PR Agent skips review on synchronize after new commit (“Skipping action: synchronize”)

[jeffschaper]

Hello,

I noticed PR Agent sometimes skips reviewing a PR after I push a new commit and I'm not quite sure why this would be the case or how PR Agent makes this decision. The GitHub Actions log shows: Skipping action: synchronize. I expected a new review to run on the synchronize event.

Expected
When I push a new commit to the PR branch, PR Agent runs again and posts an updated review.

Actual
Workflow triggers, but PR Agent step reports Skipping action: synchronize and no new review is posted.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open a PR.
2. PR Agent runs and posts description/review/suggestions.
3. Push a new commit to the same PR branch.
4. PR Agent logs showing Skipping action: synchronize and no follow-up review.

Workflow Config

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, reopened, ready_for_review, synchronize]
  issue_comment:
    types: [created]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  pr_agent:
    if: ${{ github.event.sender && github.event.sender.type != 'Bot' }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: qodo-ai/pr-agent Action
        id: pragent
        uses: qodo-ai/pr-agent@eb4cdbb115dfb711375a24eccc75e3ef73ec03bc
        env:
          [redacted environment variables]
          github_action_config.auto_describe: true
          github_action_config.auto_improve: true
          github_action_config.auto_review: true

Questions

• Is skipping on synchronize expected under certain conditions (e.g., commit message filters, unchanged diff size, rate limiting, or config flags)?
• Is there a supported way to force a fresh review on synchronize (e.g., label, comment command, or input to the action)?
• Are there recommended permissions, concurrency, if: conditions, or paths filters to avoid unintended skips?

Thanks! I'm starting out with a Discussion to make sure I'm understanding the problem correctly before creating an Issue for it.

[jeffschaper]

Tagging @mrT23 for visibility

[DanaFineTLV]

Hi @jeffschaper , thank you so much for adding those questions.
We are restructuring the project, and starting from next week, community maintainers will be involved. I apologize for the delay in my response.
If you're interested in actively participating in the project maintenance, please reach out to me via email at dana.f@qodo.ai or on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/fine-dana/

[IsmaelMartinez]

Your reading was right, and the skip is deliberate rather than a fault. The Action's github_action_config.pr_actions list defaults to opened, reopened, ready_for_review and review_requested, so a synchronize event matches nothing and falls through to that log line; listing synchronize in the workflow types: is necessary but not sufficient. There are two supported ways to get a review on each new commit. Either add synchronize to github_action_config.pr_actions, which reruns the same auto tools, or set github_action_config.handle_push_trigger: true together with push_commands to run a lighter set on pushes. With the push trigger, merge commits and bot commits are ignored by default via push_trigger_ignore_merge_commits and push_trigger_ignore_bot_commits, which you can turn off. This path was reworked in PR #2490 and is now described in the automations and usage guide, so closing here.