Inline comments for reviews

[AwolDes]

Instead of a block comment, if Claude identifies a particular piece of code it would be more readable if it added in line comments.

An example from our custom Claude Code review action:

An example from the Anthropic Claude Code github action:

With a comment like this, it'd be better left as a suggestion block around the specific piece of code

[Phoenixmatrix]

It can and will do inline comments. You just need to enable the tools in allowed_tools, and make sure the instructions it uses in the github actions tell it to do so.

[sepehr500]

@Phoenixmatrix I can not get this to work. Adding allowed_tools: "mcp__github__add_pull_request_review_comment" and being explicit to only leave in-line comments does nothing. It does not seem to have access to this tool. How are you making it work?

[sepehr500]

@AwolDes I figured it out. Turns out the example in the claude-code-action repo is out of date. Here is a yml snippet that worked for me.

I also made a PR to fix the docs in this repo #145

          direct_prompt: |
            Please review this PR and provide inline feedback using the GitHub review system. Follow these steps:

            1. **Start a review**: Use `mcp__github__create_pending_pull_request_review` to begin a pending review
            2. **Get diff information**: Use `mcp__github__get_pull_request_diff` to understand the code changes and line numbers
            3. **Add inline comments**: Use `mcp__github__add_pull_request_review_comment_to_pending_review` for each specific piece of feedback on particular lines
            4. **Submit the review**: Use `mcp__github__submit_pending_pull_request_review` with event type "COMMENT" (not "REQUEST_CHANGES") to publish all comments as a non-blocking review

            Focus your review on:
            - Code quality and best practices
            - Potential bugs or security issues
            - Performance considerations
            - Maintainability and readability
            - Architecture and design decisions

            Provide specific, actionable feedback. Use inline comments for line-specific issues and include an overall summary when submitting the review. **Important**: Submit as "COMMENT" type so the review doesn't block the PR.
          anthropic_api_key: ${{ secrets.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY }}
          allowed_tools: "mcp__github__create_pending_pull_request_review,mcp__github__add_pull_request_review_comment_to_pending_review,mcp__github__submit_pending_pull_request_review,mcp__github__get_pull_request_diff"

[AwolDes]

@sepehr500 thanks for this! It's now working in our repo

[saada]

It's working now but super noisy and chatty. Any tips?

[cristopherfreitas]

For me it doesn't work properly yet. Did something change recently that broke this?

[cristopherfreitas]

Okay, I finally figured. The actual example from the workflow is broken. It's using --allowed-tools instead of --allowedTools when passing to claudeArgs.

[ashwin-ant]

It's using --allowed-tools instead of --allowedTools when passing to claudeArgs.

Did this actually fix it? Both should work just fine.

[ashwin-ant]

Ah actually we had a bug here: #581. So kebab case will soon work.