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Local Git Provider

Use the local Git provider to run PR-Agent from a local Git checkout when there is no hosted GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket pull/merge request. It treats the local branch comparison as a pull-request-like change and writes the result to files in the checkout.

This page covers branch-to-branch local review. To run PR-Agent locally against an existing hosted PR/MR, follow Run from source and configure that hosted provider instead.

When to use it​

Use the Local Git Provider for:

  • local experimentation
  • workflows without a hosted PR/MR
  • CI jobs that operate directly on a local Git checkout

How it works​

  • The current HEAD is the proposed change.
  • PR-Agent computes the diff between the current HEAD and the merge base of HEAD and the supplied local target branch.

The shared CLI keeps the --pr_url option name for compatibility with the other providers. With git_provider=local, pass a local target branch name such as main, not a hosted PR/MR URL.

Prerequisites​

Before running a command:

  • Run it from inside the Git repository that contains the proposed change.
  • Keep the working tree clean. Check it with git status --short; the command compares committed HEAD content.
  • Make sure the target branch exists locally, for example with git branch --list main.
  • Configure the LLM provider required by your setup. A hosted Git provider token is not required for this mode.

Basic usage​

The CLI command names are review, describe, and improve; they correspond to the /review, /describe, and /improve tools.

Run /review against a local main branch:

cd /path/to/repository
CONFIG__GIT_PROVIDER=local \
python -m pr_agent.cli --pr_url main review

Run /describe:

CONFIG__GIT_PROVIDER=local \
python -m pr_agent.cli --pr_url main describe

Run /improve:

CONFIG__GIT_PROVIDER=local \
python -m pr_agent.cli --pr_url main improve

Replace main with the local branch to use as the target.

Output files​

By default, the commands write files in the repository root:

  • The /review command writes review.md.
  • The /describe command writes description.md.
  • The /improve command writes improve.md.

The local provider writes these files instead of publishing the result to a hosted pull/merge request.

Custom output paths​

Set paths in the configuration used by the run, for example in the repository root .pr_agent.toml:

[local]
review_path = "artifacts/review.md"
description_path = "artifacts/description.md"
improve_path = "artifacts/improve.md"

When using relative custom paths, run PR-Agent from the repository root as shown above.

Create any parent directories for custom paths before running the command.

Limitations​

The Local Git Provider cannot publish to a hosted platform: it does not publish hosted PR comments, apply labels, add reactions, or publish inline comments.

PR-Agent still requires a configured LLM provider, which may require network access.