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hbrooks merged 1 commit into from
Sep 26, 2026
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Remove the review command #155

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5 changes: 0 additions & 5 deletions README.md
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Expand Up @@ -82,11 +82,6 @@ ellipsis session get <session-id> --watch # follow the turn in progress until i
ellipsis session record <session-id> # read a session's stored transcript, one line per record
ellipsis session stop <session-id> # stop a session's turn in progress

ellipsis review 123 # review a pull request now, instead of waiting for a push
ellipsis review get <review-id> # a review's findings, scope, and whether it posted
ellipsis review list --repo api # list a repository's reviews, newest first
ellipsis review init # scaffold a starter review pipeline (code_review.yaml)

ellipsis automation list # list your automations
ellipsis automation get <id> # show one automation as YAML (--json for JSON)
ellipsis automation run <id> --input '{"issue": "ENG-42"}' # invoke it exactly as defined
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168 changes: 9 additions & 159 deletions skills/ellipsis/SKILL.md
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@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
---
name: ellipsis
description: What the Ellipsis platform is and how to drive it with the agent CLI. Use when the user mentions Ellipsis, wants to run or deploy coding agents in the cloud, govern agents with budgets and scoped permissions, automate work on GitHub, Slack, Linear, or Sentry events, get pull requests reviewed, hand a local task off to a background agent, or asks about the agent CLI.
description: What the Ellipsis platform is and how to drive it with the agent CLI. Use when the user mentions Ellipsis, wants to run or deploy coding agents in the cloud, govern agents with budgets and scoped permissions, automate work on GitHub, Slack, Linear, or Sentry events, hand a local task off to a background agent, or asks about the agent CLI.
---

# Ellipsis
Expand All @@ -12,8 +12,8 @@ recorded and searchable.

An event fires, an agent wakes in an isolated sandbox with your repositories
cloned, reads the code, does the work, and delivers a real artifact: a pull
request, an answer in the thread that asked, a review on the diff. Then the
sandbox is destroyed and the full session stays readable.
request, or an answer in the thread that asked. Then the sandbox is destroyed
and the full session stays readable.

## The problem it solves

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -45,14 +45,11 @@ the logs of a session they do not own.
Sentry alerts, or a schedule. Work starts when the event fires, not when
someone opens a laptop.

## The two products
## The product

- **Cloud Agents**: agents you define. Each is one YAML file in a repository, a
trigger plus a model plus a prompt. The version on the default branch is the
live agent.
- **Code Review**: Ellipsis reviews every pull request as commits land and posts
findings as inline comments. One organization-wide toggle turns it on, with no
YAML.
**Cloud Agents**: agents you define. Each is one YAML file in a repository, a
trigger plus a model plus a prompt. The version on the default branch is the
live agent.

Surfaces: the dashboard at app.ellipsis.dev, the REST API at
api.ellipsis.dev, and the `ellipsis` CLI. All three drive the same API.
Expand All @@ -67,8 +64,6 @@ fee. There are no seats.
issues, Linear issues, Sentry alerts, or Slack channel creation.
- **Questions in a thread**: mention `@ellipsis` on GitHub, Slack, or Linear.
The built-in responder needs no configuration and answers in the thread.
- **Catching bugs before merge**: turn code review on and every pull request is
reviewed, or commit a pipeline file to scope and customize it.
- **Delegation from scripts or CI**: `ellipsis session start` or
`POST /v1/sessions`. With `--watch` it streams into the log and exits nonzero
unless the turn completes, so it works as a gate.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -240,131 +235,6 @@ session:
durable conversations: follow-ups keep the whole exchange and the working
tree, and a conversation costs near nothing between turns.

## Code review

Code review is one organization-wide setting, on the Settings tab of `/reviews`
in the dashboard, off by default. With it on and no YAML committed, the built-in
pipeline reviews every pull request in the organization.

How it behaves:

- **New commits only.** The first review of a pull request covers everything on
it; every later review covers only the commits since the last review that
posted, and never re-comments a line it already covered.
- **Only confirmed defects.** The reviewer files a finding only when it can
point at the wrong line and name the input or state that breaks it, so a
review is a short list of real problems rather than a page of "consider
whether". It reads the surrounding code, not the diff alone, because most real
findings depend on a caller or a guard the diff does not show.
- **Comment-only.** Ellipsis posts one pull request review as the Ellipsis bot,
anchored to the commit it reviewed. It never approves, requests changes,
pushes commits, or merges, so it cannot satisfy a required-review rule. A
review that finds nothing posts a one-line summary instead of invented
nitpicks.
- **Bots are reviewed too**, minus dependabot and renovate. A dependency bump is
exactly the change nobody reads closely.
- The built-in pipeline is two agents: a Haiku `pr-description` agent that keeps
the pull request description's summary current, and one Opus reviewer named
`bugs`. The stages are `pre_review`, `description`, `review`, deduplication,
`filter`, `post_review`; only `description` and `review` are populated by
default.
- Reviewers never post. Each writes findings to a file, and the platform posts.
A reviewer prompt is the reviewing brain only: Ellipsis supplies the commit
range, so never restate the scope and never tell a reviewer to post to GitHub.

### The pipeline file

One optional file customizes the review. **There is one filename,
`code_review.yaml`, and where you commit it decides what it governs:**

- At the root of a repository: governs that repository. `.ellipsis/code_review.yaml`
also works for its own repository, and the root path wins if both exist.
- At the root of the repository literally named `.ellipsis`: governs every
repository in the organization. That repository is never itself reviewed.
- Anywhere else: a configuration error, not a file that silently reviews
nothing.

