback CodeRabbit gives you and how strict its standards are. Think of it as a volume knob for review comments. Chill focuses on important issues — you get fewer, higher-signal comments focused on bugs, security issues, and essential fixes. Assertive provides comprehensive feedback with more comments overall, including style, best practices, and minor improvements.

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Request Changes Workflow

A two-step automation: when CodeRabbit finds issues, it submits a “Request changes” review on GitHub to signal the PR needs work. Once all CodeRabbit comments are resolved and pre-merge checks pass, CodeRabbit automatically switches its review to “Approve.” This lets teams use CodeRabbit as a required reviewer that can block or unblock merging.

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Tone Instructions

A free-text field where you describe how CodeRabbit should communicate. This affects the writing style of all review comments and chat responses — for example, “Be concise and direct” or “Explain issues in detail for junior developers.” Note that this only changes how comments are written, not how many are posted. Use Profile for that.

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Walkthrough

The main summary comment that CodeRabbit posts on every PR. It’s a comprehensive, multi-section overview of everything that changed. Sections include a high-level summary, a table of changed files, sequence diagrams, suggested labels and reviewers, and Finishing Touches among others. Which sections appear can be controlled through the review settings.

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Git platform terms

Terminology for the same concepts can vary across GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps. Where the naming differs, a comparison table is included.

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Base Branch

The branch that a PR is merging changes into. This is the destination, not the source.

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Head / Source Branch

The branch that contains the new changes being proposed in the PR.

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Status Check

An indicator (pass, pending, fail) shown on a PR that represents the result of an automated process like CI, tests, or a code review tool like CodeRabbit.

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Labels

Tags attached to PRs or issues for categorization, such as bug, feature, or urgent. Used for filtering, automation, and organization.

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Request Changes

A review action where the reviewer formally indicates the PR needs fixes before it can be merged. Can block merging if required reviews are configured. Not all platforms have this exact action.

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Collapsed Section

A block of content in a PR comment that is hidden by default and expanded by clicking. Uses HTML <details> and <summary> tags. CodeRabbit wraps the Walkthrough in one when “Collapse Walkthrough” is enabled.

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General terms

Standard software engineering concepts referenced throughout CodeRabbit documentation.

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Docstring

A documentation comment embedded directly in source code that describes what a function, class, or module does. Format varies by language: Python uses triple-quoted strings ("""..."""), JavaScript uses JSDoc (/** ... */), etc. Docstring coverage measures what percentage of functions have these.

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Glob Pattern

A file-matching syntax using wildcards. Used in Path Filters and Path-based Instructions to specify which files a rule applies to. * matches any filename, ** matches any directory depth, and ! prefix excludes. Example: src/**/*.ts matches all TypeScript files under src.

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MCP

Model Context Protocol — an open standard for connecting AI tools to external data sources and services. CodeRabbit can use MCP servers configured for your organization as additional knowledge sources during reviews. See MCP server integrations.

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Regex

Regular expressions — a pattern-matching syntax more powerful than glob. Used in the Base Branches setting to match branch names. Example: release/.* matches any branch starting with release/.

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Sequence Diagram

A standard UML diagram type that shows the order of interactions between components, functions, or services over time. CodeRabbit auto-generates these from changed code to help reviewers understand the flow.