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| 1 | +# AI Code Reviews in BPF CI |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +## TL;DR |
| 4 | +- **Please make sure AI is actually wrong before dismissing the review** |
| 5 | + - An email response explaining why AI is wrong would be very helpful |
| 6 | +- BPF CI includes [a workflow](https://github.com/kernel-patches/vmtest/blob/master/.github/workflows/ai-code-review.yml) running AI code review |
| 7 | +- The reviews are posted as comments on [kernel-patches/bpf PRs](https://github.com/kernel-patches/bpf/pulls) |
| 8 | +- The review comments are forwarded to the patch recipients via email by [KPD](https://github.com/kernel-patches/kernel-patches-daemon) |
| 9 | +- Prompts are here: https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +If you received an AI review for your patch submission, please try to evaluate it in the same way you would if it was written by a person, and respond. |
| 12 | +Your response is for humans, not for AI. |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | +## How does it work? |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +BPF CI is processing every patch series submitted to the [Linux Kernel BPF mailing list](https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/). |
| 17 | +Against each patch the system executes various tests, such as [selftests/bpf](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/bpf/bpf-next.git/tree/tools/testing/selftests/bpf), and since recently it also executes automated code reviews performed by LLM-based AI. |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | +BPF CI runs on [Github Actions](https://docs.github.com/en/actions) workflows orchestrated by [KPD](https://github.com/kernel-patches/kernel-patches-daemon). |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +The AI review is implemented with [Claude Code GitHub Action](https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code-action), which essentially installs Claude Code command-line app and a MCP server with a number of common tools available to it. |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +LLMs are accessed via [AWS Bedrock](https://aws.amazon.com/bedrock), the GitHub Actions workflow authenticates to AWS account with [OIDC](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/how-tos/secure-your-work/security-harden-deployments/oidc-in-aws). |
| 24 | + |
| 25 | +To achieve the output that might have led you to this page, [a set of elaborate prompts](https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts) were developed specifically targeting the Linux Kernel source code. |
| 26 | +The workflow checks out the Linux and prompts repository and initiates the review with a trivial [trigger prompt](https://github.com/kernel-patches/vmtest/blob/master/.github/workflows/ai-code-review.yml#L91-L94). |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +### Are the reviews even accurate? |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +We make every effort for AI reviews to be high-signal messages. Although the nature of LLMs makes them prone to mistakes. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +At this point this is still an experiment, but the results so far have been promising. |
| 33 | +For example, AI is pretty good at catching dumb mistakes (e.g. use-after-free) that humans can easily miss. |
| 34 | +At the same time AI can miss context obvious to a human, such as relationships between newer and older changes. |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +If you'd like to suggest an improvement to the prompts, open a PR to [review-prompts](https://github.com/masoncl/review-prompts) repository. |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +### Will my patch get nacked because of the AI review? |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +Paraphrasing IBM training manual: |
| 41 | +> "A LLM can never be held accountable, therefore a LLM must never make an Ack/Nack decision" |
| 42 | +
|
| 43 | +The review prompts are designed such that AI is only searching for the regressions it can provide evidence for. |
| 44 | +For the majority of patches a review is not generated, so if you received one it's worth evaluating. |
| 45 | + |
| 46 | +It's unlikely that your patch gets discarded *just* because AI found something, especially if you address it or explain why AI is wrong. |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +But if you ignore an AI review, human reviewers will likely ask for a reason. |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | +### What if I don't like it? |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +Bring it up with the maintainers on the mailing list and elaborate. |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +It is expected that AI may be mistaken. However it is also expected that the patch authors answer reasonable questions about the code changes they propose. |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | +If there is a technical issue (say with email notifications, formatting etc.), open an issue in [this repository](https://github.com/kernel-patches/vmtest/issues). |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +### Who pays for the tokens? |
| 59 | + |
| 60 | +[Meta Platforms, Inc.](https://www.meta.com/) |
| 61 | + |
| 62 | +BPF CI in its current form has been developed and maintained by the Linux Kernel team at Meta. Most of the relevant hardware is also provided by Meta. |
| 63 | + |
| 64 | +### Who set this up? |
| 65 | + |
| 66 | +- [Chris Mason](https://github.com/masoncl) is the prompt engineer |
| 67 | +- [Ihor Solodrai](https://github.com/theihor) is the infra plumber |
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