Overview

Customize the messages that Mesrai sends at the beginning and end of code reviews. This feature allows you to personalize the communication style and add specific context or instructions for your team.

Default Behavior

When you haven’t customized any messages, Mesrai works as follows:

1. Initial Message: Mesrai sends a standard start review message
2. Suggestions: Mesrai provides all code review suggestions
3. Final Message: Mesrai updates the initial message with a summary of the review

Custom Message Behavior

Once you edit either the start or end review message for the first time, Mesrai’s behavior changes to:

1. Initial Message: Mesrai sends your custom start review message
2. Suggestions: Mesrai provides all code review suggestions
3. Final Message: Mesrai sends your custom end review message (without updating the initial message)

This creates a complete timeline: Initial Message → Suggestions → Final Message

Message Configuration Options

Message Behavior

Use the Message behavior dropdown to decide when Mesrai should post your custom start and end messages:

• Important: Messages are only sent when a review actually runs.
  If your review cadence is Manual, messages are posted only when someone runs @mesrai start-review.

• Every push: Mesrai posts the start message when the pull request opens and repeats the start/end pair after every new push that triggers a review. This happens automatically only when cadence is Automatic or Auto-pause.

• Only when opened: Mesrai sends the start and end messages only once, right after the first review run. If cadence is Manual, the first review run is when you call @mesrai start-review. Future pushes just add review suggestions plus the usual reaction so authors know the review reran.

• Off: Custom messages are disabled. Mesrai still runs the review and posts suggestions, but no start or end messages are sent.

When the behavior is Every push or Only when opened, Mesrai uses whichever templates you have filled in. If you only customize the start message, only that message is sent; same for the end message. This keeps the familiar timeline of Initial Message → Suggestions → Final Message whenever the behavior allows messages to be posted.

Example (Manual cadence)
PR opened → no message yet
@mesrai start-review → start message → suggestions → end message

Dynamic Context

You can enhance your custom messages with dynamic context using the Add Context button. This allows you to include:

changedFiles

A summary of changed files, showing additions and deletions per file. This provides a detailed breakdown of what was modified in the pull request.

changedSummary

A comprehensive summary of all changes in the pull request, giving an overview of the entire modification scope.

reviewOptions

A reflection of the team’s configured review settings, showing which analysis types are enabled or disabled for the review.

reviewCadence

Provides the exact follow-up review policy so authors know what happens after the first automated review:

• Automatic: Mesrai re-reviews every push as soon as it lands.
• Auto-pause: Mesrai re-reviews pushes automatically, but if it detects a “push burst” (for example, 3 pushes within 15 minutes, based on your thresholds) it pauses follow-up reviews until you resume them. The cadence context includes the push and time limits so the team knows when the pause can be triggered.
• Manual: Mesrai waits for someone to run @mesrai start-review before doing another pass.