Set up Copilot to review your PRs, then check for blockers

A developer used GitHub Copilot for PR reviews in a private repo, then found that a large binary file was causing the reviews to fail.

Done with GitHub Copilot· Intermediate

What they did
They paid for an individual Copilot plan and pointed it at pull requests in their own private repository. The reviews started out fine, but over time they became unreliable, first failing around half the time and later failing on nearly every run. Some attempts stayed stuck for up to 6 hours before ending in an error.
How it went
The issue was a 20-megabyte binary disk image that had been checked into the repository. After they removed that file, the reviews began succeeding again. Copilot never identified the file as the cause, so the failure mode gave no direct clue.
Tips
If an agent review keeps freezing, inspect the repo for large binary assets before assuming the model is at fault. It can also help to try a different repository, and to watch whether a cancelled Actions run still produces output afterward.

Try it yourself with GitHub Copilot

Please act as a code reviewer for [owner/repo] and examine pull request [PR number]. Flag bugs, risky edits, missing tests, and unclear names, then end with the small set of fixes I should tackle first. If you hit a blocker, explain what stopped the review instead of leaving it in limbo. Do not post the review, send comments, or make any irreversible change until I say go ahead.

Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.

Read the original on github.com ↗

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