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Swizec Tellerhi@swizec.com (Swizec Teller)3 min readintermediate

We now auto-approve and merge 15% of PRs

Read on swizec.com

Summary

This article describes how a team implemented a bot to auto-approve and merge 15% of low-risk pull requests, aiming to reduce code review bottlenecks and improve development velocity. The system relies on custom deterministic linters, basic end-to-end tests, and a risk scoring mechanism to identify safe changes.

  • Code review can be a significant bottleneck to development velocity, leading to large backlogs.
  • Custom deterministic linters, often hundreds of lines of AST-parsing logic, can automate common code quality checks.
  • Basic end-to-end UI tests for critical user flows are sufficient to catch major regressions without aiming for 100% coverage.
  • Risk scores (low/mid/high) help reviewers prioritize and can be used to automate approvals for low-risk changes.

Engineers and team leads looking to improve development velocity and reduce code review overhead can learn practical strategies for automating parts of their CI/CD pipeline.

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