Working with Gitar
How Gitar works with you on your PRs/MRs
Gitar Dashboard
When a new PR/MR is created, Gitar posts a comment used for status updates and controls.
Gitar posts status updates about it's activity by updating this comment in realtime. You can control default behavior like enabling automatic CI failure fixing etc.
CI Failure Analysis & Fixes
When CI fails, Gitar automatically analyzes the failure and posts a comment explaining why. The analysis identifies root causes and provides context before attempting any fixes.
You can review the analysis to understand what went wrong, then:
- Check
[ ] Automatically accept suggestionsto let Gitar automatically fix the issue - Push your own fix with the context from the analysis
- Comment
Gitar <specific instruction>for a targeted fix
Gitar is capable of fixing build errors, linting errors, test failures, and more. The analysis updates dynamically as new commits are pushed.
Address Review Comments
Start comments with Gitar and Gitar will address the comment and push a fix. Gitar only processes comments from users with repository write access for security reasons. Be specific and actionable in your requests.
Gitar reacts to your comment with 👀 to indicate it has started working on it.
Commands
Commands are special phrases that control how Gitar behaves. Unlike regular comments to the Gitar agent, commands must match exactly as shown below (case insensitive).
Display Mode
Control how much detail you see in the Gitar dashboard comment. The default is compact mode.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
gitar display:verbose | Show all rules including those that don't apply, with explanations |
gitar display:compact | Show only relevant rules (default behavior) |
Your display preference persists across comment updates. The footer shows a hint for the opposite command.
Compact mode (default) shows only applicable rules with a summary of how many were hidden:
Verbose mode shows all rules with explanations for why each rule doesn't apply:
Auto-Apply Control
Control whether Gitar automatically applies fixes:
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
gitar auto-apply:on | Enable automatic fix application |
gitar auto-apply:off | Disable automatic fixes (review only) |
The dashboard comment displays the current auto-apply status.
Example
Here is an example of Gitar fixing CI failures and addressing user comments on a PR.
After the initial message, a user posts a request via a comment. Gitar acknowledges it is looking at the request. CI has also failed because of test failures.
After a few minutes, Gitar resolves both issues and pushes commits to the PR and explains what it did. At this point, the user comment as well as CI failures are solved. CI is green and the PR is ready for merging.
Repository Rules
Create automated workflows using natural language specified in .gitar/rules/*.md files. When conditions are met, Gitar automatically executes actions - no code required.
See the Repository Rules documentation for details and examples.
Customize
Gitar uses AGENTS.md files in your repositories to follow the repository conventions and best practices. The following files are recognized as AI instructions sources
AGENTS.mdCLAUDE.md.cursorrules/ Files in.cursor/rules/*directory