Made for reading what a coding agent wrote before it goes anywhere. Point it at a folder of git repos, pick the agent's branch, and review it like a pull request: comment on lines, flag bugs, ask questions. Then hand the whole review back to the agent as one markdown document, each point with its file, lines, snippet and note. The agent replies through the local API, and its answers show up live beside your comments.

One binary: Go backend with the React frontend embedded. Nothing to install but git.

Highlights

• Branch-scoped diff. Diffs against the merge-base with your trunk, so you only see what the branch adds. Narrow it to one commit onwards, or compare against your working tree or index instead.
• Comment anywhere. Any line or dragged range, changed or not, even in files the branch never touched. Threads with replies, a type per comment (bug, suggestion, question, nit), #id cross-references, and a summary that leads the export.
• Anchors that follow the code. Comments capture the code they point at and follow it as the branch moves, renames included, badged when it moved or went outdated.
• A comments pane that keeps score. Every thread in one list, sorted by file, age or activity, filtered by status, type or author, and searchable. Threads where the agent had the last word are marked awaiting you.
• Reviewed-file tracking. Tick off a file or a whole folder. A file un-ticks itself if it changes after you read it.
• Agent handoff, both ways. Hand an agent the review to address, or send one to review the branch and file its findings next to yours. See Working with an agent.
• Live. Every tab follows along, edits and commits made outside the UI are picked up, and the tab title counts what an agent said while you were away.
• A proper diff viewer. Word-level diffs, ~235 highlighted languages, light and dark editor color themes with the code and interface fonts set to your taste, expandable context between hunks, rendered markdown and mermaid, image previews, generated files (lockfiles, dist/, snapshots) folded shut so they stop drowning the real changes, and lazy rendering so a huge branch stays responsive.
• Keyboard-driven. j/k between files, n/p between comments, v to mark reviewed and jump to the next unread, / to search files, ? for the rest.

Install

With mise

mise picks the right binary from the GitHub releases:

mise use -g github:rosenbjerg/local-review

Or pin it in a project's mise.toml:

[tools]
"github:rosenbjerg/local-review" = "latest"

Download a binary

Grab the latest from Releases:

On macOS/Linux make it executable, and on macOS clear the download quarantine:

chmod +x local-review-darwin-arm64
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine local-review-darwin-arm64   # macOS only

Build from source

Requires Go (see go.mod) and Bun 1.4+. The frontend is embedded in the binary, so build it first:

bun install --cwd web
bun run --cwd web build
go build -o local-review .

./start.sh [path] does all three and starts the server; the path is a git repository or a folder of them, defaulting to the current directory.

Usage

local-review -root /path/to/repo                # one repository
local-review -root /path/to/folder-of-repos     # every repository in the folder

Opens http://127.0.0.1:7777. From there:

1. Pick a branch — and a repo first, if the root holds several. The base defaults to your trunk (a local main/master, else the remote's default) and the diff runs from its merge-base with the branch. Override it with any ref.
2. Narrow the view, if you want. from starts the diff at one of the branch's own commits, that commit included. uncommitted compares against your working tree instead, and unticking unstaged compares against the index. These are view options: comments and reviewed marks stay put as you switch.
3. Review, then export. Click a line number or drag across a range to comment. The + above the file tree pulls in a file the branch didn't touch. Export previews the markdown, then copies or downloads it.

Press ? for the keyboard shortcuts. If the file count disagrees with your git client, hover it: the client is usually comparing against HEAD rather than the merge-base.

State lives in SQLite under ~/.local-review/, keyed by repo path, so one install serves many repos and resumes each review where you left it. Draft reviews older than -retention-days (default 30) are pruned at startup.

Working with an agent

The export is plain markdown: your summary, then every open comment with its file path, lines, captured snippet and note, grouped by file. Resolved threads are left out. Agent prompts in the toolbar gives you a copyable prompt for each direction:

• Address the review. Points a coding agent at this review through the local API. It fetches the markdown itself and replies to comments by id, so when you add or change a comment the agent just re-fetches. No re-pasting.
• Do a review. Sends an agent to review the branch and file what it finds as comments. Pick a focus: Correctness, Security, Design or Tests. Each focus files under its own author, so its comments stay distinct from yours and from other passes, and the comments pane filters by author.

Both prompts are editable. Save keeps your version for that repo, for house rules or the test command to run. The review-specific parts are placeholders filled in when you copy, so a saved prompt works on the next review too. Reset restores the built-in one.

Prefer pasting? Export can bundle reply instructions so a paste-only agent can still post replies. Either way, replies appear live in the UI.

Flags

How it works

One Go binary serves the API and the embedded React app, reads git by shelling out to the real git, and keeps review state in SQLite. The backend is the source of truth: comment staleness and reviewed state are derived on every read, never trusted from a stored flag. It listens on localhost only and refuses browser writes from other origins, so a site you happen to visit can't drive the API. curl and your agent are unaffected.

For a map of the codebase, see CLAUDE.md.

Contributing

Run the Go server and the Vite dev server side by side. Vite proxies /api to :7777:

local-review -root /path/to/repo -no-open   # terminal 1
bun run --cwd web dev                       # terminal 2 → :5173

CONTRIBUTING.md covers the build order, checks and conventions. To report a vulnerability, see SECURITY.md rather than opening a public issue.

License

GPL-3.0 © Malte Rosenbjerg.