It took a bit longer than we expected to ship. The reason was simple: there are already many ways to run reviews locally today. IDEs, extensions, terminal commands, agents inside the editor. So building “just another AI CLI” didn’t seem like a good idea.

The question that guided the project was different: how can we bring the quality of PR reviews to the moment when the code is still being written?

Today the CLI does two main things.

The first is running local reviews using the same context we use in PRs. The goal was to avoid that shallow review that only looks at the diff currently open in the editor. We try to reconstruct more repository context, similar to what happens during a PR review.

The second is helping resolve comments that Kody has already left on a PR, but directly from the local environment. Instead of opening the PR, reading the comment, going back to the editor, making the change, and repeating the process, you can work through those fixes directly in your coding workflow.

The whole idea revolves around reducing the feedback loop time.

Some design decisions came from things we heard from teams using other CLIs.

Auth in large teams often turns into friction. Many tools assume each developer will create an account before using the CLI. That becomes painful when someone just wants to try it, or when an entire team decides to experiment.

We introduced team keys. An admin generates the key and shares it with the team. Anyone who installs the CLI can start using it right away.

Rate limits can ruin the local experience. Some tools work well at first but become too restricted for continuous use.

The CLI runs BYOK by default, so you can use your own API key if you want.

Code agents are already part of the workflow. Instead of treating this as something separate, we built two layers.

The CLI works as a direct interface to our API. On top of that, there are Skills that teach agents how to use the same review flow.

There’s still a lot to improve. Repo context, how suggestions are presented, integration with different developer workflows. We’re using it heavily internally and adjusting things as problems show up.

If anyone wants to try it or contribute:

- repo: https://github.com/kodustech/cli - feedback is very welcome - issues and PRs are too

If you usually run local reviews, I’d be curious to hear what actually works and what only sounds good in theory.