Top level PR comment thread

[nickofthyme]

I wish there was a way to create a thread on a top-level pull request review comments.

Often times I find I want to add a general comment that is not related to any specific line of code. For example, like elastic/elastic-charts#1475 (review). I have left comments on specific lines of code to be addressed but then I have a general comment on top of those.

The issue is, if this top-level comment is actionable such that I am requesting the author to change some code in a general sense or it might just be a general question that I would like a response to, there is not a great way to respond to this comment.

Currently, the best approach is something like elastic/elastic-charts#1475 (comment), where we use so called Quote reply via block-quotes (i.e.>) to address each part of the top-level comment in a new top-level comment.

The issue with this is that it creates a disconnect between the original comment and the response, as well as creating noise on the pr with several top-level comments. This issue is not as important with issues (non-prs) because the top-level is often a back and forth response with a single idea where there is not often tangential ideas/threads active at the same time, though could be useful in some cases.

An ideal solution would be to enable a thread for top-level pr review comments. Maybe by default it is as it is currently, but with an option to create a thread off of the comment.

[christothes]

Enabling threading on top level comments by default would be the biggest single improvement GitHub could make to Issue interaction.

[usernamenumber]

Came looking for someone else saying this, and I'm sad to see the lack of traction it's gotten. This is absolutely my single biggest issue with using GitHub.

I've taken to replying to top-level comments on PRs by @ing the person on slack, and attaching my own "top-level" comments to the first line of code. The alternative is to end up filling the PR with unresolvable top-level messages that could represent any number of discussions all mixed in with one another. It's a huge mess, and the excellent way comment threads in the actual code are handled shows that it doesn't need to be like that.

[geoguide]

Please add this feature, it's very challenging when people leave questions or thoughts that need a response in top level comments.

[hivokas]

This is wonderful idea. Would be happy to see it!

[hey-robin]

It would be very useful to have discussion threads on top level comments just like we have on file diffs.

[p0fi]

I was working with GitLab very long in my previous position. Now moved to GitHub and im somehow shocked that this does not exist. Replying to a comment in a thread style is basically needed everywhere not just in top level RP comments. Its needed in issue comments as well.

Please @github-staff have a look! 👀

[mochadwi]

awesome, they're working really hard on it! github/roadmap#552

[SMR39]

this also applies to issues or just PRs ?

[bangank36]

2022 is about to end now, not sure if the feature can be shipped soon?

[richard-rance]

It looks like this was bumped to Q2 2023.

[Linths]

It seems it's been moved to "Future" now, so probably low priority. Too bad though, this feature would be great!

[hyperTwitch]

FYI that roadmap item is now closed as not planned. "Replying to PR comments is currently in an exploratory phase, so we have removed it from this roadmap while we develop more definition and certainty on our scope and timelines."

[ColbyODonnell]

Azure DevOps has this feature. Microsoft, please port it to GitHub.

[jdechicchis]

Please add this feature. It really helps to make the PR comment view cleaner. It would also be nice for the "Require conversation resolution before merging" to (optionally) apply to top-level comments

[eschapira-cs]

Makes a lot of sense. Often need to provide more general comments, or alternatives that could be considered.

[dpirkle-naut]

Please add this "feature" (seems more like a bug fix to me though).

[abrahamhunt]

So happy to see this on the road map. In addition to the problematic ability to follow the conversations of top level comments the tone of Quoting option has always felt weirdly aggressive to me which is not something I ever want to convey. 🙏 we get this as soon as we possibly can.

[bautrey37]

I see that this issue was moved from Q2 2023 to the Future. What is the reasoning for this?

[rakusvn-ntdat]

Please help to support this feature.

In my current project, many people can put comments on the PR. It is too difficult to track all the comments and reply to them.

[rakusvn-vmvuong]

This feature available in gitlab, it so great, so please support add this feature to github.

[phoenixeliot]

We sometimes work around this by using file comments; slightly better than using line comments since it doesn't mislead the reader into thinking it's about a specific line of code.

That workaround is super awkward though and I wish we didn't have to use it.

[pierresisson]

This will be an incredible feature, it exists in the discussions but we really need it in the pull requests!

thanks github team :)

[castagninojose]

This is such a PITA for millons of developers on a daily basis. Why on earth is this not a thing yet?
Code review in github is a complete PAIN. Please, for the love of god, million of developers around the world NEED THIS.

[emplumb]

coming from gitlab (which I'm used to having issues) I'm shocked it's had this feature for years whereas github still does not

[hsorsky]

+1 on this feature request!

there are often more high level comments I want to make on PRs that dont relate to any specific piece of code. file level comments helps, but this would have been preferable

[mpl1018]

Hi everyone! We've created a free GitHub App + Action that enables threads on PR issue comments and can also be fully integrated with Slack. You can test it out in this PR.
More info on how to use it here.

Demo.mp4

@nickofthyme @christothes @usernamenumber @geoguide @hivokas @robnit @p0fi @mochadwi @SMR39 @bangank36 @Linths @richard-rance @ColbyODonnell @jdechicchis @eschapira-cs @dpirkle-naut @abrahamhunt @bautrey37 @rakusvn-ntdat @rakusvn-vmvuong @phoenixeliot @pierresisson @castagninojose @emplumb @hsorsky

[0xdevalias]

I did a bit of an exploration into this feature and how it works in the comment thread on another discussion:

• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/5633#discussioncomment-12088921

The tl;dr seems to be that it likely requires a paid subscription for the app to use it.

