ADO Pilot reviews automatically when a PR is created or updated. You can also trigger a review on demand — without pushing a new commit — using the **Run AI Review** entry in the pull request action menu or the **Run a review** form in the Settings Hub. ## The trigger settings | Field | Type | Default | Scope | Status | | ----------------------- | ------- | ------- | -------------------- | ------------------------ | | `reviewOnPush` | boolean | `true` | Org / project / repo | Active | | `allowManualInvocation` | boolean | `true` | Org only | Stored, not yet enforced | `reviewOnPush` uses override semantics — the most-specific scope wins. `allowManualInvocation` is stored with your configuration but the review engine does not yet read it; changing it has no effect on whether manual triggers are accepted. See [Org, project, and repo settings hierarchy](settings-hierarchy.md). {% callout type="info" title="Manual review pause" %} The "Manual reviews are paused" outcome shown in the PR action menu and Settings Hub is controlled by an operator-level kill switch (`MANUAL_TRIGGER_ENABLED`), not by the `allowManualInvocation` setting. Customers cannot configure this behaviour in v1. {% /callout %} ## Automatic reviews ADO Pilot always starts a review when a pull request is **created** with a target branch matching your branch filter. `reviewOnPush` controls only whether a new review also runs when a commit is **pushed** to an existing open PR. When `reviewOnPush` is `true`, ADO Pilot starts a review whenever: 1. A pull request is **created** with a target branch matching your branch filter, or 2. A new commit is **pushed** to the source branch of an open PR. A typical timeline: ```text 13:00 Create PR from feature/login into main 13:01 ADO Pilot posts the AI review status check and inline comments 13:15 Push a new commit to feature/login 13:16 ADO Pilot re-reviews; the status check resets to pending, then resolves ``` To stop reviews on push, set `reviewOnPush: false` at the scope you want to affect. ADO Pilot will still review when the PR is first created. ## Manual reviews You can trigger an on-demand review in two ways without pushing a new commit: ### From the PR action menu The **Run AI Review** entry appears in the pull request action menu — the three-dot overflow (⋮) that also contains items like **Mark as draft** and **Abandon**. Selecting it opens a confirm dialog: > Run an AI review of pull request **#123** now? Click **Run review** to start. Click **Cancel** to dismiss with no charge. The dialog then shows one of these results: - **Review started** — the review is running. Inline comments and the status check post in a few minutes. - **Review already in progress** — clicking again within the same dialog session collapses the duplicate server-side, so you are not charged again. A deliberate re-run (a fresh dialog, or a new push) starts a new review and consumes review credits. - **Too many review requests** — you're triggering reviews too quickly for this pull request. Wait a moment and try again. - **Review credits exhausted** — your organization has used its allowance for the current period. A link to **adopilot.dev** appears so a billing owner can update the plan. - **Couldn't authorize the review** — ADO Pilot could not confirm access to this PR. Use **Try again** after re-verifying access. - **Manual reviews are paused** — the operator-level manual-trigger kill switch is active. Automatic reviews still run on push. - **Finish setting up ADO Pilot** — this organization hasn't completed onboarding yet. A link takes you to sign up. - **Your plan doesn't include this** — on-demand reviews need a higher plan for this organization. - **This organization is inactive** — AI reviews are turned off; check your subscription status to reactivate them. - **Something went wrong** — transient error. Use **Try again**. {% figure src="/images/configuring-run-review-pr-action-menu.png" alt="The PR three-dot action overflow menu open showing 'Run AI Review' among the standard ADO actions." caption="The Run AI Review entry in the pull request action menu (three-dot overflow)." /%} ### From the Settings Hub When ADO Pilot is active for your organization, the **Settings Hub** (Organization settings → ADO Pilot) includes a **Run a review** form. Paste any open pull request URL and click **Run AI review now**. Once a review is triggered, outcome messages are identical to those in the PR action menu dialog. Because this form also has to resolve the pasted URL to a specific organization, repository, and PR, it can additionally show a URL-validation error, such as "That doesn't look like a pull request URL" or "Couldn't find that repository." This form is useful for administrators who want to trigger a review on any PR in the organization without navigating to the PR itself. {% figure src="/images/configuring-run-review-settings-hub.png" alt="The ADO Pilot Settings Hub showing the Active status banner, connection health panel, and Run a review form with a PR URL input." caption="The Settings Hub Run a review form, accessible via Organization settings → ADO Pilot." /%} ## Common configurations **Default — automatic on every push.** Recommended for most teams. ```yaml reviewOnPush: true ``` **Disabled on push.** Stops automatic reviews on every commit push; ADO Pilot still reviews when the PR is first created. Manual triggering (via the PR action menu or Settings Hub) is also still available while `reviewOnPush: false`. ```yaml reviewOnPush: false ``` **Disabled.** Equivalent to setting `enabled: false` on the repository. ```yaml enabled: false ``` ## How auto-review interacts with other settings | Condition | Auto-review | | ------------------------------------ | ----------- | | Repository `enabled: false` | Skipped | | Branch outside `targetBranchFilters` | Skipped | | `reviewOnPush: false` (push only) | Skipped | | Review-credit (RC) quota exhausted | Fails | ## Cost Every review consumes RCs regardless of what triggered it — automatic reviews and manual on-demand reviews spend credits at the same rate. For pricing details, see [review credits](../billing/review-credits-explained.md). ## When to turn auto-review off Most teams should leave `reviewOnPush: true` and use [branch filters](branch-filters.md) to narrow the set of PRs that get reviewed. Setting `reviewOnPush: false` stops push-triggered reviews for the affected scope, but PR-creation reviews still run and manual on-demand triggers via the PR action menu and Settings Hub remain available. Turning off auto-review is most useful during onboarding or while evaluating the tool on a subset of repositories. For everyday operation, narrowing branch filters is a finer-grained tool than disabling auto-review.