Configuration Scopes
Settings are configured at two levels:- Organization level: sets the defaults for every repository connected to Gitar.
- Repository level: overrides specific org defaults for a single repo.
Repository overrides only change settings that are explicitly toggled. Everything else inherits from the org default.
Behavior
Skip drafts
When enabled, Gitar ignores draft PRs until they are marked ready for review.Enhance summaries
When enabled, Gitar auto-fills PR descriptions with a summary of the changes.Retry unrelated CI failures
Automatically retry CI jobs whose failures are unrelated to the changes in your PR, for example flaky tests or transient infrastructure issues. Retries once per commit.Block merges
Configure a severity threshold for Gitar’s code review verdict. When findings meet or exceed the threshold, Gitar submits a blocking review to prevent merging. Whether the host enforces that block or only records it differs. See Platform Support.gitar unblock
Enable the gitar unblock toggle to allow PR authors to dismiss Gitar’s blocking review by commenting gitar unblock.
Auto-approve
Enable Auto-approve PRs based on code review to let Gitar submit an approving review when a PR passes code review. You can optionally provide natural-language criteria to restrict which PRs qualify. When no criteria are configured, Gitar approves any PR with no blocking findings. See Auto-Approve for criteria examples, per-repo config files, and platform behavior.gitar-approved label
Enable Apply gitar-approved label in the auto-approve settings to have Gitar add a gitar-approved label to approved PRs. The label is created automatically in the repository if it does not exist, making approved changes easy to filter in your platform’s PR list.
Auto-merge
Enable Auto-merge PRs after auto-approve to arm your platform’s native auto-merge immediately after Gitar approves. On GitHub you can choose the merge method (squash, merge commit, or rebase). On GitLab the project’s default merge method is used. Two more controls sit under the toggle. Auto-merge criteria takes your merge conditions in plain language, evaluated in the same pass as auto-approve. Require.gitar/config/merge.md holds every repository back until it commits its own criteria file, so only repositories that opt in are armed.
Availability differs by host. See Platform Support.
See Auto-Merge for prerequisites and details.
Functional validation
Enable Validate PRs against linked issues to have Gitar read the issues a PR links, split each into objectives, and judge the diff against them. On by default where it is available. See Functional Validation.Custom Instructions
Provide organization-wide instructions that guide the Gitar agent across all connected repositories. These are applied to every repo in your org. Use them to enforce coding standards, preferred libraries, or architectural patterns. Gitar also reads instruction files committed to each repository. See Repository Customization for which files and where they go.Review summary instructions
Gitar writes a short summary under the Code Review header on every PR. Add instructions here to say how that summary should read. Set length, structure, register, tone, or the language it is written in. Leave the field empty and you get the default: one or two sentences. For example:Scope
Control which PRs Gitar processes, by author or by the branch a PR merges into. Every field is a comma-separated list, no spaces, and is set for the whole organization rather than per repository.Target branch patterns
Branch fields take names or shell globs:main, release/*, *-staging. Matching is case-insensitive and * spans /, so feature/* also matches feature/a/b. Full refs like refs/heads/main are accepted and normalized.
Put main,master,release/* in the allowed list to keep Gitar off stacked and sandbox branches. Put feature/*,sandbox/* in the excluded list to drop a few destinations and leave the rest on.
The filter runs when Gitar first picks a PR up, so retargeting a PR that already started does not stop it. A PR with no readable target branch is processed, not dropped.
Skipping PRs with gitar-skip
Add the gitar-skip label to any PR to skip all Gitar processing for that change. This works regardless of other scope settings and is useful for one-off exclusions without changing your org or repo configuration.