Findings, Feedback, And Gates

DiffPal separates the review result from where it is shown and whether it blocks a merge.

Finding

A finding is one concrete issue returned by the provider and validated by DiffPal. It includes a category, severity, message, impact, and changed-file location when the issue can be anchored inline.

Severity

Severity describes concrete impact, not confidence or preference. DiffPal uses severity to decide which findings are advisory and which meet the configured blocking threshold.

Summary

The summary is the top-level human-readable review output. It explains the reviewed change and the review result even when there are no actionable findings.

Inline Feedback

Inline feedback is file-level feedback on changed lines, such as GitHub review comments, GitLab discussions, or Azure PR threads. Inline feedback depends on the selected host publisher and feedback mode.

Output Artifact

An output artifact is a file written by DiffPal, such as .artifacts/diffpal/findings.json, summary.md, SARIF, or GitLab Code Quality JSON. Artifacts let CI retain the review result even when no inline comments are published.

Blocking Threshold

The blocking threshold is the minimum severity that counts as blocking. A repository might start with high so only high and critical findings block the gate.

Feedback And Merge Blocking Are Separate

Feedback visibility answers "what should users see?" Merge blocking answers "should this CI job fail?" Keeping them separate lets teams roll out DiffPal safely:

• publish summaries and artifacts without inline comments;
• show inline feedback without failing merges;
• enable a gate only after the team agrees on the blocking threshold;
• lower the threshold later without changing provider setup.

Use Integrations for host feedback modes and Configuration for the gate field.