review-rot

PR dashboard that shows open pull requests across monitored GitHub repositories so team members can see at a glance which PRs need attention.

Live example: conforma.dev/review-rot

How it works

A Go CLI queries the GitHub GraphQL API for open PRs across configured repos, enriches each with review/CI/conversation metadata, and outputs data.json. It also aggregates recent review activity into a reviewer leaderboard. A static frontend (vanilla JS + CSS) renders the data with client-side filtering and sorting, split across a Pull Requests tab and a Leaderboard tab.

Deployment

A GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/publish.yaml) runs every 30 minutes on weekdays:

1. Builds the Go CLI
2. Runs it with the config/ directory to produce web/data.json
3. Copies the static frontend files into web/
4. Pushes web/ to the gh-pages branch

GitHub Pages is configured to serve from the gh-pages branch.

The CLI authenticates as a GitHub App using a private key passed via the GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY environment variable. In this repository the workflow reads it from the EC_AUTOMATION_KEY secret.

Configuration

The config/ directory contains two files:

• sources.yaml — GitHub App credentials, monitored orgs/repos, team members, and the reviewer-leaderboard data horizon (leaderboard.window_days, default 90). See the comments in that file for details.
• ui.yaml — Dashboard appearance: title, logo, and accent colors.

Repo Filtering

review-rot supports three ways to monitor repositories:

1. Organizations (sources.orgs) — All PRs from all authors across all repos in the org are shown
2. Watch-all repos (sources.repos with + prefix) — All PRs from all authors in that specific repo are shown (e.g., +owner/repo)
3. Team-filtered repos (sources.repos without prefix) — Only PRs from team members listed in authors are shown

Example:

sources:
  orgs:
    - name: myorg              # All authors, all repos
  repos:
    - +external/important-repo # All authors, this repo only
    - external/other-repo      # Team authors only
authors:
  - alice
  - bob

The Leaderboard tab ranks the team members listed under authors by the number of distinct PRs they reviewed or commented on across the monitored repos. It counts activity on PRs of any state (open, merged, or closed) and excludes bots and self-reviews. If authors is empty, every reviewer is ranked.

The authors list supports two formats:

• Plain usernames: olivergondza, jannfis
• Team references: @organization/teamname — expanded to member logins at startup

When using team references, the GitHub App must have Organization members: Read permission to query team membership.

leaderboard.window_days is the data horizon — the widest range the backend aggregates. The tab has an interval slider (1 to the horizon, with preset shortcuts like 7d / 30d / 90d) that narrows the window client-side, re-counting and re-ranking without a rebuild. Each row is an accordion: clicking it opens a table of the PRs behind that person's count — PR title, repo, author, and review date — sorted most recent first.

GitHub App

The CLI uses a GitHub App for authentication. GitHub's GraphQL API requires authentication even for public repositories, and a GitHub App provides its own rate limit (5,000+ requests/hour) without being tied to any individual's account.

The app needs read-only access to pull requests and repository metadata. If you use team references in the authors list (e.g., @myorg/backend-team), the app also needs Organization members: Read permission. No write permissions are required. See the GitHub docs for instructions on creating and installing a GitHub App.

Customization

To use review-rot for your own team:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a GitHub App (see above) and install it on your org
3. Edit config/sources.yaml with your App ID, Installation ID, orgs, repos, and team members
4. Edit config/ui.yaml to set your team name, logo, and brand colors
5. Add the App's private key as a repository secret and update the GITHUB_PRIVATE_KEY env var in .github/workflows/publish.yaml to reference it (this repo uses EC_AUTOMATION_KEY)
6. Configure GitHub Pages to serve from the gh-pages branch

If ui.yaml is omitted, the dashboard uses the default title ("Review Rot"), no logo, and a neutral blue-grey color scheme.