GitHub Copilot Code Review Now Available in CLI Terminal

GitHub shipped a feature on March 11 that developers have been quietly requesting for months: the ability to trigger Copilot code reviews without leaving the terminal. Version 2.88.0 of the GitHub CLI now treats the AI reviewer as a first-class citizen alongside human teammates.

The implementation is straightforward. Running gh pr edit --add-reviewer @copilot adds the AI to any existing pull request. For new PRs, Copilot shows up in the interactive reviewer selection during gh pr create. No browser tab required.

Why Terminal-First Matters

For developers who live in their terminals, context switching kills flow state. Opening a browser, navigating to a PR, and clicking through menus adds friction to what should be a seamless workflow. This update removes that interruption entirely.

The release also addresses a pain point for enterprise users. Previously, the CLI loaded all collaborators and teams upfront when selecting reviewers—a process that could choke on large organizations with thousands of members. The new search-based approach fetches results as you type, which GitHub says “dramatically improves performance.” Screen reader users benefit too, since the old system would read thousands of options aloud.

Copilot’s Expanding Footprint

This CLI integration follows a pattern of aggressive expansion for GitHub’s AI assistant. Earlier in March, the company announced major agentic improvements for JetBrains IDEs. The February Visual Studio Code release introduced capabilities for handling longer-running, more complex tasks. January brought colorized code completions and partial acceptance features to Visual Studio.

The code review feature itself requires a Copilot subscription—either Pro at $10/month for individuals, Pro+ at $39/month for power users, Business at $19/user/month, or Enterprise at $39/user/month. Microsoft hasn’t disclosed adoption numbers for the code review specifically, though the company has pushed it as a differentiator against competing AI coding tools.

What Developers Should Know

The feature works across all plans that include Copilot code review access. Users need to upgrade to CLI version 2.88.0 or later—running gh --version confirms your current installation. GitHub’s documentation covers the full scope of what Copilot reviews and what it misses, which remains worth reading before trusting it with security-critical code.

For teams evaluating AI code review tools, this CLI integration represents a meaningful workflow improvement. The question isn’t whether AI review catches everything—it doesn’t—but whether it catches enough to justify the subscription cost and the seconds saved per PR. For high-volume development shops, those seconds compound quickly.

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