Reference

Settings reference

Every review setting, with its values and default. Set organization defaults in Organization settings → Review rules; a repository can override any of them in Repositories → (a repository) → Review rules. See How settings work.

When to review

Setting	Values	Default
Review schedule	Once per PR, On every push, Manual only	Manual only in a new workspace
Maximum automatic reviews per PR	1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, Unlimited. Applies only with On every push.	5
Stop automatic reviews when a PR closes	On, Off	On
Automatic review filters	Conditions on PR labels, Author, Author’s team, Author relationship, Author account, PR state, and PR source. A pull request must match all of them.	PR state is not draft, and PR source is Same repository

How to review

Setting	Values	Default
Default review depth	Standard, Deep	Standard
Review only new changes	On, Off	On
Feedback scope	Concise, Balanced, Detailed	Balanced
Review language	English, 简体中文, 日本語, Español, 한국어, Português (Brasil), Deutsch	English
Read linked issues	On, Off	On

Publish results

Setting	Values	Default
Automatic approval	Never approve automatically, Simple changes only, When no issues are found	Never approve automatically
Publish GitHub check	On, Off	On
Fail the check when issues are found	On, Off. Applies only while Publish GitHub check is on.	Off
Post review comments on the pull request	On, Off. Off also turns off automatic approval and thread resolution.	On
Resolve addressed HeyDeer threads	On, Off	On

Manual review access

Setting	Values	Default
Who can manually trigger reviews	Anyone with repository write access, or Selected users or teams with write access: up to 100 GitHub usernames and, in an organization, up to 30 team slugs.	Anyone with repository write access

Changes apply to reviews requested after you save. Queued and running reviews keep their settings.

Repository files

HeyDeer also reads these files from the repository under review.

File	Read from	Rules and limits
`AGENTS.md`, `CLAUDE.md`	The pull request’s own version	Any directory. Applies to its directory and below; deeper files take precedence. CLAUDE.md is used where a directory has no AGENTS.md.
`.agents/checks/*.md`	The base branch	One Markdown file per check, directly in .agents/checks, named with letters, digits, dots, underscores, and hyphens. Up to 16,000 bytes each, and up to 10 matching checks per review in file name order.
`.agents/skills/`	The pull request’s own version	Used when a check lists it. The folder name is the skill name: lowercase letters, digits, and single hyphens, up to 64 characters.
`.gitattributes`	The base branch	Files marked linguist-generated are left out of the review.

Check frontmatter

Optional YAML frontmatter keys at the top of a check:

Key	Value	Effect
`files`, `globs`, `paths`	A glob pattern or a list of them	The changed files the check applies to; prefix a pattern with ! to exclude files. Without patterns, the check applies to every changed file.
`skills`, `skill`	A skill name or a list of them	Skills the check uses, loaded from the pull request. A missing skill doesn’t stop the review.
`skip_extra_reviewers`	true or false	Deep reviews spend extra effort on each matching check. Set it to true for a simple check to review it as in Standard.

Configured in HeyDeer

Configuration	Where	Rules and limits
Review instructions	Organization settings → Review instructions, or Repositories → (a repository) → Review instructions	Plain text or Markdown, up to 12,000 characters per scope. Repository instructions take precedence where they conflict. Managed by workspace admins.
MCP servers	Organization settings → MCP servers, or Repositories → (a repository) → MCP servers	Up to 20 servers per scope, each a Streamable HTTP server at a public HTTPS endpoint on port 443. Names use lowercase letters, digits, hyphens, and underscores, up to 64 characters. Managed by workspace admins who also own the GitHub organization or account.