PRODUCT · MAY 5, 2026 · 6 MIN READ
PR review that blocks the merge
A review that only comments is a suggestion. Hyrax reviews every push and holds the merge on must-fix findings, so the gate is enforced instead of advisory.
A review that only leaves comments is a suggestion, and suggestions lose to deadlines. The first time a release is late, the advisory note gets waved through, and from then on the review is decoration. The difference between a comment and a gate is enforcement.
Every push, not only the first#
Review that runs once, on the first push, reviews a pull request that no longer exists by the time it merges. People respond to feedback, force-push fixes, and add commits. Hyrax reviews every push to the pull request, so the review always describes the code that is actually about to merge — not an earlier draft of it.
Must-fix holds the merge#
The findings split into two classes, and the split is the whole point.
| Class | Behavior | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Must-fix | Holds the merge | Introduced security defect, broken contract |
| Advisory | Raised, does not block | Style drift, a safer alternative |
A must-fix finding blocks the merge until it is resolved or explicitly overridden by a human with the authority to do so. Everything else is raised without standing in the way. That keeps the gate credible: it stops the things that should stop a release and stays out of the way of the things that should not.
Enforcement is not strictness for its own sake. It is the property that keeps a review from decaying into a comment nobody reads.
Severity is a contract#
The line between must-fix and advisory cannot be a mystery. If a team cannot predict what will block a merge, the gate feels arbitrary and gets disabled. So severity is legible: a finding states why it blocks, and the boundary stays consistent from one pull request to the next. A predictable gate is one people build around instead of fighting.
Where it runs#
PR review is part of the Team plan and runs in CI on every push. It draws on the same audit and verification machinery as the rest of Hyrax, so a blocking finding carries the same evidence a standalone audit would — the reviewer sees not only that something is wrong, but what was checked to decide so.