tuicr/Q/What is PR mode in tuicr?

• What is PR mode in tuicr?

  • Context: I ran tuicr -r main..HEAD --stdout, left comments, typed :submit, and got ":submit only applies in PR mode".

  • AI Answer

    • Short answer: PR mode is tuicr reviewing a forge pull request (GitHub PR, GitLab MR, etc.) opened with tuicr pr <target>. A local -r main..HEAD review is not a PR, so :submit refuses.
    • What it is. In the source the TUI holds a DiffSource; :submit runs only when it is DiffSource::PullRequest, otherwise it sets the warning :submit only applies in PR mode (src/app/submit.rs, in start_submit_with and start_submit_action_picker). Help text: tuicr pr is "Review a GitHub pull request or GitLab merge request" with alias mr (tuicr --help).
    • How to enter it.
      • tuicr pr <TARGET> where <TARGET> is <number>, <owner/repo#N>, or a PR URL (tuicr pr --help).
      • tuicr pr 125 for GitHub, Gitea, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, or a Gerrit change; tuicr mr 125 for GitLab; tuicr tui pr 125 is the explicit-TUI form (README.md, Quick start).
      • --repo-url <URL> or --remote <NAME> pick the forge repo when the checkout's remote is ambiguous. GitHub needs gh authenticated (README.md, "To GitHub").
    • What :submit does there. It opens a picker for Comment, Approve, Request changes, or Draft. Inline comments land on their lines as a real PR review, and review-level comments become the review summary (README.md, "To GitHub"). Draft sends no event field, so GitHub keeps it as a pending review (SubmitEvent::Draft in src/forge/submit.rs). It also refuses when the PR is closed or otherwise read-only (pr.is_read_only() in src/app/submit.rs).
    • How local-mode comments persist.
      • Each comment is autosaved to a JSON session under the platform data dir, tuicr/reviews/ (on this Mac, ~/Library/Application Support/tuicr), indexed by a manifest (src/persistence/storage.rs).
      • A local session is keyed by repo, branch, base commit, diff source, and commit range (slug_for_session, build_local_slug). A PR session is keyed by pr_session_key instead, and load_latest_session_for_context returns None for PullRequest (src/persistence/storage.rs, src/model/review.rs).
      • Inspect with tuicr review list --repo . and tuicr review comments --session <slug> (docs/REVIEW_CLI.md).
    • Can local comments be carried to a PR? I found no import or conversion in the source. The two session kinds are keyed differently and nothing copies between them. The workaround is to read the local session with tuicr review comments --session <slug> and re-add the comments to the PR session with tuicr review add --session gh:<owner>/<repo>/pr/<N> --target-file ... --line ... --side new "text" (docs/REVIEW_CLI.md, "Add Comments"). I have not run this; the PR session must exist first, so open the PR once with tuicr pr.
    • Exporting from local mode.
      • y or :clip (alias :export) copies structured markdown to the clipboard (COMMAND_SPECS in src/handler.rs; README.md, "To your coding agent").
      • --stdout prints the export to stdout when the TUI exits, with the TUI drawn on /dev/tty, so tuicr -r main..HEAD --stdout > review.md works (docs/CLI.md).
    • Fix for the original attempt: push the branch, open a PR, then run tuicr pr <number> and :submit there. Related: tuicr/How To/Review a PR.
    • Source: local clone github.com/agavra/tuicr at commit 4a9bda2, plus tuicr --help and tuicr pr --help from the installed 0.27.0.