The best way to review agent output just got faster & better. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
crit. View in browser   ยท  September 2026

Story mode, a new renderer, and finish hooks

Hi! Welcome to crit's first newsletter! It's been an exciting summer where together with support from many contributors we shipped a lot of cool stuff detailed below. If you'd like to get the latest goodies, upgrade now:

$ brew upgrade crit
# or
$ go install github.com/tomasz-tomczyk/crit/cmd/crit@latest
★  Star on GitHub   Release notes
 
STORY MODE

Read a big diff like a story from a coworker

Reviewing code is more time-consuming than ever! Story mode groups diffs from a given PR or branch into logical chapters.

Ask your agent for it: /crit-story

crit story mode: a prologue with key changes, a flow diagram, and four chapters to read in order
You can customise what chapters you generate with custom agent prompts.
 
NEW BLAZING FAST RENDERER

Diff engine that stays fast on huge reviews

We replaced crit's hand-written diff view with @pierre/diffs. Thanks to support from @jakebf!

It supports every Shiki theme. Pick one for light mode and one for dark, and the whole review UI takes on its colours.

The same crit diff shown in three themes: Tokyo Night, Monokai and Catppuccin Latte
36 ms
of blocking on page load for a 300-file, 9k-line review. 0 ms while scrolling.
350 → 5 ms
main-thread cost to highlight a 2,000-line code block in a plan.
 
CUSTOM AGENT HOOKS

Decide what the agent does after a review

When you finish a round or approve, crit hands your agent a prompt. Now you can customise that prompt, per project, and per review type. Inspired by a GH issue from @TheCoreMan.

This one splits a big review across subagents so your main session doesn't get bloated with too much context:

.crit/prompts/on_finish_unresolved.diff​.md
{{if gt .unresolved_count 10}} This review has {{.unresolved_count}} comments across {{len .files_with_comments}} files. 1. Group by topic and spawn one subagent per group. 2. Reply with `crit comment --reply-to` 3. When done: {{.next_round_cmd}} {{end}}

Using a knowledge base? Save learnings from reviews there.

There are command hooks too. They run your own shell scripts at the same points, for things you want to run programmatically. No LLM involved. Inspired by a GH issue from @bezbec.

Prompt hook guide →    Command hooks guide →
 

Review with your team on crit.md

01  Create a team 02  Invite coworkers 03  Share a review
$ crit share --org acme plan​.md
Create a team No credit card required.
 
ALSO NEW
› GitLab merge requests. crit pull and crit push work with MRs, the same as GitHub PRs.
› crit resume. Lists your saved reviews and reopens one from anywhere.
› Custom shortcuts. Remap any keyboard shortcut, locally and on crit.md.
› Mermaid full screen. Open them in full screen with pan and zoom.
› Round-ready notifications. Get a desktop ping when the agent finishes a round. The tab can close itself after you approve.
 
THANK YOU

I read and appreciate every bug report and feature idea. GitLab support, the 300-file speedup, the code font setting and many other features and bug fixes came from these wonderful people.

@acatxnamedvirtue, @AndreyMalykhin, @bewa1t, @blyoa, @CarlosZ, @csharp-neet, @ekisu, @felix-dumit, @FlorentDhamma, @gmatev, @hbogaeus, @hitochan777, @Igal-Kraisler-Forter, @jacob-winkler, @jalopez, @jbrooksbartlett, @jmehnle, @John-Isr, @jvaldiviezo9, @keoz-higidi, @kizashi1122, @komase, @Laveshka, @littlefyr, @makotodejima, @mariaines, @mattnworb, @meganemura, @miyataka, @mochadwi, @omervk, @omry, @pqppq, @prateek, @pstibrany, @rsanheim, @schrek1, @scottbradybuckii, @sethfitz, @simenbrekken, @ssemakov, @stevenpollack, @technicalpickles, @usadamasa, @Yofou and @yoshitsugu.

Got thoughts, feedback, or something that bugs you? Just hit reply. I read every email. And if crit saves you time, a star on GitHub or passing it on to a coworker helps a lot! Thank you!

Tomasz
crit.md
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