ReviewPack 1.1.8-dev.292

ReviewPack (dotnet tool)

ReviewPack is a .NET CLI tool that builds a PR review pack for the branch you are currently working on.

A review pack is a set of Markdown files that captures the full delta between your current branch and a chosen base branch reference, such as origin/main. This is especially useful when a branch has grown over multiple commits and you want a single, structured view of everything that would eventually land in the pull request.

Instead of asking a reviewer, or an LLM, to reconstruct the full context from scattered commits, ReviewPack gathers the relevant information up front and turns it into a clean, readable package. The result is well suited for pre-PR review workflows, where you want an agent or chat assistant to inspect the overall change set before a human review begins.

The generated output is organised to be easy to navigate and easy to feed into an LLM. It typically includes:

• a summary file with branch context, high-level totals, and an index of changed files
• one or more additional Markdown files containing the actual git diff patches, split into manageable chunks

The goal is simple: make branch-level review easier, faster, and more consistent by giving both humans and AI tools a complete view of the changes in a format they can consume effectively.

Requirements

• .NET 10 SDK/runtime (the tool targets net10.0)
• git available on your PATH
• Run the command from within a Git working directory
• The output folder must already exist (the tool will create a subfolder for each run)

Install

dotnet tool install --global ReviewPack

After installation the command is available as:

pr-review-pack

Update

dotnet tool update --global ReviewPack

Uninstall

dotnet tool uninstall --global ReviewPack

Usage

Basic example

1. Make sure your base branch reference is up to date:

git fetch origin

2. Create an output folder:

mkdir C:\temp\reviewpacks

3. Run the tool:

pr-review-pack --tool__basebranch "origin/main" --tool__outputpath "C:\temp\reviewpacks" --tool__maxmarkdownsize 15000 --allowConsoleLogging

The tool writes a new subfolder under the output path (named with a run id) containing files like:

• review-pack-0000.md (summary)
• review-pack-0001.md (part 1)
• review-pack-0002.md (part 2)

Options

MCP server mode

When --tool__runasmcpserver true is set, ReviewPack starts an MCP server over stdio and exposes tools from the assembly.

The MCP tools are:

• GenerateReviewPack: Generates the review pack markdown files using the server's configured options.
• ReadReviewPackFile: Reads back the content of a generated review-pack-*.md file after generation (useful for agents that need the Markdown content).

Notes:

• ReadReviewPackFile only reads files located under the configured output folder and only for files named like review-pack-*.md.

Typical usage is to configure your MCP client to start pr-review-pack as a stdio server, for example:

{
  "servers": {
    "pr-review-pack-mcp": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "pr-review-pack",
      "args": [
        "--tool__runAsMcpServer",
        "--tool__baseBranch",
        "${input:BASE_BRANCH_NAME}",
        "--tool__outputPath",
        "${input:REVIEWPACK_FOLDER}",
        "--tool__branchFolder",
        "${input:BRANCH_FOLDER}"
      ]
    }
  },
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "BASE_BRANCH_NAME",
      "description": "Base branch name to compare against (i.e. origin/main)",
      "password": false
    },
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "REVIEWPACK_FOLDER",
      "description": "Folder to store the riviewpack files when generated",
      "password": false
    },
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "BRANCH_FOLDER",
      "description": "The folder where the Git feature branch is located",
      "password": false
    }
  ]
}

Notes:

• In MCP mode, avoid enabling console logging because stdout is reserved for the MCP protocol.
• The server writes its log file to <tool__outputpath>\mcp-rev-pack.log.

Using ReviewPack via an agent (prompting)

GenerateReviewPack is meant to be called by an agent when the user asks for a pre-PR review pack (it does not do the review analysis itself).

If the agent needs the actual Markdown content of the generated files (to review them, upload them, or paste them into another system), it should call ReadReviewPackFile using one of the paths returned by GenerateReviewPack.

Start with review-pack-0000.md because it contains the summary and the changed-files index.

Example prompts you can give to an agent that has the MCP server configured:

• "Generate a PR review pack for my current branch (base: origin/main). Return the list of generated markdown files."
• "Please prepare my current Git changes for LLM review (create the review-pack markdown files) and tell me where they were written."
• "I want a pre-PR self-review pack. Generate it, then tell me which review-pack-*.md files I should upload starting from part 0000."
• "Generate the review pack, then read review-pack-0000.md and summarize what parts I need to provide next."

If you also want the agent to do the review, ask for it explicitly as a second step:

• "Generate the review pack and then review the changes. Read review-pack-0000.md first, then ask for (or read) the remaining parts as needed."

What is included in the review pack

• Branch context: current branch name, base branch name, head commit SHA, merge base SHA
• Reviewer instructions: a short checklist and expected review structure (included in review-pack-0000.md)
• Summary: number of changed files, added/deleted line totals, part count
• Changed files index
• Per-file patches in fenced diff blocks

Notes

• The tool uses the merge-base between HEAD and the provided base branch, then diffs merge-base..HEAD.
• If Git returns no patch content for a file, the output will include a placeholder message.