Before requesting review from other humans,
**always have Copilot review your pull request first**---even if Copilot created the PR itself.
AI review provides fast,
thorough feedback that helps catch issues before involving human reviewers,
saving everyone time and improving code quality.

**Why review with Copilot first:**

- **AI has more bandwidth**: Copilot can review code immediately without competing priorities
- **Catch common issues early**: Copilot excels at identifying bugs, logic errors, security vulnerabilities, and style inconsistencies
- **Improve human review quality**: When humans review cleaner code, they can focus on higher-level concerns like design and architecture rather than basic issues
- **Learn from feedback**: Even experienced developers benefit from Copilot's perspective on best practices and potential improvements
- **Growing capabilities**: AI review capabilities continue to improve over time, making this investment increasingly valuable

**Copilot review workflow:**

1. **Assign Copilot as a reviewer**:
   On your pull request page,
   assign Copilot to review the PR the same way you would assign any other reviewer.
   Click "Reviewers" in the right sidebar and select Copilot from the list.

2. **Review Copilot's comments**:
   Once Copilot completes its review,
   carefully examine each comment.
   For each comment, decide whether you agree with the suggestion:

   - **If the comment is correct**: Address it by making code changes yourself or ask Copilot to apply the fix using GitHub's suggestion features
   - **If the comment is incorrect or not applicable**: Dismiss the comment with an explanation for why it doesn't apply
   - **If you're uncertain**: Seek a second opinion from a human reviewer or do additional research

3. **Request another Copilot review**:
   After addressing or dismissing all comments,
   request another review from Copilot.
   This creates an iterative improvement process.

4. **Iterate until satisfied**:
   Repeat the review-and-address cycle until Copilot stops providing valuable suggestions.
   This typically takes 1-3 iterations depending on the complexity of the changes.

5. **Request human review**:
   Only after you've addressed Copilot's feedback should you request review from human team members.
   At this point,
   the code should be in better shape,
   allowing human reviewers to focus on higher-level concerns.

**Important considerations:**

- **Copilot isn't perfect**: AI review can produce false positives or miss important issues. Always apply your own judgment when evaluating Copilot's suggestions.
- **Don't blindly accept all suggestions**: Some of Copilot's recommendations may not fit your specific context or requirements. It's perfectly appropriate to dismiss comments that don't apply.
- **Human review remains essential**: Copilot review supplements but does not replace human code review. Humans bring domain knowledge, understanding of business requirements, and judgment about trade-offs that AI cannot replicate.
- **Document dismissals**: When dismissing Copilot comments, briefly explain why. This helps human reviewers understand your reasoning and can serve as documentation for future reference.

**For pull request authors:**

Even if you're highly experienced,
treating Copilot review as a required pre-review step helps maintain code quality
and makes the best use of everyone's time.
The few minutes spent on Copilot review often save hours of back-and-forth with human reviewers.

**For human reviewers:**

When you receive a PR for review,
check whether the author has completed the Copilot review process.
If Copilot hasn't reviewed the PR yet,
consider asking the author to complete that step first before you invest time in review.
This ensures you're reviewing code that has already been through initial automated quality checks.