Reviewing code with Amazon Q Developer in GitHub

Note

Amazon Q Developer for GitHub is in preview release and is subject to change.

Amazon Q Developer enables automated code reviews within GitHub. When you create a new pull request or reopen a closed pull request, Amazon Q Developer automatically performs a code review and provides feedback on code quality, potential issues, and high-severity findings. Each review includes a code review summary with threaded findings. Amazon Q Developer also generates fixes for the identified issues, which you can review and choose to commit to the pull request. You can use the /q command in pull request comments to ask questions and interact regarding the code review findings. Automatic code reviews are not triggered by subsequent commits made within an existing pull request.

You can also initiate code reviews within pull requests with the /q review slash command. The slash command can be added to a new pull request comment, which initiates a new code review of the pull request in its current state, including any comments and new commits. For more information, see Initiating code reviews within GitHub pull requests.

You can have Amazon Q Developer perform a code review for a limited amount of lines per month. You can increase your free usage at any time by registering your Amazon Q Developer app installation with your AWS account. For more information, see Increasing usage limits and configuring details in Amazon Q Developer console.

Note

If the code review capability was previously disabled, it must be enabled in the Amazon Q Developer console before you can apply the label in GitHub. For more information, see Editing features for Amazon Q Developer in GitHub.

Prerequisites

Before you can initiate code reviews with Amazon Q Developer, you need the appropriate permissions for the target GitHub repository. The supported repository roles are Write, Maintain, or Admin. Users with Read or Triage roles, as well as members without a role, cannot initiate code reviews with Amazon Q Developer.

GitHub users with the Triage role can still review pull requests in a repository. Any user, regardless of role, can review pull requests in public repositories.

For more information, see Repository roles for organizations and About pre-defined organization roles in the GitHub documentation.

Initiating code reviews for GitHub pull requests

When you open a new pull request or reopen a previously closed one, Amazon Q Developer automatically runs a code review and delivers feedback on code quality, possible problems, and critical findings.

To use Amazon Q Developer for code reviews and apply fixes

Before you start a review, you can customize a code quality review by defining custom coding standards in simple Markdown files in the project-root/.amazonq/rules directory. Amazon Q automatically follows your guidelines, ensuring consistent code quality across your entire project. For more information, see Creating project rules for Amazon Q Developer in third-party platforms.

1. If necessary, sign in to your GitHub account using your GitHub credentials.

2. Navigate to your GitHub organization, and then navigate to the repository you want to perform a code review with Amazon Q Developer.

3. Create a new a pull request for changes made to your source code. For more information, see Creating a pull request in the GitHub documentation.

   When you create a new pull request, Amazon Q Developer automatically begins a code review to find potential issues. Once Amazon Q Developer completes the review, it provides a code review summary. Each finding appears as a threaded comment under the summary, along with suggested fixes that you can commit to the pull request.

4. (Optional) Ask questions about specific findings. Within the pull request, navigate to Add a comment, and in the comment text input field, enter /q followed by your question (for example, "/q explain the importance of this finding").

5. Review the proposed code changes by Amazon Q Developer, choose Commit suggestion, and then choose Commit changes to update the pull request.

6. If you're satisfied with the suggested code fixes, you can merge the pull request to apply the code changes suggested by Amazon Q Developer. For more information, see Merging a pull request in the GitHub documentation.

Initiating code reviews within GitHub pull requests

After an automatic code review performed by Amazon Q Developer for a new or reopened GitHub pull request, you can initiate additional code reviews to iterate on your code using the /q review slash command. The code review is performed on the entire pull request's diff.

Note

You can only initiate a code review within a pull request with a new comment. The /q review slash command will not work in an existing comment thread.

To use initiate code reviews in a pull request

1. If necessary, sign in to your GitHub account using your GitHub credentials.

2. Navigate to your GitHub organization, and then navigate to the pull request you want to perform a code review with Amazon Q Developer. For more information, see About pull requests.

3. Within the pull request, navigate to Add a comment, and in the comment text input field, enter /q review.

4. Choose Comment to initiate the code review.

   It can take a few minutes for Amazon Q Developer to complete analyzing the pull request code. After Amazon Q Developer finishes analyzing, it provides a code review summary. Each finding appears as a threaded comment under the summary, along with proposed changes you can choose to commit and update the pull request.

5. (Optional) Ask questions about specific findings. Within the pull request, navigate to Add a comment, and in the comment text input field, enter /q followed by your question (for example, "/q explain the importance of this finding").

6. If you're satisfied with the suggested code fixes, you can merge the pull request to apply the code changes suggested by Amazon Q Developer. For more information, see Merging a pull request in the GitHub documentation.