[gdal-dev] Integrating AI assisted code review for PR in OSGeo/GDAL?

[Andrew C Aitchison]

On Thu, 2 Apr 2026, Even Rouault via gdal-dev wrote:

> I think it could be worth to have the *possibility* of requiring an AI 
> assisted review for pull requests, directly available from our canonical 
> repo. I've been occasionaly experimenting Gemini Code Assist and Copilot in 
> my personal fork. Copilot had repeated failures a few weeks ago but seems to 
> have been fixed recently, so I've more experience with /gemini review. I find 
> it useful and it has spotted real issues, some of them would have probably 
> went unnoticed during classic human review, and with an acceptable rate of 
> false positives or debatable remarks.
>
> So my proposal would be to have the tool(s)  enabled in OSGeo/GDAL repo, *on 
> demand* (not sure if that's possible for Copilot. Is that a setting? Although 
> I'm not trusting github enough to be sure if we want to increase our use of 
> it.  Gemini review is definitely on demand and an external github app we can 
> disable in one click) for developers or reviewers that want to trigger them. 
> I don't think having them to run systematically is a good idea, because some 
> PRs are too trivial to get any benefit from them, and having them enabled 
> systematically lead to noise as PR comments and notifications.
>
> I definitely don't think those tools should replace human review. AI tools 
> are instructed to flatter your ego and will never say your PR is a bad idea, 
> which a human reviewer will occasionally say. Or they lack the global 
> picture, etc. I see them as additional tools on top of our CI instrumentation 
> and human review.

This all sounds sensible and well though through to me.

It was pointed out to me yesterday that
   https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/for-individuals/termsofuse
warns, under
   IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES & WARNINGS
that:
   Copilot is for entertainment purposes only. It can make mistakes, and it
   may not work as intended. Don’t rely on Copilot for important advice.
   Use Copilot at your own risk.

-- 
Andrew C. Aitchison                      Kendal, UK
                    andrew at aitchison.me.uk