local-review

README

local-review

Local, BYOK code review for any language.
Runs against a git diff, hands it to whichever LLM you point it at, prints findings.
No SaaS, no telemetry, no signup.

Install • Quick Start • Multi-LLM • Website

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Why

Reviewer tools today are mostly:

• SaaS — your code leaves the building. Hard sell for enterprise.
• CI-only — you find out about issues after pushing the branch.
• Tied to a vendor — single-provider lock-in (OpenAI-only or Anthropic-only).
• Runtime-heavy — Node/Python/Java install required just to run the reviewer.

local-review is the opposite: a single static binary, runs locally on a diff, talks to whatever endpoint you configure (OpenAI, Anthropic, Together, Groq, OpenRouter, Ollama for fully-offline review), and ships language-aware prompt packs that you can override per-repo.

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mshykov/local-review/main/install.sh | sh

Or grab a binary from Releases.

Or build from source:

go install github.com/mshykov/local-review/cmd/local-review@latest

Quick start

# Interactive setup — picks a provider, writes .local-review.yml.
local-review init

# Set the API key for whichever provider you picked
# (init tells you which env var to use).
export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...

# Review staged changes (this is the pre-commit hook flavour).
local-review staged

# Review the latest commit.
local-review commit

# Review the whole branch against main.
local-review branch main

By default, local-review shows warning+ findings and exits non-zero when major/critical are present (so it can gate a pre-commit hook).

Multi-LLM Reviews

Run parallel reviews with multiple AI models simultaneously:

# Review with Claude + Gemini (both free!)
local-review multi staged

# Check which LLMs are installed
local-review doctor

# Use a specific LLM for merging findings
local-review multi staged --merge-with claude

Supported LLMs

LLM	Free Option	Installation	Status
Claude	✅ Free tier via claude.ai	npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code	Default enabled
Gemini	✅ Free API key from Google AI Studio	npm install -g @google/gemini-cli	Default enabled
Codex	⚠️ Requires ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo)	npm install -g @openai/codex	Disabled by default

How it works:

1. Detects installed LLM CLIs (claude, gemini, codex)
2. Runs reviews in parallel using free CLI tools (or API fallback)
3. Saves each review to .local-review/reviews/<branch>/<commit>_<llm>.md
4. Merges findings intelligently (deduplicates, consolidates, notes consensus)
5. Outputs final report: <commit>_merged.md

Quick Setup:

# Install free LLM CLIs
npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
npm install -g @google/gemini-cli

# Authenticate
claude login                    # Follow prompts
export GEMINI_API_KEY=your-key  # Get from https://aistudio.google.com/apikey

# Verify installations
local-review doctor

# Run multi-LLM review
local-review multi staged

Configuration:

# .local-review.yml
llms:
  claude:
    enabled: true
    mode: cli              # use CLI (free), fallback to API if configured

  gemini:
    enabled: true
    mode: cli
    api_key_env: GEMINI_API_KEY  # required for Gemini

  codex:
    enabled: false         # paid only, enable if you have ChatGPT Plus
    mode: cli

merge:
  preferred_llm: auto      # or: claude, gemini, codex
  deduplicate: true

See examples/.local-review-multi.yml for full multi-LLM config example.

Configure

local-review loads YAML from a cascade — built-in defaults → ~/.local-review.yml → ./.local-review.yml → CLI flags.

A minimal ~/.local-review.yml:

provider:
  base_url: https://api.openai.com/v1
  model: gpt-4o-mini
  api_key_env: LOCAL_REVIEW_API_KEY
review:
  min_severity: warning
  max_findings: 20

See examples/.local-review.yml for the full schema with comments.

Switching providers

local-review speaks the OpenAI chat-completions API — every major provider supports it:

Provider	base_url	Notes
OpenAI	https://api.openai.com/v1	Default. gpt-4o-mini is cheap; gpt-4o for harder reviews.
Anthropic	https://api.anthropic.com/v1	Anthropic's OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Use exact model names (e.g. claude-sonnet-4-6, claude-opus-4-7).
Mistral	https://api.mistral.ai/v1	EU-hosted; Codestral is code-tuned. See examples/.local-review.mistral.yml.
DeepSeek	https://api.deepseek.com/v1	Cheapest cloud option. See examples/.local-review.deepseek.yml.
Groq	https://api.groq.com/openai/v1	Fast inference; Llama, Qwen, etc.
Together	https://api.together.xyz/v1	Llama, Mixtral, Qwen — many open-weights options.
OpenRouter	https://openrouter.ai/api/v1	One key, all models.
Ollama	http://localhost:11434/v1	Fully offline. No data leaves your machine.
vLLM	http://your-host/v1	Self-hosted.

The fastest way to set any of these up is local-review init, which writes a working .local-review.yml from a preset.

Pre-commit hook

cp examples/pre-commit .git/hooks/pre-commit
chmod +x .git/hooks/pre-commit

Or with husky / lefthook: run local-review staged in the pre-commit step.

Bypass for emergencies: LOCAL_REVIEW_SKIP=1 git commit ....

CLI

# Single-LLM mode (uses provider API)
local-review staged                  # review git diff --cached (pre-commit)
local-review commit [<rev>]          # review one commit (default: HEAD)
local-review branch [<base>]         # review branch vs base (default: main)

# Multi-LLM mode (runs installed LLM CLIs in parallel, merges findings)
local-review multi staged            # parallel review with all enabled LLMs
local-review multi commit [<rev>]    # multi-LLM review of one commit
local-review multi branch [<base>]   # multi-LLM review of branch

# Utilities
local-review init                    # interactive setup (writes .local-review.yml)
local-review doctor                  # check LLM installations
local-review config                  # print resolved config (API keys masked)
local-review version                 # print version

Common flags:

Flag	Purpose
--model <id>	Override provider.model
--base-url <url>	Override provider.base_url
--min-severity <tier>	nit / info / warning / major / critical
--max-findings <n>	Cap output
--json	Emit JSON (for CI integration)

Exit codes:

• 0 — no blocking findings
• 2 — major or critical findings present (pre-commit gate)
• non-zero — local-review itself failed (the hook ignores this and lets the commit through)

Prompt packs

local-review ships with packs for default, typescript, go, python, rust, with more coming. The CLI auto-picks based on the dominant language in your diff. Force a specific pack with review.prompt_pack: <id> in your YAML config.

Each pack is a markdown file (in internal/prompts/packs/) that defines:

• What to look for (priority-ordered)
• Severity tiering rules
• Hard rules ("never invent code that isn't in the diff")
• Output JSON schema

See docs/prompt-packs.md for how to write or override one.

What it does NOT do (yet)

• No multi-file refactor reasoning. local-review reviews diffs, not architectures.
• No auto-fix / auto-PR. Findings are advisory.
• No GitHub integration in the binary. The --json output is structured for piping into your CI's PR-comment tool of choice. (A local-review github mode is on the roadmap.)
• No telemetry. None. Ever.

For organizations

Distributing to a few hundred engineers? Two patterns work:

1. Org config repo. Drop a .local-review.yml in each project that sets org.config_url: https://your-internal-host/local-review.yml. (Org-config fetching is on the roadmap; today, just commit the YAML to each repo.)
2. One install command in onboarding. curl -fsSL <install.sh> | sh plus an env var = done.

Privacy

The only network call local-review makes is to the chat-completions endpoint you configure. Nothing else — no telemetry, no analytics, no auto-update calls. Run against Ollama and your code never leaves the machine.

Develop

go test ./...
go build -o local-review ./cmd/local-review
./local-review staged

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.