PRWatch: Local AI Reviews for Every New GitHub PR

Last night I built PRWatch, a small daemon and TUI that reviews new GitHub pull requests with the AI agent you already have installed — Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode.

The idea is simple: no extra reviewer service, no new hosted pipeline, and no per-review subscription. When a new PR opens in a repository you are watching, PRWatch shallow-clones it, runs your local agent against a review rubric, and posts one structured review comment back to the PR.

How it works#

1. Choose the GitHub repositories you want to watch from the TUI.
2. Pick a local agent: Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode.
3. Start the daemon.
4. When a new PR opens, PRWatch checks it once and posts the review.
5. The temporary clone is deleted after the review.

It reviews only pull requests opened after watching begins, so it does not create a backlog of surprise reviews. A marker comment keeps each PR review idempotent.

Install and run#

PRWatch needs Node.js 20+, an authenticated gh CLI, and at least one supported agent CLI.

npm install -g prwatch
prw            # open the TUI
prw daemon     # run the watcher
prw service install   # optionally run it at login

The default rubric lives at ~/.prwatch/rubric.md, and repositories can override it with .prwatch/rubric.md.

A note on trust and security#

A local agent still needs to process untrusted pull-request content and code. Only watch repositories whose contributors you trust, and run your agent with restrictive permissions when reviewing third-party PRs. PRWatch fences PR metadata in its prompt, but that cannot stop an agent from reading instruction files committed inside the checkout.

PRWatch is free and open source. If you build with local coding agents, give it a try:

View PRWatch on GitHub

I also shared the launch on X.