Critiq — Zero-noise AI Code Review Agent

Critiq brings AI-powered code review to your terminal — focused, low-noise, and language-agnostic.

One principle: catch real bugs, security flaws, and performance issues. Skip the style nitpicks.

Quick Start

# via npm (recommended)
npx critiq-cli < diff.patch

# via install script
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DrfterX/critiq/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

# review current changes
git diff HEAD | critiq

Set CRITIQ_API_KEY (any OpenAI/Anthropic-compatible API) and you're ready.

Why Critiq?

Critiq is not just "an AI wrapper around DeepSeek". It's a carefully designed code review tool that solves real problems:

vs. Just asking an AI ("review this code")

| | Direct AI Prompt | Critiq | |---|:---:|:---:| | Noise control | None — AI lists everything it notices | Hard cap at 3 comments, silence when nothing is wrong | | Consistency | Depends on how you phrase the prompt | Stable prompt engineering, same rules every time | | Structured output | Random format, needs manual parsing | Standardized JSON: severity + confidence + score | | Severity/Confidence | You judge yourself | high/medium/low + critical/warning/info on every comment | | Ready to use | Need to write prompt, parse result, integrate | git diff HEAD \| critiq — done |

In short: Critiq is what you get when you take a generic AI and tune it specifically for code review — noise-cancelled, structured, and ready to use.

vs. Other Code Review Tools

| Feature | Critiq | CodeRabbit | PR-Agent | |---------|--------|------------|----------| | Noisiness | ≤3 comments, real issues only | 10+ comments, noisy | Configurable | | Pricing | Free + CLI / $9 mo SaaS | $12/mo+ | $29/mo+ | | Model | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Proprietary | GPT-4 | | Confidence Tag | ✅ high/medium/low | ❌ | ❌ | | Local / Offline | ✅ CLI runs anywhere | ❌ SaaS only | ❌ SaaS only | | Language | Chinese-first reviews | English | English |

Installation

npm (recommended)

npm install -g critiq-cli

One-line install (no npm account needed)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DrfterX/critiq/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

What the script does:

1. ✅ Checks Node.js >= 18
2. ✅ Clones Critiq to ~/.critiq/
3. ✅ Installs dependencies & builds
4. ✅ Registers critiq globally
5. ✅ Adds to ~/.bashrc / ~/.zshrc PATH

Manual

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/DrfterX/critiq.git ~/.critiq-source
cd ~/.critiq-source
npm install --silent && npm run build && npm link

CLI Usage

# review current uncommitted changes
git diff HEAD | critiq

# review a specific commit
git show <commit> | critiq --pr-title "Commit message"

# review a PR diff
curl -L https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123.diff | critiq --pr-title "Fix bug" --repo owner/repo --pr-number 123

# JSON output for CI integration
git diff main HEAD | critiq --json | jq '.comments'

# review from a file
critiq --file changes.diff --pr-title "My PR"

GitHub Action (one-minute setup)

Create .github/workflows/critiq-review.yml in your repo:

name: Critiq Code Review
on: [pull_request]
permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
  issues: write
jobs:
  critiq-review:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Critiq Review
        uses: DrfterX/critiq/.github/actions/critiq-review@main
        with:
          api-key: ${{ secrets.CRITIQ_API_KEY }}
          github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Then add CRITIQ_API_KEY to your repo's Secrets.

Features

✅ Current

• [x] CLI review: git diff | critiq — review local code changes
• [x] GitHub Action: zero-config CI integration, posts inline comments on PRs
• [x] Confidence scoring: every comment tagged high/medium/low
• [x] Chinese-first output: reviews in Chinese, code stays in English
• [x] JSON mode: --json for CI/script integration

🚧 Roadmap

• [ ] GitHub App: auto-review via Cloudflare Workers
• [ ] Web Dashboard: review history in the browser
• [ ] VS Code Extension: in-editor instant review
• [ ] GitLab / Bitbucket support

Options

USAGE:
  critiq [options]                   # read diff from stdin
  critiq --file <path>               # read diff from file
  cat diff.diff | critiq             # pipe

OPTIONS:
  -f, --file <path>       Read diff from file
  -t, --pr-title <text>   PR title (default: "Local Code Review")
  -b, --pr-body <text>    PR description (optional)
  -r, --repo <name>       Repo name (default: "local/repo")
  -n, --pr-number <num>   PR number (default: 0)
  -j, --json              Raw JSON output only
  --max-diff <bytes>      Max diff size (default: 40000)
  -h, --help              Show help

ENVIRONMENT:
  CRITIQ_API_KEY        Required. API key for any compatible provider.
  CRITIQ_API_BASE       API base URL (default: https://api.deepseek.com/v1)
  CRITIQ_MODEL          Model name (default: deepseek-chat)

How It Works

1. Read diff (stdin or file)
2. Build review prompt with buildReviewPrompt() — diff context + review rules
3. Call AI API (DeepSeek / any compatible provider)
4. Parse JSON response, apply safety limits (≤3 comments, score 1-10)
5. Output review (pretty or JSON)

Cost

DeepSeek V4 Flash costs ~$0.01/million tokens:

• 200-line diff → ~2K tokens
• Per review cost: ~$0.00002
• 1000 reviews/month: ~$0.02

Development

git clone https://github.com/DrfterX/critiq.git
npm install
npm run typecheck
npm test

# local use
export CRITIQ_API_KEY=sk-xxx
git diff HEAD | npx tsx src/cli.ts

Project Structure

critiq/
├── src/
│   ├── cli.ts           # CLI entry point
│   ├── review.ts        # API calling logic
│   ├── prompt.ts        # Review prompt engineering
│   ├── github.ts        # GitHub App auth (Worker)
│   ├── db.ts            # D1 database layer (Worker)
│   ├── index.ts         # Cloudflare Worker entry
│   └── types.ts         # Shared types
├── frontend/            # Landing page
├── migrations/          # D1 database migrations
├── sample/              # E2E tests
├── scripts/
│   ├── install.sh       # One-line install script
│   └── deploy-critiq.sh # Deployment script
├── action/              # GitHub Action
└── wrangler.toml        # Cloudflare Workers config

License

MIT © DrfterX