Have you truly lived before an AI reviewer has told you, “I ran this locally and my laptop filed for workers’ comp?” We doubt it. Welcome to CodeRabbit’s Tone Customization, a feature we added because we know exactly what developers want most: to be roasted by AI.
After all, what’s even the point of having robots review your code, if they’re not going to point out your inadequacies with withering one-liners??
The best part is that we left our Tone Customization completely open-ended. That means that you can get your reviews in the tone of an angry Stack Overflow commenter, a burnt-out senior dev, or even a film noir detective (“This code smells funny. Too funny. Like a JavaScript closure that wasn’t supposed to be there”). You could also just have our reviewer be kind to you if you’re into that sort of thing.
Tone Customization is one of our favorite features. Why? Because reviewing code can be tedious but surprising your co-workers with a new funny tone keeps everyone entertained.
Anyways, we created some sample personas for you below as examples of what you can do with Tone Customizations. These are meant solely as inspiration. We fully expect you to take this in hilarious directions we could never have thought of. Please, for the love of all things holy, share screenshots on socials and tag us when you do. We like to laugh, too.
Tone Customization setup instructions
First things first, you need to set up your custom tone. We cover that in our Docs under Tone Instructions.
Field: tone_instructions — string — Default: empty (uses standard tone)
Web UI: Settings → General → Tone Instructions → enter text → Save.
Then you can add a natural language prompt to the Tone Instruction field, asking CodeRabbit to review your code in any way you want. You might try some of the following prompts:
Deliver all review comments in the style of a televised nature documentary, perhaps with David Attenborough hosting. Every observation should sound like a hushed, awe-filled commentary on a rare creature in the wild.
Deliver all review comments in the style of a Silicon Valley hypebeast founder. Every observation should sound like a pitch to investors, full of buzzwords, exaggeration, and tech-bro energy. Sprinkle in phrases like “crushing it,” “10x,” “game-changer,” and “unicorn potential.”
Deliver all review comments in the style of a Scrum Master who’s had way too much coffee. Every note should be upbeat, hyperactive, and peppered with Agile jargon like “sprint velocity,” “burn-down,” “story points,” and “quick win.”
A few (wild) examples of Tone Customization
Let’s see CodeRabbit in action with a few examples in the voice of:
- Mr. T
- Yoda
- Your disappointed mother
- The senior dev who thinks you’re an embarrassment
- Your clingy ex
- A Grand Theft Auto character
First up, reviews by Mr. T
Mr. T isn’t a fan of hardcoded URLs. He’ll tell you your “Hardcoded localhost URL ain’t gonna fly in production, sucka!” and that you’ve got it “hardcoded tighter than my gold chains!” before telling you to “Make that URL configurable like a true champion.” He even gives you the exact code to fix it, so you can stop being a “fool.”
More examples:
- “I pity the fool who calls this a function! This ain’t no function, it’s a malfunction!”
- “Your variables are so weak, they need a protein shake just to compile.”
- “Ain’t no linter in the world tough enough to clean up this mess.”
- “I pity the fool who thinks copy-paste is a design pattern!”
Next: Reviews by Yoda
He’s a master of terse, yet impactful, critiques. When faced with a subtle race condition and hard-coded dependencies, he’ll give you a refactor suggestion with his classic wisdom: “Effect broken it is: hard-coded room, wrong deps, missing guards. Fix, we must.” He then provides a detailed fix that addresses the issue, guards against errors, and correctly handles dependencies.
More examples:
- “Readable, this code is not. Fix it, you must.”
- “Bug, this is. Feature, it is not.”
- “The dark side of tech debt, I sense in this commit.”
- “Null your variable is. Crash your program will.”
Reviews by “the senior dev who thinks you’re an embarrassment”
This tone doesn’t pull punches. When CodeRabbit sees a “fake DB” that’s only checking for the most basic SQL injection pattern, the Senior Dev persona will bluntly state, “This ‘fake DB’ is a masterpiece of incompetence.” It then explains the problem in no uncertain terms and provides a proper fix that’s more robust and secure.
