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Run your first review

Connect a repository, choose an AI backend, index the codebase, and work through your first pull request.

This walkthrough takes you from a fresh install to a finished review.

#1. Connect a repository

Connect your code host with your own access token. DiffGuardian uses that token from your machine to talk to the provider directly — it is encrypted in your operating system's credential store (the Keychain on macOS) and is never sent to DiffGuardian's servers.

On the Basic plan you can connect one repository, and it must be public. Pro removes both limits. See Plans.

You can also point DiffGuardian at a local checkout and review uncommitted work on a branch, with no pull request involved.

#2. Choose an AI backend

Before the first review, pick where the AI work runs:

  • A local model — Ollama or LM Studio running on your machine. Your code never leaves the machine. Available on every plan.
  • Your own cloud provider key — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini or Kimi. Code goes from your machine straight to the provider you already contract with. Requires Pro.

The choice is per job, not per account: you assign a vendor and model to each kind of AI work — reviewing, deep analysis, chat, comment polishing — and can change any of them at any time. Choosing an AI backend covers the trade-offs.

On Basic you get 5 AI reviews per calendar month. The meter resets on the first of the month; everything that is not an AI review is unmetered.

#3. Let DiffGuardian index the repository

The first time you open a repository, DiffGuardian builds a local index of it — a code knowledge graph that lets the AI reason about the whole codebase rather than a single diff. This runs on your machine and takes longer on the first pass than on later ones.

Embeddings are generated on-device by default. They are only sent to a cloud provider if you explicitly select a cloud embedding model.

#4. Open a pull request and review it

Pick a pull request from the list. DiffGuardian:

  1. Reads the diff from your local checkout.
  2. Reviews it against the indexed repository, not just the changed lines.
  3. Splits the change into the features it ships and summarises each one.
  4. Surfaces findings — bugs, broken contracts, and design decisions worth a second look — each pointing at the file and lines it came from.

Work through the features one at a time. How a review works explains what each part of the result means.

#5. Ask follow-up questions

Anything the summary did not answer, ask directly:

  • Ask — questions about the pull request you are reading, with the diff and its description as context. Select a snippet and choose Explain to have just that snippet explained in place. See Ask and Explain.
  • Analyze Project — questions about the repository as a whole, answered from the indexed code with real file citations and, where it helps, a diagram. See Ask your codebase.

Both are Pro features. On Basic they stay visible and open an upgrade prompt when you use them.

#6. Approve — or don't

DiffGuardian never approves, merges, or comments on your behalf. When you are satisfied you understand the change, act on it in your code host as usual.

#Next steps