Automatic review filters
Automatic review filters decide which pull requests HeyDeer reviews on its own. They don’t limit reviews you request yourself; see PR comment commands.
How filters work
Find Automatic review filters in Workspace settings → Review rules, under When to review, or on a repository’s Review rules tab. They’re editable unless the review schedule is Manual only.
Each row has a field, an operator (Is any of, Is none of, or Has no labels), and values. A pull request qualifies only when it matches every row. Labels and usernames ignore case.
| Field | Values |
|---|---|
| PR labels | Label names |
| Author | GitHub usernames, such as alex or dependabot[bot] |
| Author’s team | Teams in your organization, including child teams |
| Author relationship | Organization member, Outside collaborator (repository access, not an organization member), Other external author |
| Author account | Human, Bot (GitHub App and bot accounts) |
| PR state | Is draft, Is not draft |
| PR source | Same repository, Fork |
Author’s team and Author relationship exist only in organization workspaces and need the GitHub App’s organization Members permission. If HeyDeer can’t verify membership, the automatic review doesn’t start.
Default filters
A new workspace starts with three rows, PR state → Is not draft, PR source → Is any of → Same repository and Author → Is none of → dependabot[bot], renovate[bot], pre-commit-ci[bot], snyk-io[bot], snyk-bot, so HeyDeer skips drafts, forks and dependency updates. With no rows, every pull request qualifies.
Dependency updates mostly change versions and lockfiles, which your tests check better than a review. Comment @heydeer review on one to review it anyway. Pull requests from other bots, such as coding agents, are reviewed like any other.
Repository filters
| Filter source | What happens |
|---|---|
| Follow workspace filters | The workspace’s rows apply, and rows you add here can only narrow which pull requests qualify. |
| Set filters for this repository | The repository’s rows replace the workspace’s, starting as a copy. Use this to loosen filters. |
Reset to workspace filters removes the repository’s rows.
Recipes
Each recipe assumes the default rows stay.
| Goal | Rows |
|---|---|
| Skip all bots | Author account → Is none of → Bot |
| Skip more bots | Add names to the Author row, such as github-actions[bot] |
| Review dependency updates too | Remove the Author row |
| Review drafts too | Remove the PR state row |
| Require a label | PR labels → Is any of → ai-review |
| Skip a label | PR labels → Is none of → skip-review |
| Review only external contributors | Author relationship → Is any of → Outside collaborator, Other external author; remove the PR source row |
| Review only one team | Author’s team → Is any of → backend |