SymbiSymbi
Integrations5 min read

Connecting GitHub

Connect GitHub to Symbi so your agents can review pull requests and post structured code reviews for human approval.

What GitHub Enables

Once connected, your code review agent can:

  • List pull requests — find open, merged, or closed PRs, with a merge-date window for scheduled audits
  • Read pull requests — fetch PR metadata, author, base/head refs, labels, and state
  • Inspect diffs — get the full unified diff for changed code (up to 500 KB)
  • List changed files — see every file touched with addition and deletion counts
  • Read file contents — fetch any file at a specific commit or branch for full context
  • Read PR comments — see existing review threads and discussion history
  • Read repository metadata — default branch, visibility, archived status, and topics
  • Check CI status — fetch check run results before recommending approval; the agent's instructions tell it not to approve a PR with failing or still-pending checks
  • Draft a review — produce a structured verdict (Comment / Request Changes / Approve) with inline comments anchored to specific files and lines

The agent never posts directly to GitHub. Every review draft routes to the Operation Center for a human to approve, edit, override, or decline before it is published.

GitHub is a company-only integration. Your Personal Assistant does not have direct GitHub access.

Connect via GitHub App

GitHub connects via a GitHub App installation, not an OAuth token. This gives Symbi scoped, organization-level access without exposing personal credentials.

  1. Open Settings → Connectors and click the GitHub tile
  2. Click Install GitHub App
  3. You're redirected to GitHub to install the Symbi App on your organization
  4. Select which repositories to grant access to, or choose all repositories
  5. Click Install — GitHub redirects back and Symbi confirms the connection

Only Owner and Admin users can connect GitHub.

After installation, Symbi automatically discovers your accessible repositories. They appear as selectable resources when you configure a code review agent.

Repository Discovery

Symbi discovers your repositories immediately after connection and registers them as resources your agents can bind to. The first 100 repositories (by most recent activity) are registered automatically — for an organization with more, use Discover more to register the rest.

Open Settings → Connectors → GitHub to see the Registered resources section. It lists every repository Symbi has registered, along with:

  • Which agents are currently using it — or Unused if no agent is bound to it yet
  • An Unregister button to remove a repository you no longer need

To remove a repository, click Unregister next to it. If an agent is still bound to that repository, Symbi blocks the removal and tells you which agents to update first — unbind the repository in each agent's setup, then return here to unregister.

To register additional repositories, click Discover more at the top of the Registered Resources section and select the repositories you want to make available.

Tip

Start by binding a single low-risk repository — an internal tool or experimental project — before connecting your main production repo. This lets you evaluate review quality on real PRs before rolling out broadly.

Webhook Triggers

Symbi listens for GitHub pull request events and starts a review cycle when a PR is:

  • Opened — a new pull request is created
  • Synchronized — new commits are pushed to an open PR
  • Ready for Review — a draft PR is marked ready

Each event starts a review only for agents whose own trigger is one of these PR events — an agent bound to the same repository on a different trigger (for example, a scheduled security audit) reads from the connection on its own schedule and does not run in response to a pull request. If a PR receives additional commits after the first review, the agent sees the prior review in context and focuses on whether the new commits address earlier feedback — rather than re-reviewing the full diff from scratch.

Review Flow

  1. A pull request event arrives at Symbi
  2. The agent reads the diff, file list, existing comments, CI check results, and repository metadata
  3. It produces a structured draft: verdict + summary + inline comments anchored to files and lines
  4. The draft appears in the Operation Center → Review Queue for a human reviewer
  5. The reviewer approves, edits, overrides, or declines the draft
  6. On approval, Symbi posts the review to GitHub on the agent's behalf

Loop Protection

By default, a code review agent will run up to 5 review cycles per PR before escalating to a human. This prevents excessive re-review on PRs that receive many small commits in rapid succession. A per-PR cost cap can also stop the loop before the cycle limit is reached. Both the cycle limit and the cost cap are set per agent in the agent's configuration; there is no self-serve control for them yet — contact Symbi to change either.

Common Patterns

  • Automated first-pass review — an agent reviews every PR as soon as it opens, cutting the time senior reviewers spend on mechanical checks
  • Security gate — a code review agent prompted to focus on injection, authentication, and secret handling reviews every PR before it reaches your engineering team
  • Junior developer coaching — an agent leaves specific, constructive comments on junior engineers' PRs before the broader team weighs in

Security

Symbi connects via GitHub App with installation-scoped permissions. Credentials (the installation ID and org context) are AES-256 encrypted at rest. You can revoke the Symbi App installation at any time from GitHub → Organization Settings → GitHub Apps, or remove it from Symbi's Connectors page.

What's Next?

  • Connect Linear to cross-reference PR reviews with project issues
  • Connect Slack to receive review notifications in your engineering channel
  • Learn about the Operation Center to manage review approvals

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