Guides
Code Governance
Coding agents (Cursor, Copilot, Devin, Claude Code, Codex) now raise real pull requests. Code Governance puts a human-approved, fully-audited gate in front of those changes: SyftOS reviews the diff, and you approve, request changes or reject, without SyftOS ever running your code.
What it's for
SyftOS connects to your repository as a governance app. When an AI-authored pull request appears, it ingests the change, works out which agent wrote it, checks it against your policy, and holds it behind a required status check until a distinct human signs it off. The result is an auditable record of who approved what an AI wrote — the control regulated teams need but native version control doesn't fully give.
Connect a repository
Under Govern → Repositories:
- Click Connect GitHub and authorise SyftOS.
- Pick a repository from the list. You only see ones you can administer, and any already connected are marked.
- That's it. SyftOS provisions the webhook and the required status check for you, with sensible defaults (which coding agents are allowed, which branches are protected). You never paste a token or a secret; they're generated and stored encrypted, never shown in the app, logs or events.
The review loop
When an AI-authored pull request is opened or updated, SyftOS automatically:
- fetches the diff and fingerprints it;
- identifies the authoring agent;
- checks it against your policy (allowed authors, protected paths, secret and danger scans);
- opens a review and publishes a red status check on the pull request — it can't merge until it's approved.
Reviewers work in Govern → Reviews. Each review shows the pull request and branch, the authoring agent, who opened or triggered it, the CI result, the policy verdict with any flags, and a clear merge-readiness checklist: a distinct human has approved, CI is green for the exact commit, and policy has passed.
Approve, request changes, reject
Deciding needs the merge-approval permission (held by Admins and Owners), and you must be someone other than the change's author or triggerer — always, no exceptions.
- Approve. SyftOS re-confirms the diff hasn't moved since you reviewed it. Once it's approved, CI is green for that exact commit, policy has passed and branch protection is confirmed, the required status check turns green. Your engineer then merges on GitHub as normal. SyftOS doesn't merge for you.
- Request changes. Leave a note saying what's needed. When a new commit is pushed, the review reopens for a fresh look.
- Reject. Give a reason; the review is closed for good and the status check stays red, so the change can't be merged.
When an approved change is merged, SyftOS writes an immutable attestation into the append-only audit chain: the diff fingerprint, the authoring agent, the named human who approved, and the CI verdict. That's your evidence trail.
Disconnecting
Disconnect a repository any time. If it has governance history, SyftOS keeps that history intact, revokes the live access immediately, stops ingesting new pull requests and frees the slot. The record of past decisions is never deleted. Reconnecting later picks up cleanly with a fresh secret.
What it never does
Code Governance reads a diff and writes a status check — nothing more. It never runs your tests or build, never executes your CI (it reads the verdict your CI produces), and never executes any of your repository's code.