Ralph Wiggum Loop
Purpose
Automate an iterative Copilot-driven review loop: trigger a GitHub Copilot
review, address its feedback one comment at a time, then re-trigger Copilot
to review again. Repeat up to 2 cycles until all critical issues are resolved.
Named after Ralph Wiggum: the agent keeps asking Copilot "is this better now?"
until it's satisfied — or gives up after 2 tries.
Prerequisites
- CLI (required)
- extension (recommended — see
references/gh-copilot-review-guide.md
bash
gh extension install ChrisCarini/gh-copilot-review
gh pr review --request copilot
- skill (optional — if installed, the inner loop is delegated to it)
- The PR branch must be checked out locally
Process
Step 1 — Pre-flight
Inspect the project for safeguard conventions by checking these files (if they exist):
Identify all required safeguards (tests, compilation, linting, formatting, etc.).
Run all of them. If any fail, stop immediately and report — do not proceed.
Step 2 — Outer loop (max 2 iterations)
Repeat up to 2 times:
2a. Request Copilot review
Check if
extension is installed:
bash
gh extension list | grep copilot-review
If installed (preferred):
bash
gh copilot-review [<number> | <url>]
If not installed (fallback):
bash
gh pr review --request copilot
2b. Wait for Copilot to complete
Read
references/gh-copilot-review-guide.md
for the polling approach.
Record the current count of unresolved
comments before triggering.
Poll every 15 seconds until new comments appear. If no new comments after 3 minutes,
stop and report timeout — do not proceed.
2c. Collect unresolved Copilot comments
Fetch all unresolved comments authored by
. Ignore comments from
human reviewers (those are handled by the
skill).
bash
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{pr}/comments \
--jq '.[] | select(.user.login == "copilot[bot]") | select(.resolved == false)'
If there are no unresolved Copilot comments, stop — nothing to do.
2d. Address comments — inner loop
If skill is available:
Invoke the
skill, passing only the Copilot comments collected
in step 2c as the scope. It will handle triage, one-at-a-time fixes, and replies.
If skill is NOT available:
Follow this process for each comment, one at a time (MUST_FIX first, then SHOULD_FIX):
Triage categories (see below):
- MUST_FIX: blocking correctness issue, security flaw, or broken build
- SHOULD_FIX: non-blocking improvement worth addressing
- PARK: valid but out of scope for this PR — reply with reasoning, open follow-up issue
- OUT_OF_SCOPE: does not apply — reply with rejection reasoning
For each MUST_FIX and SHOULD_FIX comment:
-
Assess complexity:
- Trivial (rename, small fix): fix directly
- Non-trivial: write plan to
.pr-review/plan-<comment-id>.md
-
Run safeguards — all must pass before touching code
-
Fix or park the comment
-
Run safeguards again — all must pass
-
Commit and push:
bash
git add <changed files>
git commit -m "<conventional commit describing the fix>"
git push
-
Reply to the comment — explain fix, deferral, or rejection
-
Resolve the comment on GitHub
-
Delete plan file if one was created:
bash
rm .pr-review/plan-<comment-id>.md
2e. Check stop conditions
Stop iterating if any of:
- No MUST_FIX Copilot comments remain after this pass
- Only OUT_OF_SCOPE Copilot comments remain
- This was the 2nd iteration
Otherwise continue to the next iteration (back to step 2a).
Step 3 — Summary
Post a final comment on the PR:
## Ralph Wiggum Loop — Summary
Completed N Copilot review cycle(s).
### Fixed
- [commit abc1234] <description> (Copilot comment #<id>)
- ...
### Parked
- <description> — deferred, tracked in #<issue>
- ...
### Rejected
- <description> — <reason>
- ...
Resumability
This skill can be interrupted and restarted in a fresh context at any point.
On restart:
- Run pre-flight (Step 1)
- Check for an existing — if found, continue mid-fix from step 2d
- Re-fetch unresolved Copilot comments — already-resolved ones won't appear
- Continue the outer loop from the current state
State Directory
at the repo root (should be gitignored by the project).
- — plan for the comment currently in progress (deleted after resolution)