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EkLine Documentation

Automatic PR review

EkLine automatically detects when pull requests need documentation updates and suggests or creates them based on confidence level.

When you open a pull request, EkLine automatically analyzes the changes and determines whether your documentation needs updating. Depending on the confidence of the assessment, EkLine stays silent, posts a suggestion, or triggers a documentation update automatically.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”
flowchart TD
    A[Pull request opened] --> B[EkLine analyzes PR diff]
    B --> C{Documentation impact?}
    C -->|Low confidence| D[No action taken]
    C -->|Medium confidence| E[Posts suggestion comment]
    C -->|High confidence| F[Posts auto-trigger comment]
    F --> G[Docs update flow runs automatically]
    G --> H[Documentation PR created]
    E --> I[You decide whether to trigger]

When a non-draft pull request is opened or converted from draft to ready, EkLine:

  1. Reads the PR diff, title, and description.
  2. Compares the changes against your existing documentation.
  3. Assesses whether the changes have documentation impact.
  4. Acts based on the confidence of that assessment.

Confidence tiers

Section titled “Confidence tiers”

EkLine categorizes each assessment into one of three confidence tiers:

TierWhen it appliesWhat EkLine does
LowRefactoring, test additions, bug fixes with no user-facing impactStays silent — no comment posted
MediumBehavioral changes that might affect documented featuresPosts a suggestion comment on the PR
HighNew API endpoints, renamed configuration, removed features, changed public interfacesPosts a comment that automatically triggers the docs update flow

The high-confidence threshold is conservative. EkLine only auto-triggers a documentation update when the impact is clear. When uncertain, it defaults to staying silent.

Medium confidence

Section titled “Medium confidence”

EkLine posts a comment on the pull request explaining what documentation might need updating. The comment mentions @ekline-ai so you can trigger the update manually if you agree.

No automatic action is taken — you decide whether to proceed.

High confidence

Section titled “High confidence”

EkLine posts a comment that automatically triggers the GitHub PR bot flow. The bot creates a documentation session, generates a draft, and opens a docs pull request — without any manual intervention.

This works the same way as manually mentioning @ekline-ai on a PR comment, except EkLine initiates it for you.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”

Before automatic PR review works on your repositories, you need:

  • An EkLine organization account.
  • The EkLine GitHub App installed on the repository.
  • Docs Agent access enabled for your organization (includes the GitHub PR bot integration).

Automatic PR review is enabled by default for all organizations with Docs Agent access.

What you see on the pull request

Section titled “What you see on the pull request”
ScenarioWhat appears on the PR
Low confidenceNothing — EkLine stays silent
Medium confidenceA comment suggesting a documentation update, with @ekline-ai mentioned for convenience
High confidenceA comment that triggers the docs update flow, followed by a link to the documentation PR
Error during assessmentNothing — EkLine stays silent and logs the error internally

At most one automatic review comment appears per pull request.

Relationship to the GitHub PR bot

Section titled “Relationship to the GitHub PR bot”

Automatic PR review builds on top of the existing GitHub PR bot integration:

  • Manual flow: You mention @ekline-ai in a PR comment to trigger a documentation session.
  • Automatic flow: EkLine posts the @ekline-ai mention for you when it detects high-confidence documentation impact.

Both flows create the same type of documentation session. If EkLine already posted an automatic comment and you mention @ekline-ai manually on the same PR, the existing session resumes rather than creating a duplicate.

Run a manual assessment

Section titled “Run a manual assessment”

You can also trigger a PR documentation assessment on demand using the /analyze-pr-for-docs-needs command in the EkLine Docs Agent. Provide the PR URL as an argument:

/analyze-pr-for-docs-needs https://github.com/your-org/your-repo/pull/123

The agent analyzes the PR diff against your existing documentation and acts based on the same confidence model described above. Use this when you want to assess a specific PR without waiting for the automatic trigger, or to re-assess a PR after significant changes.

Current limitations

Section titled “Current limitations”
  • Assessment runs once: New commits pushed after the initial assessment do not trigger a re-analysis.
  • No user configuration: You cannot customize confidence thresholds or trigger conditions. This is planned for a future release.
  • PR context only: The assessment uses the PR diff, title, and description. Linked Jira or Linear tickets are not included in V1.
  • Current PR changes only: EkLine assesses documentation impact for changes introduced by the PR, not pre-existing documentation gaps.

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”
IssueSolution
No comment appears on my PRVerify the EkLine GitHub App is installed and Docs Agent access is enabled for your organization. Draft PRs are skipped. Low-confidence assessments produce no comment.
EkLine posted a suggestion but I want the updateMention @ekline-ai in a new comment on the PR with a description of the documentation changes you need.
The auto-triggered docs PR is inaccurateComment on the generated docs PR mentioning @ekline-ai with feedback. The agent resumes the session and pushes new commits.
EkLine triggered on a PR that does not need docsThe assessment is best-effort. You can close or ignore the generated docs PR.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”