Discourage review agent from approving PRs#13512
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JanKrivanek merged 2 commits intoApr 9, 2026
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Pull request overview
Updates the expert review workflow prompts to prevent automated review agents from ever submitting an APPROVE review, ensuring the workflow doesn’t count toward PR approval requirements.
Changes:
- Restrict final review submissions to COMMENT or REQUEST_CHANGES (explicitly forbidding APPROVE) in the shared review workflow instructions.
- Update the
expert-revieweragent guidance so all-clear reviews result in COMMENT rather than APPROVE.
Show a summary per file
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| .github/workflows/shared/review-shared.md | Adjusts shared workflow instructions to forbid APPROVE and require COMMENT for clean reviews. |
| .github/agents/expert-reviewer.md | Updates the agent’s final verdict mapping to never emit APPROVE. |
Copilot's findings
- Files reviewed: 2/2 changed files
- Comments generated: 2
![github-actions[bot]](https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/in/15368?s=60&v=4){kind=small}
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Expert Review — PR #13512: Prevent agent from using APPROVE verdict
| # | Dimension | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Backwards Compatibility | ✅ LGTM |
| 5 | Test Coverage | N/A (no code) |
| 12 | Code Simplification | ✅ LGTM |
| 13 | Concurrency | N/A |
| 18 | Correctness | ✅ LGTM |
- Backwards Compat — no behavioral change to builds
- Correctness — both instruction files updated consistently; no stale APPROVE-as-event references remain in
expert-reviewer.md - Completeness — all instruction-level references to APPROVE as a review verdict are updated
Summary
Clean, well-scoped change. Both files (expert-reviewer.md and review-shared.md) are updated consistently to replace APPROVE with COMMENT for clean reviews, and add an explicit "Never use APPROVE" directive. The rationale (AI agent reviews should not satisfy branch protection approval requirements) is sound.
One observation (NIT, no action required): The .agent.lock.yml files (review-on-open.agent.lock.yml and review.agent.lock.yml) still list "APPROVE" in the event enum schema for submit_pull_request_review. This is expected since those are auto-generated API schema definitions (what the tool can accept), not behavioral instructions. The instruction-level constraint is the correct layer for this policy. However, if the lock file schema supports restricting allowed values, removing APPROVE from the enum would provide defense-in-depth — worth considering as a follow-up.
No blocking or major issues found. LGTM.
Note
🔒 Integrity filter blocked 1 item
The following item were blocked because they don't meet the GitHub integrity level.
- #13512
pull_request_read: has lower integrity than agent requires. The agent cannot read data with integrity below "approved".
To allow these resources, lower min-integrity in your GitHub frontmatter:
tools:
github:
min-integrity: approved # merged | approved | unapproved | noneGenerated by Expert Code Review (on open) for issue #13512 · ● 2.5M
JanProvaznik
approved these changes
Apr 9, 2026
ViktorHofer
approved these changes
Apr 9, 2026
Member
|
@JanKrivanek please merge with squash next time |
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Follow up of #13512 ### Context PR review agent is now prevented from approving PR reviews
This was referenced Jun 10, 2026
This was referenced Jun 26, 2026
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Updated [Microsoft.Build](https://github.com/dotnet/msbuild) from 18.6.3 to 18.7.1. <details> <summary>Release notes</summary> _Sourced from [Microsoft.Build's releases](https://github.com/dotnet/msbuild/releases)._ ## 18.7.1 ## What's Changed * Fix TraceEngine file contention deadlock in multithreaded mode by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13446 * Remove duplicate test cases in MultithreadableTaskAnalyzer by @Youssef1313 in dotnet/msbuild#13483 * Ensure ThreadSafeTaskAnalyzer.Tests is considered as a unit test project by @Youssef1313 in dotnet/msbuild#13481 * Fix MSBuildTask0002 analyzer warnings in already-migrated tasks by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13466 * Fix race conditions in task host path resolution by @AR-May in dotnet/msbuild#13485 * Migrate ToolTask and Al task to TaskEnvironment API by @OvesN in dotnet/msbuild#13423 * Bump main to 18.7, add vs18.6 to merge flow by @MichalPavlik in dotnet/msbuild#13472 * Avoid allocations in GetHashCode implementations by @DustinCampbell in dotnet/msbuild#13475 * Add PATs rotation to agentic workflow(s) by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13496 * Fix ASP.NET WebSite projects to copy netstandard.dll facade when required by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13058 * Migrate AspNetCompiler to TaskEnvironment API by @OvesN in dotnet/msbuild#13424 * Add review workflow by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13503 * Strengthen reviewer skill: add step-back analysis dimensions by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13504 * Add 'Request Speedometer Perf Run' to VS experimental insertion build policies by @Copilot in dotnet/msbuild#13505 * Remove duplicate @ prefix from issueAuthor in GitOps by @akoeplinger in dotnet/msbuild#13492 * Improve review aw by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13510 * Migrates unit tests to use RoslynCodeTaskFactory to enable running tests under .NET Core by @jankratochvilcz in dotnet/msbuild#13500 * Fix cross-AppDomain TaskItem modifier cache regression by @DustinCampbell in dotnet/msbuild#13493 * Discourage review agent from approving PRs by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13512 * Stop trying to deploy ValueTuple by @rainersigwald in dotnet/msbuild#13507 * Ad-hoc re-sign bootstrap dotnet on macOS to prevent SIGKILL by @jankratochvilcz in dotnet/msbuild#13513 * RoslynCodeTaskFactory: Log MSB3753 when task class does not implement ITask by @jankratochvilcz in dotnet/msbuild#13517 * Update gh-aw (upon mcp policy changes) by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13526 * Eliminate XmlChildNodes allocations in GetXmlNodeInnerContents by @nareshjo in dotnet/msbuild#13509 * Fix telemetry allocation regression: per-engine collector ownership by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13516 * Migrate to xunit.v3 by @Youssef1313 in dotnet/msbuild#13482 * Fix stray brace in HandleBuildCancel trace string causing MSB1025 by @Copilot in dotnet/msbuild#13535 * Bumping to 10.0.4 runtime packages by @MichalPavlik in dotnet/msbuild#13533 * Remove early return in GetCanonicalForm, always call System.IO.Path by @OvesN in dotnet/msbuild#13532 * Do not overwrite GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItemsDependsOn, just add new… by @snechaev in dotnet/msbuild#13474 * Migrate GetReferenceAssemblyPaths task to TaskEnvironment API by @OvesN in dotnet/msbuild#13495 * Stabilize ToolTaskThatTimeoutAndRetry test by @rainersigwald in dotnet/msbuild#13489 * [automated] Merge branch 'vs18.6' => 'main' by @github-actions[bot] in dotnet/msbuild#13506 * Add extra test assertions around tests by @Youssef1313 in dotnet/msbuild#13536 * Add static eval for repo skills/agents via skill-validator by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13537 * Migrate SGen task to Task environment API by @OvesN in dotnet/msbuild#13457 * Fix TerminalLogger assert failure for metaproj files and cached project eval ID by @OvesN in dotnet/msbuild#13480 * Filter out approving review from pr-reviewer agent by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13553 * Use a unique task name per invocation to tabilize RoslynCodeTaskFactory_ReuseCompilation test by @huulinhnguyen-dev in dotnet/msbuild#13551 * Brief doc on feedback/logging/data systems by @rainersigwald in dotnet/msbuild#13554 * Localized file check-in by OneLocBuild Task: Build definition ID 9434: Build ID 13881982 by @dotnet-bot in dotnet/msbuild#13437 * Stage 3: Forward BuildProjectFile* callbacks from OOP TaskHost to worker node by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13350 * Enable TaskHost Callbacks by default by @JanProvaznik in dotnet/msbuild#13579 * Remove unactionable info from reviewer agent by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13578 * Enlighten RequiresFramework35SP1Assembly task for multithreaded mode by @jankratochvilcz in dotnet/msbuild#13575 * Make SdkResolver-provided environment variables take precedence over ambient environment by @Copilot in dotnet/msbuild#12655 * Add dotnet/skills marketplace and enable plugins by @Evangelink in dotnet/msbuild#13582 * The skills/agents check filters-in only touched files by @JanKrivanek in dotnet/msbuild#13586 * Fix skill-validation workflow failing when agents directory is deleted by @JeremyKuhne in dotnet/msbuild#13592 ... (truncated) Commits viewable in [compare view](dotnet/msbuild@v18.6.3...v18.7.1). </details> Signed-off-by: dependabot[bot] <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: dependabot[bot] <49699333+dependabot[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
This was referenced Jun 29, 2026
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Context
Thanks @JanProvaznik for pointing that the expert-reviewer could approve the PR.
Notes
To completely prevent the reviewing workflow from approving we'd need to remove the
submit-pull-request-reviewfromsafe-outputs:msbuild/.github/workflows/shared/review-shared.md
Line 24 in 9b5c9da
(untill github/gh-aw#25439 is fixed and deployed)
But even better - we should tune the repo ruleset for PR approvals to either accept it only from CODEOWNERS (though we'd nee to maintain that), or to exclude 'github-actions'