Ignore the last para about links -- it is the copy/paste of what I had sent to the new AI initiative ASF group/list where some of related discussions were happening.
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 at 13:18, Kaxil Naik <[email protected]> wrote: > The Copilot reviews as I had recently found out were paid for by our > Astronomer's GitHub enterprise (for me and other folks at Astronomer from > our quota). > > And with them moving to Usage-based model (which was bound to happen), it > will get expensive. > > Although, I think it is still valuable for mass-reviewing on the server > side since this happens on CI and is a complete opt-in by the reviewer and > there are no doubts. > > As I showed in the last dev call, I have my hand crafted review skill that > I use for detailed reviews from my laptop and that has been vetted by me > before posting. So I am fully responsible for all the good and bad (false > positive or hallucinations) things it catches since I approve it. And have > been using this skill for a good quarter or half a year (time flies). > > And that is why I do not feel it is either / OR -- meaning it was never > Copilot review vs local review for me since I used both based on the > purpose. For reviewing 200 PRs as last time, I used Copilot since a review > is helpful than no review, and PR getting marked stale and I have seen > folks self-assign copilot review on their PRs -- for those who have access > to it. I have done the same to have multiple layers (even though my local > review skill already does multi-modal reviews). > > And my philosophy around Review and a lot of workflow skills have been: > What I look for in a PR isn't necessarily what someone else would look for. > Or what is important to me, might be nit for someone. So while as a project > we should have standards which go in AGENTS.md/Claude.md and or a > high-level review skill that is checked-in the project, the "what I look > for" will remain on my machine and is geared towards my preference, testing > etc. Time and again I'd use reviews from Ash and others to tune it -- like > I would do even without AI. As an example Ash would have caught something > in my PR or someone else's PR that I wouldn't have realized, and like a > human I'd learn for next time, so are my skills. But that is sort of my new > workflow adapting. > > re: fully automated Copilot reviews may discourage contributors who expect > human interaction > > At least to me, there is no difference between that and a review from a > human which completely sounds AI/robotic anyway since a human can just run > a skill and post the response as well --- from a purely PR author reception > point of view. It is just coming from a different account, and the latter > feels even worse as it is coming from a human account. But at the end of > the day, that is still a personal preference. A review (from copilot, from > human that sounds like AI, a pure human review) that catches a bug is still > better than no review, PR going stale and being closed. > > Long story short: I do not think they are mutually exclusive -- or never > were mutually exclusive :) > > ------ > > - https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/63775#discussion_r3025383633 -- > Copilot caught a Databricks provider importing airflow.utils.timezone > directly (which relies on Airflow's runtime deprecation redirect and > silences typing) and suggested switching to > airflow.providers.common.compat.sdk. That is our documented Airflow 2 / > Airflow 3 cross-version pattern for providers. Copilot only knows this > because we wrote it down. > - https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/62343#discussion_r3025380683 -- > same cross-version import pattern, different provider. Author accepted the > suggestion. > - https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/64568#discussion_r3025333917 -- > Copilot flagged a fix for failure-callback context["exception"] handling > and asked for a regression test specifically against the > InProcessTestSupervisor / dag.test() path. That is the correct execution > path for that change, not a generic "please add a test" remark. > - > https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/64576#pullrequestreview-4047787083 -- > Copilot reviewed a fix I authored for xcom_pull() ignoring default when > map_indexes was not set, and raised a header-precedence > question I had not thought about. > - > https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/61878#pullrequestreview-3851732779 -- > Dennis surfaced this one on the dev list as a real review he found useful > on a provider PR. He's at a > different company, so worth flagging as an independent signal. > > On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 at 11:02, Jarek Potiuk <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Kaxil and team, >> >> I’d like to discuss our strategy for "copilot reviews" versus SKILL based >> assisted triage and maintainer review experiences. >> >> My recent experiments with skill-based auto-triage show a downward trend >> in >> stale pull requests by filtering out "drive-by" contributions, allowing >> maintainers to focus on high-impact work (more stats and trends soon). >> Unlike 3rd-party tools, this approach is agent-agnostic, easily fine-tuned >> via English prompts, and potentially reusable across other ASF projects. >> >> Regarding transparency, I’ve proposed specific attribution formats [1] to >> distinguish between purely automated comments and those reviewed by >> humans. >> This aligns with ongoing [email protected] conversations [2] about >> using "Assisted By" instead of "Generated-by" to maintain accountability >> and contributor motivation. >> >> I have concerns that fully automated Copilot reviews may discourage >> contributors who expect human interaction. My experimental >> /maintainer-review skill [3] allows maintainers to drive the process by >> reviewing AI-generated comments before posting. This reduces "token >> ping-pong," integrates with the CODEOWNERS discussion [4], and ensures we >> only spend tokens on relevant, triaged PRs. And keep maintainers >> ultimately >> responsible for comments they accept to send. >> >> With Copilot moving to usage-based billing on June 1 [5], using personal >> or >> open-source credits via the skill-based approach introduces some change >> (but I am still unclear what it means to the billing - who pays for the >> tokens). >> >> Conversely, for skill-based processes, it's entirely in the hands (and >> pocket) of those who run the skill locally. We are also working with ASF >> and Alpha-Omega to secure long-term resources for maintainers for that. >> >> I would love to hear your thoughts about it - especially Kaxil's >> experiences regarding the Copilot review experiment - my observations >> might >> be incomplete and biased :). >> >> J. >> >> [1] https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/65965 - comment attribution >> [2] https://lists.apache.org/thread/qbdkky8ls6zybyy9o3pvqnpf68r089qp - >> legal discussion thread on attributions >> [3] https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/65981 - /maintainer-review >> skill >> [4] https://lists.apache.org/thread/5ssp4ksyohdzclxqvj7ngz0hz5wy9j68 - >> CODEOWNERS discussion >> [5] >> >> https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/github-copilot-is-moving-to-usage-based-billing/ >> - change in billing for Copilot >> >> Best, >> Jarek Potiuk >> >
