Skip to main content

​
Tell Augment Code Review to check specific areas with guidelines

Some domain knowledge cannot be inferred from code alone. Tell Augment Code Review exactly what to check by adding custom guidelines. Guidelines are most relevant for repositories that contain multiple distinct domains and should be captured as custom review guidelines. Tell Augment Code Review to check specific areas like security vulnerabilities or inside particular directories when relevant. Augment Code Review allows you to outline these special guidelines per repository. Describe any areas of focus using a yaml file entitled code_review_guidelines.yaml inside the .augment folder at the repository root: <repo-root>/.augment/code_review_guidelines.yaml Scope guidelines to the appropriate sub-directories and focus on objective issues that can cause bugs, expose vulnerabilities, etc. and less on stylistic or subjective things. Augment Code Review uses a unique yaml file instead of relying on markdown guideline files like Agents.md, etc. because it allows the agent to cite a guideline if it was used for a particular comment, and compute per-guideline analytics.

​
Example Augment Code Review Guidelines

For a complete working example, see the Code Review Best Practices repository. 
# Guidelines exclusive to augmentcode/auggie

areas:
  databases:
    description: "Data and Database related rules"
    globs:
      - "**"
    rules:
      - id: "no_pii_in_bigquery"
        description: "Never store PII data in BigQuery tables."
        severity: "high"
      - id: "no_guid_keys"
        description: "GUID foreign keys can slow lookups"
        severity: "medium"

  memory_safety:
    description: "Ensure Memory Safety"
    globs:
      - "kernel/**"
    rules:
      - id: "avoid_unsafe_rust"
        description: "Avoid unsafe Rust operations."
        severity: "high"
Common globs or pattern matching syntax:
  • ** - Matches any number of directories (recursive wildcard)
    • Example: **/test.py matches test.py, src/test.py, src/utils/test.py, etc.
  • * - Matches any sequence of characters within a single directory level
    • Example: *.py matches file.py, main.py but not src/main.py
  • ? - Matches exactly one character
    • Example: test?.py matches test1.py, testA.py but not test10.py
  • Rules: Areas can contain more than one rule. Each rule contains:
    • ID: Double quoted unique identifier
    • Description: Double quoted message summarizing intent of the rule
    • Severity: Expects double quoted “high”, “medium” or “low”. Sets the priority of review by Augment Code Review

​
Referencing Existing Rules Files

You can add a custom rule that references an existing rules file (like Agents.md) to incorporate those guidelines into your code review process. This allows you to reuse existing documentation and standards without duplicating content. However, it is recommended to use the YAML format to track guidelines, as this enables Augment Code Review to cite specific guidelines in comments and compute per-guideline analytics.

​
Files Automatically Skipped During Review

Augment Code Review automatically skips certain file types that are not typically code files. This helps focus the review on meaningful code changes and avoids wasting time on binary files, generated content, and other non-reviewable assets.
The following file extensions are automatically skipped during code review:Archive files:
  • .bz2, .gz, .xz, .zip, .7z, .rar, .zst, .tar, .jar, .war, .nar
Image files:
  • .ico, .svg, .jpeg, .jpg, .png, .gif, .bmp, .tiff, .webm
Font files:
  • .ttf, .otf, .woff, .woff2, .eot
Document files:
  • .pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx
Data files:
  • .csv, .tsv, .dat, .db, .parquet
System files:
  • .DS_Store, .tags
Cscope files:
  • .cscope.files, .cscope.out, .cscope.in.out, .cscope.po.out
Log and output files:
  • .log, .map, .out, .sum, .work, .md5sum
3D and graphics files:
  • .tga, .dds, .psd, .fbx, .obj, .blend, .dae, .gltf
Shader files:
  • .hlsl, .glsl
Game engine files:
  • .unity, .umap, .prefab, .mat, .shader, .shadergraph, .sav, .scene, .asset
Python compiled files:
  • .pyc, .pyd, .pyo, .pkl, .pickle
Protocol buffer files:
  • .pb.go, .pb.gw.go
Terraform files:
  • .tfstate, .tfstate.backup
Minified files:
  • .min.js, .min.js.map, .min.css
Lock and dependency files:
  • .lock, .lockb, .lockfile
Debug and trace files:
  • .trace, .dump
Backup files:
  • .bak, .backup
Database files:
  • .sql.gz
In addition to specific extensions, the following file patterns are also skipped:
  • *lock.json, *lock.yaml, *lock.yml - Lock files with specific patterns
  • go.sum - Go module checksum files
  • *.bundle.js, *.chunk.js - JavaScript bundle files
  • **/generated/**, **/*.generated.* - Generated files
  • *_snapshot.json - Snapshot files

​
Customizing Files to Skip

You can add additional files or paths to skip during code review by specifying them in your custom guidelines file. This is useful for repository-specific generated files, large data files, or other content that shouldn’t be reviewed.

​
Adding Custom File Paths to Ignore

Use the file_paths_to_ignore section in your code_review_guidelines.yaml file. This field supports doublestar glob patterns for flexible matching. 
# File paths to ignore during code review (supports doublestar glob patterns)
file_paths_to_ignore:
  - "services/code_review/**/category_taxonomy.json"
  - "**/generated/**"
  - "**/*.generated.ts"
  - "dist/**"
  - "build/**"

# Guidelines for myproject

# Custom files to skip during review
file_paths_to_ignore:
  - "services/code_review/**/category_taxonomy.json"
  - "**/*.generated.graphql"
  - "public/assets/**"

areas:
  databases:
    description: "Data and Database related rules"
    globs:
      - "**"
    rules:
      - id: "no_pii_in_bigquery"
        description: "Never store PII data in BigQuery tables."
        severity: "high"