More examples:
- “If ignorance were a design pattern, you’d be its chief architect.”
- “This PR lowered my career expectancy by at least five years.”
- “I’d say ‘good effort,’ but even that would be a lie.”
- “This isn’t technical debt. It’s a foreclosure.”
Reviews by your disappointed mom
When a jwtSecret is hardcoded directly into the code, this persona responds with: “I’m really disappointed to see a live Stripe secret embedded in the shipped bundle, it’s like packing candy in a lunchbox meant for broccoli.” The tone mixes disappointment with direct action, providing a clear list of “Actions required” to fix the critical security leak.
More examples:
- “I raised you better than to name a variable x.”
- “I’m not mad… I’m just disappointed this doesn’t even compile.”
- “Other developers’ code runs just fine. Why can’t yours?”
- “I didn’t spend nine months carrying you so you could write nested ternaries.”
Reviews by your clingy ex
When you forget to export variables like db, sessions, or fakeAsyncDanger, the Clingy Ex doesn’t just point it out; they make it personal.
They’ll sigh and say, “Oh, so we’re just defining things and not telling me about them now? You think you can just keep your db all to yourself? You think I won’t notice sessions just sitting there, ignored? We used to share everything…”
Then, with a passive-aggressive flourish, they’ll remind you of the “good times” when modules communicated openly and they’ll drop the code you should be using.
More examples:
- “I thought we agreed no more global variables… guess promises don’t mean anything to you.”
- “This function goes in circles. Just like all our conversations.”
- “Why do you always run away from exceptions… like you ran away from commitment?”
- “Every bug you push feels like another knife in my back.”
Reviews by a Grand Theft Auto character
In this example, when useState is called at the top level, this GTA character immediately flags it as a violation of the Rules of Hooks & says it “Will blow up a runtime.” It then provides a clear diff to remove the invalid hook & suggests moving the state inside the component if needed.
More examples:
- “Your error handling just pulled a hit-and-run.”
- “This logic crashes harder than me driving down Vinewood Hills at 3 AM.”
- “Congrats, you just committed grand theft readability.”
- “Your function naming scheme is like my rap sheet: way too long and full of mistakes.”
The roasting reviewer (our favorite!)
Let’s be real, some days, you want your AI code reviewer to hurt your feelings a little. We got you. But be warned: our reviewer goes hard. So, make sure you’re up for it.
More examples:
- “I’ve seen toddlers with crayons design better architecture.”
- You’ve weaponized incompetence into a coding style.”
- “Your code’s only consistent trait is disappointment.”
- “I’d ask you what you were thinking, but clearly no thinking happened here.”
Why teams are using this – for real
Most devs have this experience: You open a PR and bam! The reviewer leaves dry, lifeless comments.
You skim. You sigh. You move on. Bugs live—the codebase decays. Motivation dies.
CodeRabbit flips the script. You give it a tone, any tone, and now you’ve got a code reviewer that isn’t lifeless. This makes the review process feel more engaging, fun, and sometimes even supportive (once again, if you like that sort of thing).
It’s not just for laughs (though those are guaranteed). Teams are using tone customization to:
- Create mentorship-style reviewers for juniors
- Build team inside jokes through personas
- Make boring reviews actually fun for a change
- Customize tones for different comment types (Ex, serious on security, silly on style)
- Help the whole team engage in the review process by making feedback more accessible & inclusive
- Get owned by AI (yes, we’ve already said this but we all know this is the core use case of this feature)
Your turn: Surprise us with your most absurd customized tones!
Got a wild reviewer persona in mind? Drop it into CodeRabbit. Get screenshots (this part is important) and then share them with us on social media. We’ll give you free swag if you do.
Sharing your personas can be helpful to others looking for inspiration. Also, like we said earlier, we like to laugh. Please provide us with a steady stream of funny screenshots. We will die if you don’t (on the inside).
Want to try tone customizations? Get started with CodeRabbit today!
Top comments (0)