Pull request fix suggestions

This page helps you understand the behavior of the SonarQube Remediation Agent and provides additional information about engaging with the agent during the review process of your pull request.

Note: The SonarQube Remediation Agent is a Beta feature available with the Team (annual) and Enterprise plan accounts. It's free during the beta phase and will be a paid feature when it moves to General Availability. To learn more about the terms & conditions, please see our legal page about features in Early Access.

This page helps you understand the behavior of the SonarQube Remediation Agent and provides additional information about engaging with the agent during the review process of your pull request.

Note: Pull request remediation is currently available for GitHub-bound projects only. For Azure DevOps-bound projects, see Backlog fix suggestions.

Activate the Remediation Agent

When the SonarQube Remediation Agent is activated for Pull request fixes as described on the Remediation Agent page, its activity can be reviewed in SonarQube Cloud and the agent can be engaged in GitHub on your open pull request (PR). When your quality gate fails during a PR analysis, the Quality Gate failed comment posted by the sonarqubecloud GitHub App contains a Remediation Agent ready section. This section includes a Fix automatically checkbox with the subtitle Creates a separate PR with fixes for eligible issues.

Select the Fix automatically checkbox to trigger the agent. The Quality Gate failed comment updates to show Remediation Agent Launched! with a link to follow progress, and a new Remediation Agent Summary comment appears stating Generating fix suggestions for your pull request. This comment will be updated automatically. If a fix or fixes are available, the SonarQube Remediation Agent suggests changes in a new PR targeting your branch. This PR contains a commit or series of commits along with information about each issue and why the changes were made.

The Quality Gate failed comment contains a Remediation Agent ready section with a Fix automatically checkbox.

After selecting Fix automatically, the Quality Gate failed comment updates to show Remediation Agent Launched.

After selecting Fix automatically, a record of the agent's activity shows up in SonarQube Cloud on your project's Agent activity page; see Review agent activity for details.

When additional commits are added to your PR and the quality gate again fails, a new agent will be triggered, repeating the process. Issues will be fixed once you review and merge the agent's changes into your active branch.

Review agent activity

To review the Remediation Agent's activity, go to Your SonarQube Cloud Project > Agent activity. From there you'll see the agent's:

• Status/duration: Time the agent spent to generate fixes.

• Started: When the agent is triggered by the Automated backlog remediation schedule, by selecting Assign to Agent on the Issues page, or by selecting Fix automatically in the Quality Gate failed comment on a pull request.

• Source: Where the agent is working. Backlog fixes means that the agent is working on issues found in your main branch; or a link will be provided to the branch where you first called the agent.

• Outcome: A link to the agent's PR.

  • PRs made for Backlog fixes will be on your main branch. See the Backlog fix suggestions page for details.

  • PRs made for Pull request fixes will be made on your branch. See Engage with the agent for details.

The SonarQube Cloud Agent activity page lists each of the agent's event moments on your pull request analyses.

Engage with the agent

After selecting Fix automatically, a single Remediation Agent Summary comment is created on your open pull request explaining the agent's progress and suggestions. The summary first appears stating Generating fix suggestions for your pull request. This comment will be updated automatically. It then progresses through the following states as the agent works:

• In queue—the request is accepted and waiting for a worker.

• Analyzing issues... (X of Y completed)—a progress bar shows counts for In progress, In queue, Generating, and Completed.

• Completed—the Quality Gate failed comment updates to show Fixes are ready in agent created PR #XXX, and the Summary comment shows To review: Fixes are ready for X of Y issues found. along with Save time: Applying these fixes could save you an estimated NN minutes.

While the agent is working, the Remediation Agent Summary comment shows a progress bar with counts for In queue, Generating, and Completed.

When the agent finishes, the Summary comment briefly explains the issue types it addressed and links to a new PR for your review. The following shows the completed Remediation Agent Summary:

• The status of your quality gate is shown on the activity history of your PR. The next action item in your history should be the Remediation Agent Summary; if it doesn't show up or isn't updating its status, try refreshing your page.

• Select the Suggested fixes (X) collapsible to reveal the list of fixes provided by the agent. The summary provides information about:

  • Quality: each issue's software quality

  • Issue: the issue's rule description and a link to the issue as found in the SonarQube Cloud pull request analysis

• If the agent can't provide a fix suggestion, Issues requiring manual fix is listed. When expanded, you see the issue's rule description and a link to the issue in the SonarQube Cloud pull request analysis. See the page about using SonarQube for IDE and connected mode to learn how to find and fix an issue in your IDE.

• Agent created PR #XXX provides a link to a new PR created by the SonarQube Remediation Agent, on your branch. This PR contains a list of Fixed Issues including rule descriptions and a series of commits organized by issue, ready for you to review. See Review agent fix suggestions. A link to the same PR is also available on the Review agent activity page.

The completed Remediation Agent Summary comment shows save-time guidance and a Suggested fixes collapsible.

Review agent fix suggestions

Open the agent's PR (linked from the Agent created PR #XXX entry in the previous section) to review fix suggestions before merging them into your original PR.

The Fixed Issues summary on the agent's pull request lists each issue's rule number, title, quality, description, along with a link to the issue in SonarQube Cloud. The PR summary is followed by a list of commits where the change summary is stacked and sorted by issue keys.

• The SonarQube Remediation Agent creates a new PR targeting your branch.

• A link to your project in SonarQube Cloud is provided.

• The PR summary provides a list of Fixed Issues as an inventory of fixes in this PR. Expand an issue to see its rule description, information about Why this is an issue, and a quick diff view showing What changed in this PR.

• The View issue link takes you to the issue in SonarQube Cloud.

• The SonarQube Remediation Agent is listed as the commit author.

• The agent's comments are condensed in the commit message and the change summary is stacked and sorted by issue key.

• A new PR analysis will be run automatically to check the agent's fixes against your quality standards.

Each issue fixed by the SonarQube Remediation Agent will have information to help you review what is changed in the PR.

Once reviewed and merged, the commits will be added to your original PR. These new commits will trigger a new Pull request analysis and the cycle will repeat until your quality gate passes your quality standards.

Agent backlog fixes

The SonarQube Remediation Agent can also work on existing issues found in your main branch. See the Backlog fix suggestions page for full details.

Related products

For AI-powered pull request review automation, see Gitar, a separate Sonar product.