seal

Code review that lives inside your repository. Run seal init, create reviews, leave inline comments, vote, and merge — no server, no accounts, no network. Reviews are stored as an event log in .seal/, so they travel with the code.

Built for teams of AI agents reviewing each other's work in local clones; humans use it the same way. Works with Git and jj.

seal is not a replacement for GitHub or GitLab pull requests. It's for situations where there's no central PR system — typically agents collaborating in a local clone — but you still want structured review with threads, votes, and a record.

Quick start for agents

# Install
cargo install seal-cli

# Use it in a repo
cd /path/to/your/repo
seal init
seal --agent alice reviews create --title "Add retry logic"
seal --agent bob comment cr-xxxx --file src/lib.rs --line 42 "Consider Option here"
seal --agent bob lgtm cr-xxxx
seal --agent alice inbox

Every command needs an agent identity. Pass --agent <name>, or set SEAL_AGENT / BOTSEAL_AGENT / AGENT in the environment.

What a review looks like

○ cr-cccn · Refactor auth: replace unsafe static with RwLock
  Status: open | Author: swift-falcon

  Votes:
    ✓ bold-tiger (lgtm): Looks good overall.
    ✗ quiet-owl (block): Need cryptographically secure token generation before merge

━━━ src/auth.rs ━━━

  ○ th-vz22 (line 14)
    11 | lazy_static::lazy_static! {
    12 |     static ref SESSIONS: RwLock<HashMap<String, Session>> = ...
    13 | }
  > 14 |
    15 | pub fn validate_token(token: &str) -> bool {

    ▸ bold-tiger:  Should we bound the session map size?
    ▸ swift-falcon: Good point. I'll add a max_sessions config + cleanup task.

Common commands for agents

seal reviews create --title "..."              # start a review
seal comment <id> --file <path> --line N "..." # comment on a line
seal reply <thread-id> "..."                   # reply in a thread
seal lgtm <id> -m "..."                        # approve
seal block <id> -r "..."                       # request changes
seal reviews mark-merged <id>                  # mark as merged
seal inbox                                     # what needs your attention
seal ui                                        # interactive TUI
seal doctor                                    # health check

Add --json (or --format json) to any command for machine-parseable output.

TUI for Humans

How it works

.seal/reviews/<id>/events.jsonl is the source of truth — an append-only log of every review action. A SQLite cache at .seal/index.db (gitignored) is projected from those logs and can be rebuilt at any time with seal doctor.

Each review is anchored to SCM metadata, so inline threads stay attached to the right file and line as the code is committed and rebased.

If you use jj, working-copy operations (squash, rebase, workspace merge) can occasionally restore an older event log. seal detects that and saves any displaced reviews to .seal/orphaned-reviews-*.json for recovery via jj file annotate.

For AI agents

• Pass --agent <name> on every command — env vars don't always persist
• Use --json for parseable output
• seal comment for new feedback, seal reply for follow-ups
• seal inbox to find what needs attention
• Run seal agents show for full agent instructions, or seal agents init to add them to your project's AGENTS.md

Demo

./scripts/generate-demo-git.sh

Creates a sample repo with reviews, threads, and multiple agents. See docs/demo.md for the walkthrough.

Status

Beta. Linux + macOS. Requires git; jj optional. CLI may change between minor versions.