Request Codeowner Reviews

A GitHub Action that requests reviews from CODEOWNERS for pull requests, without requiring those owners to have write access to the repository.

Installation

Quick Setup

1. Create a new workflow file at .github/workflows/request-codeowner-reviews.yml
2. Add the following configuration:

name: Request Codeowner Reviews

on:
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened]

jobs:
  request-reviews:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Request Codeowner Reviews
        uses: pkgjs/request-codeowner-review@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          fail-on-error: true
          output-mode: review

Configuration Options

Input	Required	Default	Description
token	Yes	${{ github.token }}	GitHub token with permissions to manage pull request reviews
fail-on-error	No	true	Whether to fail the action when an error occurs
output-mode	No	review	How to notify codeowners: review to request reviews, comment to add a comment

Output Modes

• review (default): Requests reviews from codeowners using GitHub's review request feature
• comment: Creates a comment on the pull request mentioning the codeowners instead of requesting reviews

The comment mode is useful when:

• You want to notify without formally requesting reviews
• You prefer a less formal notification approach

Alternative Setup: Comment Mode

If you prefer to notify codeowners via comments instead of review requests:

name: Notify Codeowners

on:
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened]

jobs:
  notify-codeowners:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Notify Codeowners
        uses: avivkeller/request-codeowner-review@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          output-mode: comment
          fail-on-error: false

CODEOWNERS Setup

File Placement

Place your CODEOWNERS file in one of these locations (checked in order):

1. .github/CODEOWNERS
2. docs/CODEOWNERS
3. CODEOWNERS (in repository root)

Syntax Guide

The CODEOWNERS file uses GitHub's standard format. Each line specifies a pattern and its corresponding owners:

# Format: <pattern>  <owner1> <owner2> <owner3>

# Global owners (fallback for all files)
*       @global-owner1 @global-owner2

# Directory-specific owners
/docs/  @org/docs-team
/src/   @org/dev-team

# File type owners
*.js    @org/javascript-team
*.go    @org/go-team

For complete details on CODEOWNERS syntax and pattern matching, see the GitHub CODEOWNERS documentation.