ReviewFlow is a new open-source extension that moves GitLab code review inside your editor, letting you draft inline comments, manage review sessions, and publish them to merge requests without leaving your IDE. Released under an MIT license, it targets the context-switching tax of reviewing code in a browser tab while you write it in the editor.
How to Integrate It Into Your Review Loop
Install the extension in Cursor or VS Code 1.85 or later, then connect a GitLab instance with a personal access token scoped to the API. Point ReviewFlow at a local repository, create a review session, and open a file. Select a line or range, add a draft comment with a severity level, and it appears as a gutter annotation you can reopen as an inline thread. When the review is done, publish the whole session to a merge request by pasting its URL or IID. The extension sets up its Python backend automatically on first launch, so there are no manual server steps.
Why It Matters for Creators
As more code is written by AI coding agents, the reviewing step is where a human still has to slow down and read carefully. Doing that in a browser, away from the file's full context, is friction. ReviewFlow keeps the review in the same window as the code, which matters most when you are checking machine-generated diffs line by line. It pairs naturally with tools like AI guardrails for coding agents: guardrails catch problems as code is generated, and an in-editor review catches what slips through.
Key Details
Tool: ReviewFlow, an IDE-native GitLab code review workspace.
Editors: Cursor and VS Code 1.85 or later.
Platform: GitLab merge requests for now, with a self-hosted Python backend.
License: MIT, free and open source. Requires Python 3.11 and Node.js 20.
What to Do Next
If your team reviews merge requests on GitLab and lives in Cursor or VS Code, clone the repository and try it on your next review. Because it is open source, you can also extend it or watch for GitHub and other platform support, which the project hints is coming.
