Choose a review scope

EV can review the current state of your work or an exact piece of history. Choose the scope that matches the question you want the review to answer.

Run ev review without a scope option to choose interactively. Add --desktop to inspect and curate the result in Desktop, or --stream --auto for an agent-friendly automated run.

Compare your work with its base branch

This is the usual choice for reviewing work before it is merged:

git fetch origin --quiet
ev review -b origin/main --desktop

-b origin/main finds the merge base between the current work and origin/main, then reviews the current workspace from that point. This captures the branch as a whole, including committed and local changes, without treating newer upstream commits as part of your work.

Replace origin/main with the remote and base branch your repository uses. Prefer a freshly fetched remote ref over a possibly stale local branch.

Compare your work with an exact ref

Use --from when the ref itself—not its merge base—should be the starting point:

ev review --from origin/release --desktop

This compares the current workspace, including committed and local changes, directly with origin/release.

Review only uncommitted changes

Use working-copy mode for a focused pass over changes since HEAD:

ev review --working-copy --desktop

This deliberately excludes earlier commits on the branch.

Review a commit or committed range

Review one commit against its parent:

ev review --commit 4f31c2a --desktop

Or review an exact committed range:

ev review --from HEAD~5 --to HEAD --desktop

An exact range does not include local, uncommitted changes.

Git and jj revision syntax are both supported. For example, a jj repository can use ev review --commit @~3.

Supply a diff

EV can read a unified diff produced by another tool:

git diff HEAD~5..HEAD -- '*.ts' | ev review --stdin --stream --auto

Prefer EV’s branch, ref, commit, or range options when possible. They let EV derive the diff and retain the intended VCS scope. Use --stdin when another system already owns diff generation or when its filtering cannot be expressed with EV’s scope options.

With a supplied diff, you are responsible for generating the correct content. An empty input fails instead of creating an empty review.

Narrow the review

Scope options choose the underlying change. These options then control how EV reviews it:

Option	Purpose
--include "src/**"	Review only matching paths
--exclude "**/*.generated.ts"	Skip matching paths
--skill security-audit	Run a specific review skill
--auto	Select skills from the changed files
--instructions "Focus on auth"	Add guidance for the reviewer

For example:

ev review -b origin/main --stream --auto --exclude '**/*.generated.ts'