Crit CLI

Crit CLI Reference

If a plan was just written and the user said "crit" or "review", use the $crit skill instead — it covers the full review loop. This skill covers CLI operations like crit comment, crit pull/push, and crit share.

Comments have three scopes:

• Line comments (scope: "line") — tied to specific lines, stored in files.<path>.comments
• File comments (scope: "file") — about a file overall, stored in files.<path>.comments with start_line: 0
• Review comments (scope: "review") — general feedback, stored in the top-level review_comments array

The review file path is shown by crit status.

Reading comments

When crit completes a review round, read stdout and follow its instructions. Unresolved comments are often embedded in that prompt as JSON. Check stderr for approved: true or approved: false.

When you need to read comments separately:

crit comments            # human-readable, unresolved only (default)
crit comments --json     # flat JSON for agents
crit comments --all      # include resolved comments
crit comments --plan <slug>   # plan reviews
crit comments [path]     # explicit review.json or .crit directory

Review-level comments are listed first — easy to miss in raw review.json. Uses the same review resolution as crit comment (--output, --plan, daemon session).

Multiple active sessions

When more than one review session matches the current directory and branch, headless commands (crit comment, crit comments, crit share, crit push, crit pull) refuse to guess. Run crit status (or crit status --json) to list every active session, then target the intended review with --session <id>:

crit comment --session <id> --author <name> <path>:<line> <body>
crit comment --session <id> --json --file comments.json --author <name>
crit comments --session <id>
crit share --session <id> <file>
crit push --session <id>
crit pull --session <id>

The JSON status output exposes the candidates in sessions.

Review file format

{
  "review_comments": [
    {
      "id": "r_f1e2d3",
      "body": "Overall the architecture looks good",
      "scope": "review",
      "author": "User Name",
      "resolved": false,
      "replies": [
        { "id": "rp_b4a5c6", "body": "Thanks, addressed the minor issues", "author": "Codex" }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "files": {
    "path/to/file.go": {
      "comments": [
        {
          "id": "c_a1b2c3",
          "start_line": 5,
          "end_line": 10,
          "body": "Comment text",
          "quote": "the specific words selected",
          "anchor": "The sessions table needs a complete rewrite...",
          "author": "User Name",
          "resolved": false,
          "replies": [
            { "id": "rp_c7d8e9", "body": "Fixed by extracting to helper", "author": "Codex" }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Field rules:

• resolved: false or missing — both mean unresolved. Only true means resolved.
• quote (optional): the specific text the reviewer selected — narrows scope within the line range. Focus changes on the quoted text rather than the entire range.
• anchor (line comments): full text of the commented lines when placed. When edits shift line numbers, locate content by anchor rather than trusting start_line/end_line.
• drifted: true: original content was removed or heavily rewritten — line numbers are approximate at best.
• Unresolved comments may have replies — read them before acting.

Authoring comments

# Review-level (general feedback)
crit comment --author 'Codex' '<body>'

# File-level (whole file, no line numbers)
crit comment --author 'Codex' <path> '<body>'

# Line (single line or range)
crit comment --author 'Codex' <path>:<line> '<body>'
crit comment --author 'Codex' <path>:<start>-<end> '<body>'

# Reply to an existing comment
crit comment --reply-to <id> --author 'Codex' '<body>'

Hard rules:

• Always pass --author 'Codex' so comments are attributed correctly.
• Always single-quote the body — double quotes break on backticks and shell metachars.
• Line numbers reference the file on disk (1-indexed), not diff line numbers.
• Reply bodies support markdown — use code fences and inline code where helpful.
• Only pass --resolve when the user explicitly asks. Never resolve proactively. Same rule applies to the resolve field in --json mode.

Bulk commenting (3+ comments)

Use --json for atomicity (single write, no partial state) and speed (one process). The JSON can come from stdin or --file <path>:

# stdin — fine for short, single-line bodies:
echo '[
  {"body": "overall feedback", "scope": "review"},
  {"path": "session.go", "body": "restructure", "scope": "file"},
  {"file": "src/auth.go", "line": 42, "body": "Missing null check"},
  {"file": "src/auth.go", "line": "50-55", "body": "Extract to helper"},
  {"reply_to": "c_a1b2c3", "body": "Fixed — added null check"},
  {"reply_to": "r_f1e2d3", "body": "Done"}
]' | crit comment --json --author 'Codex'

For multi-paragraph bodies, prefer --file. A literal newline inside a "body" string breaks JSON parsing, and shell-quoted heredocs make this easy to introduce by accident. Write the JSON to a temp file (use your file-edit tool), then:

crit comment --json --file /tmp/crit-bulk.json --author 'Codex'

--file - is an explicit "read stdin" if you ever need it.

Per-entry schema:

Scope inference (when scope omitted): has reply_to → reply; no file/path and no line → review-level; path but no line → file-level; file/path + line → line.

Multi-file disambiguation

Comment IDs are unique per session, but the same ID can collide across files. If crit comment errors with "comment found in multiple files", disambiguate with --path:

crit comment --reply-to c_a1b2c3 --path src/auth.go --author 'Codex' 'Fixed the null check'

In --json mode, set the file field on the entry. Review-level IDs (r_…) are globally unique and never need this.

Plan-mode comments

Plan reviews (via crit plan or the ExitPlanMode hook) store the review file in ~/.crit/plans/<slug>/. Always pass --plan <slug> — without it, crit comment looks in the project root and won't find the comments. The slug is shown in the review feedback prompt.

crit comment --plan my-plan-2026-03-23 --reply-to c_a1b2c3 --author 'Codex' 'Updated the plan'

GitHub PR / GitLab MR Integration

crit pull [number|url]                                   # Fetch PR/MR review comments into the review file
crit push [--dry-run] [--event <type>] [-m <msg>] [n]    # Post review comments to a PR/MR
crit pull --forge gitlab 42                              # Force GitLab when auto-detect is ambiguous

Requires gh CLI installed and authenticated. PR number is auto-detected from the current branch.

--event values: comment (default), approve, request-changes. -m adds a review-level body message.

Sharing

crit share <file> [file...]                          # Upload and print URL
crit share --qr <file>                               # Also print QR code (terminal only)
crit share --org <slug> <file>                       # Share under an organization
crit share --org <slug> --visibility unlisted <file> # Org share with explicit visibility
crit unpublish [file...]                              # Remove shared review

• Always relay the output — copy the URL (and QR if used) into your response. Don't make the user dig through tool output.
• --qr is terminal-only — skip in mobile apps, web chat UIs, or anywhere Unicode block characters won't render correctly.
• --org <slug> shares under an organization. Visibility defaults to organization (members only). Override with --visibility (organization, unlisted, public).
• If a review file exists, comments for the shared files are included automatically.
• Unpublish uses the persisted delete token in the review file — no extra args needed.