Reducing Nitpicks

Greptile learns to eliminate nitpicky comments that distract developers from critical issues by analyzing which suggestions your team actually acts on.

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The Nitpick Problem

Nitpicks are minor suggestions that distract from critical issues:

Problem: Developers focus on easy-to-fix style issues while missing critical bugs.

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How Greptile Learns to Filter Noise

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1. Commit Analysis

Greptile reads the first and last commit of every PR to see which comments were addressed:

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2. Learning from Reactions

Thumbs up/down reactions provide immediate feedback:

Greptile: "Consider adding error handling here"
Developer: 👍 (implements the suggestion)
→ Greptile learns: "Error handling suggestions are valuable"

Greptile: "Consider adding error handling here"
Developer: 👍 (implements the suggestion)
→ Greptile learns: "Error handling suggestions are valuable"

Greptile: "Add semicolon at end of line"
Developer: 👎 (ignores consistently)
→ Greptile learns: "This team doesn't care about semicolons"

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3. Learning Examples

Example 1: Style Comments Get Filtered

Example 2: Critical Issues Always Surface

// Greptile will ALWAYS comment on this (even if team ignores style):
function transferMoney(amount, account) {
  // No input validation - SECURITY RISK
  database.transfer(amount, account);
}

// But stops commenting on this after learning:
const user = getUser()  // Missing semicolon - but team doesn't care

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Learning Thresholds

Greptile stops making certain types of comments based on team behavior:

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What Gets Suppressed vs. What Doesn’t

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The Result: Focused Reviews

Before Learning:

PR #123 - Add user authentication
├── 🔴 Missing input validation (CRITICAL)
├── 🟡 Consider adding error handling
├── 🟢 Missing semicolon on line 45
├── 🟢 Inconsistent indentation
├── 🟢 Import order could be improved  
├── 🟢 Function could use better name
└── 🟢 Missing JSDoc comment

After Learning (Team ignores style issues):

PR #123 - Add user authentication  
├── 🔴 Missing input validation (CRITICAL)
└── 🟡 Consider adding error handling

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Why This Matters