gh-review.vim

A Vim 9.0+ plugin for reviewing GitHub pull requests entirely within Vim.

Side-by-side diffs, review threads, code suggestions, and review submission — all driven by the gh CLI.

Also available for Neovim: gh-review.nvim.

Goal

This plugin — which is designed for the use case where you’ve already identified a specific PR or PR branch you’re ready to review — has just one single goal:

✅ provide the simplest means possible for performing a GitHub PR review within Vim

Anything beyond that is a non-goal — for example:

❌ GitHub Issues, Notifications, Discussions, or Actions/Workflows
❌ Managing labels, assignees, or requested reviewers
❌ Browsing or searching lists of PRs
❌ Merging or closing PRs

You are expected to perform those tasks using other tooling (for example, gh-dash).

Requirements

• Vim 9.0 or later
• gh CLI, authenticated

Installation

With Vim’s built-in package manager:

mkdir -p ~/.vim/pack/plugins/start
cd ~/.vim/pack/plugins/start
git clone https://github.com/gh-tui-tools/gh-review.vim.git

With vim-plug:

Plug 'gh-tui-tools/gh-review.vim'

Workflows

The plugin has two main workflows: A “checkout” workflow, and a “no-checkout” workflow.

Checkout workflow

Typically used by a project maintainer reviewing a contributor’s PR. The branch is checked out locally so the reviewer can make edits, commit fixes, and push directly.

:GHReview 123          " PR number (checks out the branch)
:GHReview              " auto-detect from current branch

• The right/head diff buffer is editable — :w writes to the working tree.
• External file changes are detected and the plugin prompts to reload.
• git push pushes changes back to the PR branch (works for fork PRs too).

No-checkout workflow

Typically used by a non-maintainer reviewer who only needs to read the diff and leave comments.

:GHReview https://github.com/owner/repo/pull/123

When the URL refers to a different repo than the current working directory, no checkout is attempted. The right/head diff buffer is read-only, but comments, suggestions, and review submission all work normally.

Quick start

:GHReview 123           Open PR #123
<CR>                    Open a file’s side-by-side diff
]t / [t                 Jump between review threads
gt                      View a thread
K                       Preview a thread (floating popup)
gc                      Add a comment
gF                      Jump to the file (checkout only)
g?                      Show keymap help
:GHReviewSubmit         Submit a review
:GHReviewClose          Close all review buffers

Commands

Command	Description
:GHReview	Open a PR (auto-detect, by number, or by URL)
:GHReviewFiles	Toggle the changed files list
:GHReviewStart	Start a pending review (optional — :GHReviewSubmit works without it)
:GHReviewSubmit	Submit a review (Comment / Approve / Request changes)
:GHReviewDiscard	Discard the pending review and all its pending comments
:GHReviewClose	Close all review buffers and reset state

Diff mappings

Key	Action
gt	Open the review thread at the cursor line
gc	Create a new comment (visual mode: multi-line)
gs	Create a suggestion (right buffer only, visual: range)
]t	Jump to the next review thread
[t	Jump to the previous review thread
K	Preview the thread at cursor (floating popup)
gf	Toggle the files list
gF	Go to file at cursor line (checkout only)
q	Close the diff view
g?	Show keymap help

Thread mappings

Key	Action
Ctrl-S	Submit the reply
Ctrl-R	Toggle resolved/unresolved
q	Close the thread buffer
Ctrl-Q	Close the thread buffer (works in insert mode)
g?	Show keymap help
Ctrl-X Ctrl-O	Complete @-mention from thread participants

Signs and virtual text

Sign	Meaning
CT	Comment thread (blue)
CR	Resolved thread (green)
CP	Pending review comment (yellow)

Each sign is accompanied by virtual text at end-of-line showing the first comment’s author and a truncated body — giving at-a-glance context without opening the thread.

Comment reactions are displayed as emoji with counts after each comment body in the thread buffer and floating preview.

Prompts

All prompts (submit review, discard review, checkout, file reload) use popup_menu() and confirm() for a modern UI — no raw inputlist() or input().

Statusline

&statusline ..= '%{gh_review#Statusline()}'

Returns "" when no review is active, or a summary like PR #42 · reviewing · 4 threads.

Comparison with other plugins

gh-review.vim shares its design with gh-review.nvim, its Neovim counterpart. There does not appear to be any other existing Vim plugin for performing GitHub PR reviews — but several Neovim plugins provide PR review features.

Feature	gh-review.vim	gh-review.nvim	ghlite.nvim	gh.nvim	octo.nvim
Platform	Vim 9.0+	Neovim 0.10+	Neovim 0.10+	Neovim	Neovim 0.10+
PR review: side-by-side diff	Yes	Yes	Via diffview.nvim	Yes	Yes
PR review: comments/threads	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PR review: code suggestions	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
PR review: submit review	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PR review: resolve threads	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
PR review: thread signs	Yes (+ virtual text)	Yes (+ virtual text)	As diagnostics	No	No
Editable diff buffers	Yes	Yes	No	Yes (via checkout)	No
External change detection	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Fork PR push tracking	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
PR listing/browsing	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	Yes	Yes	Yes
Merge PRs	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	Yes	No	Yes
Labels/assignees/reviewers	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	No	No	Yes
GitHub Issues	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	No	Yes	Yes
Notifications	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	No	Yes	Yes
Discussions	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	No	No	Yes
Actions/Workflows	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	No	No	Yes
Reactions	No (non-goal)	No (non-goal)	No	No	Yes
Dependencies	gh CLI	gh CLI	gh CLI	gh CLI, litee.nvim	gh CLI, plenary.nvim, picker

Documentation

See :help gh-review for full documentation.

See DESIGN.md for architecture and implementation details.