Continue — AI Code Review Agents for CI/CD

What it is

Continue is an open-source AI code assistant that runs code review agents as automated checks on pull requests. You define review rules in Markdown, and Continue's agents analyze diffs, flag issues, and produce pass/fail results with inline annotations. It integrates with VS Code and JetBrains IDEs for local development and with CI/CD pipelines for automated PR review.

Continue is for engineering teams who want AI-assisted code review that enforces project-specific standards automatically on every pull request.

The project is actively maintained with regular releases and a growing user community. Documentation covers common use cases, and the open-source nature means you can inspect the source code, contribute fixes, and adapt the tool to your specific requirements.

How it saves time or tokens

Manual code review is a bottleneck. Reviewers miss inconsistencies, and review turnaround slows feature delivery. Continue automates the repetitive parts: style checks, security patterns, documentation requirements, and API usage rules. Human reviewers focus on architecture and business logic while Continue handles the checklist items.

How to use

1. Install the Continue extension for VS Code or JetBrains.
2. Define review rules in Markdown files within your repository.
3. Configure Continue as a CI check to run on every pull request.

Example

# Security Check: No Hardcoded Secrets

Check that no API keys, passwords, or tokens appear
in the diff as string literals.

Fail if any match: /['"](?:sk-|pk_|password|secret)[^'"]{8,}['"]/

# Install Continue CLI
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/continuedev/continue/main/extensions/cli/scripts/install.sh | bash

# Run review on current branch
continue review --rules .continue/rules/

Related on TokRepo

• AI Tools for Coding -- Code review and developer tools
• AI Tools for Security -- Security scanning and audit tools

Common pitfalls

• Overly broad review rules generate false positives that train developers to ignore the output. Start with narrow, high-confidence rules and expand gradually.
• Continue's agents consume tokens for each review. Large PRs with hundreds of changed files can be expensive. Set file count and diff size limits in your CI configuration.
• Review rules must be specific to your codebase. Generic rules like 'check for bugs' produce vague feedback. Write rules that reference your project's naming conventions, error handling patterns, and API contracts.

Before adopting this tool, evaluate whether it fits your team's existing workflow. Read the official documentation thoroughly, and start with a small proof-of-concept rather than a full migration. Community forums, GitHub issues, and Stack Overflow are valuable resources when you encounter edge cases not covered in the documentation.