First hit wins, and a repository's own file **replaces** the organization-wide
one rather than merging with it, so copy across whatever you meant to keep. That
also means an organization file's filters are not a ceiling: a repository the
organization file excluded can review itself by committing its own file.

The file is an overlay on the built-in pipeline, so it declares only what it
changes:

```yaml
# code_review.yaml at the root of the .ellipsis repository
ellipsis:
version: v1
kind: code_review
name: Backend review

pull_requests:
repositories: [api] # valid only in the .ellipsis repository's copy
base: [main, "release/*"]
draft: false

review:
- name: migration-safety
harness:
type: claude_code
instructions: |
Review database migrations for production safety. Check for
locking that blocks writes on large tables, missing backfills for
new non-null columns, and rollout ordering that breaks if the
migration and the code deploy out of order.
pull_requests:
paths: ["**/migrations/**"]

filter:
name: strict-gate
harness:
type: claude_code
instructions: |
Approve only findings a staff engineer would raise in review.
Reject style opinions and anything a linter catches.

budget:
run: 15.00
day: 100.00
```

Merge rules that catch people out:

- **`ellipsis.kind: code_review` marks the file**, and the path decides its
scope. A pipeline file is not an agent config and is not synced from `agents/`.
- **Declaring `pull_requests:` makes it authoritative.** A pull request the
governing file does not match gets no review at all, rather than falling back
to the built-in pipeline. It also narrows the audience to humans unless the
block writes `for` back out, because the block replaces the default wholesale.
- **Declaring a stage list replaces that stage wholesale.** There is no
"append to the built-in reviewers" knob. A file wanting a specialist beside a
general pass declares both reviewers itself.
- **Unset and empty differ where the built-in ships a stage.** No `review:` key
inherits the built-in reviewer. No `description:` key inherits the built-in
description agent, and `description: []` is the only way to stop it. For
`filter:` both unset and `[]` mean no gatekeeper, since nothing gates findings
unless you declare one.
- **`enabled: false` does not suppress review.** It marks the file inactive, so
Ellipsis reads it as no policy and continues to the organization file, then the
built-in pipeline. To stop reviews in one repository, commit a file whose
`pull_requests:` matches nothing, such as `for: {users: false, bots: false}`.
- `description` and `filter` are each exactly one agent, never a list with
entries. At most 8 reviewers, each with a unique name. Reviewers run in
parallel, and a reviewer whose own `pull_requests` filters exclude a pull
request costs nothing.
- `environment:` and `budget:` merge field by field.
- `budget.run` (default $10) caps one whole review across every stage, divided
among its agents. `budget.day` and `budget.week` are trailing caps checked
before a review starts, which is the guard against a push storm.

An optional `filter` gatekeeper judges every finding before it posts and rejects
claims that do not hold against the code, are handled elsewhere, are style
preferences, or are speculative. Rejected findings stay visible on the reviews
dashboard with the reason. It is off by default because one careful reviewer
leaves a second pass little to arbitrate, and that pass doubles every review's
cost and latency.

## The agent CLI

One open-source binary named `ellipsis` (`el` for short), a terminal client for the same API
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -418,22 +288,6 @@ Search covers transcripts, recaps, and pull request references, with embedding
similarity alongside full text, so one agent's investigation compounds into team
knowledge. Facets cover repository, author, agent, status, source, and date.

Review pull requests on demand, without waiting for a push:

```sh
ellipsis review 519 # review a pull request by number
ellipsis review 519 --full # re-review the whole PR, ignoring earlier reviews
ellipsis review 519 --no-post # print findings instead of posting to GitHub
ellipsis review list --repo api # a repository's reviews, newest first
ellipsis review get <review-id> # one review's findings, scope, and whether it posted
ellipsis review init # scaffold code_review.yaml for this repository
```

Which pipeline runs is not a parameter. An explicit review resolves the same
pipeline by location that the webhook does, so the two entry points can never
disagree. A review with nothing new to cover returns a `skipped` review rather
than an error.

Author and deploy agents:

```sh
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -469,9 +323,8 @@ ellipsis github repos # also github members, slack cha
# linear teams, sentry orgs
```

Most singular commands accept the plural spelling as a hidden alias, and
`review` also answers to `cr`. `ellipsis --help` and `ellipsis <command> --help` are
authoritative for flags.
Most singular commands accept the plural spelling as a hidden alias.
`ellipsis --help` and `ellipsis <command> --help` are authoritative for flags.

## Writing a config

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -664,9 +517,6 @@ is every page in one file.
- Permissions: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/cloud-agents/permissions
- Conversations: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/cloud-agents/conversations
- Skills: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/cloud-agents/skills
- Code review: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/code-review
- Review pipeline reference: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/code-review/configuration-yaml
- Which PRs get reviewed: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/code-review/which-prs-get-reviewed
- CLI reference: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/cli
- REST API reference: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/api
- Models: https://www.ellipsis.dev/docs/models
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2 changes: 0 additions & 2 deletions src/cli.ts
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Expand Up @@ -2,7 +2,6 @@ import { Command } from 'commander'
import { registerAuth } from './commands/auth'
import { registerHost } from './commands/host'
import { registerSession } from './commands/session'
import { registerReview } from './commands/review'
import { registerAutomation } from './commands/automation'
import { registerEnvironment } from './commands/environment'
import { registerVariable } from './commands/variable'
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -37,7 +36,6 @@ configureCliHelp(program)
registerAuth(program)
registerHost(program)
registerSession(program)
registerReview(program)
registerAutomation(program)
registerEnvironment(program)
registerVariable(program)
Expand Down
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