But I also hacked together a basic Proof of Concept GitHub Action (largely untested) that should be able to achieve similar in the same basic way, but for free (though I still don't like how it pollutes PR's with unrelated files just as a placeholder to leave file-based comments):

Based on the description of how this feature works, at a high level, it seems like the Pullpo app will just notice when someone has made a comment on the main PR, convert that to a new file comment on the 一pullpo一/pr_<PR_NUMBER>_threads.txt placeholder file (creating the comment as the user if it has permission to; and falling back to posting as the app bot if it doesn't have permissions to post as that user), and then deletes the old top-level comment.

Based on that functionality.. you could probably implement something similar purely within a GitHub action alone if you really wanted to... though personally, I don't really like the idea of littering my PR's with an unrelated file just to serve as a placeholder for where to create these new comment threads on.

I haven't deeply reviewed/tested the following GitHub Action, but here's a quick proof-of-concept I knocked up for this using ChatGPT o3-mini-high. It can't post the new comment as the user themselves.. but aside from that I think it pretty much implements the same basic workflow/etc:

• Event: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/writing-workflows/choosing-when-your-workflow-runs/events-that-trigger-workflows#issue_comment
• Payload: https://docs.github.com/en/webhooks/webhook-events-and-payloads#issue_comment
• Creating a comment: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/pulls/comments#create-a-review-comment-for-a-pull-request

name: Convert PR Top-Level Comment to File Comment

on:
  issue_comment:
    types: [created]

env:
  COMMITTER_NAME: "github-actions"
  COMMITTER_EMAIL: "[email protected]"

jobs:
  convert-comment:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: ${{ github.event.issue.pull_request != null }}
    env:
      PLACEHOLDER_FILE: "thread-comments/pr_${{ github.event.issue.number }}_threads.txt"
    steps:
      - name: Get PR details
        id: pr_details
        uses: actions/github-script@v6
        with:
          script: |
            const pull_number = context.payload.issue.number;
            const { data: pr } = await github.rest.pulls.get({
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              pull_number: pull_number
            });
            core.setOutput("head_ref", pr.head.ref);
            core.setOutput("head_sha", pr.head.sha);
          token: ${{ secrets.ADMIN_TOKEN }}

      - name: Checkout PR branch
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ steps.pr_details.outputs.head_ref }}
          token: ${{ secrets.ADMIN_TOKEN }}
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Ensure placeholder file exists
        id: ensure_placeholder
        run: |
          if [ -f "${PLACEHOLDER_FILE}" ]; then
            echo "Placeholder file exists. Skipping creation."
          else
            mkdir -p "$(dirname "${PLACEHOLDER_FILE}")"
            cat <<EOF > "${PLACEHOLDER_FILE}"
# Threaded Discussion Placeholder

This file is used to anchor threaded comments for this pull request.
Do not modify this file manually.

<!-- Auto-generated by GitHub Action -->
EOF
            git config user.name "${COMMITTER_NAME}"
            git config user.email "${COMMITTER_EMAIL}"
            git add "${PLACEHOLDER_FILE}"
            git commit -m "Add placeholder file for threaded discussions"
            git push origin ${{ steps.pr_details.outputs.head_ref }}
          fi

      - name: Create file-level review comment on placeholder file
        id: create_review_comment
        uses: actions/github-script@v6
        with:
          script: |
            const owner = context.repo.owner;
            const repo = context.repo.repo;
            const pull_number = context.payload.issue.number;
            const commit_id = "${{ steps.pr_details.outputs.head_sha }}";
            const placeholderPath = "${PLACEHOLDER_FILE}";
            const body = `**Threaded comment by @${context.payload.comment.user.login}:**\n\n${context.payload.comment.body}`;
            // Using subject_type "file" creates a file-level review comment.
            const { data: reviewComment } = await github.rest.pulls.createReviewComment({
              owner,
              repo,
              pull_number,
              commit_id,
              path: placeholderPath,
              body: body,
              subject_type: "file"
            });
            core.info("Created review comment with ID: " + reviewComment.id);
          token: ${{ secrets.ADMIN_TOKEN }}

      - name: Delete original top-level comment
        uses: actions/github-script@v6
        with:
          script: |
            await github.rest.issues.deleteComment({
              owner: context.repo.owner,
              repo: context.repo.repo,
              comment_id: context.payload.comment.id
            });
            core.info("Deleted original top-level comment");
          token: ${{ secrets.ADMIN_TOKEN }}

Originally posted by @0xdevalias in https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/5633#discussioncomment-12088921

---

Edit: Captured in this gist for posterity:

• https://gist.github.com/0xdevalias/7807fa0a8febe648a5e6f70a3a4ac0b6#convert-top-level-pr-comments-to-file-attached-review-comments-via-github-actions

[Pastromhaug]

Agreed with the others here that this is probably the simplest single improvement github could make to drastically improve the user experience for millions of developers. Feels like the stone ages quoting each other's previous comments and trying to piece together threads when multiple people are reviewing a PR.

[jgreffe]

Ouch github/roadmap#552 (comment)

[TheGiraffe3]

That's sad.

[hey-robin]

ugh whyyyy! It's such a basic feature

[geoguide]

I don't understand why this is so difficult to do.

[0xdevalias]

See also:

• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/5633