Boost Your Workflow: Claude PR And Duplicate Run Prevention

Nov 15, 2025 by Admin 60 views

Hey guys, let's dive into a cool project: optimizing the Claude PR workflow to avoid running the same checks multiple times. We're talking about making things smoother and more efficient, saving time and resources. This isn't just about cutting down on unnecessary work; it's about building a smarter, more reliable workflow. By the end of this guide, you'll have a solid understanding of how to detect duplicate runs and make your CI/CD pipeline much more streamlined. The core idea is simple: if a pull request has already been reviewed with the same commit, why run the same checks again? This optimization is particularly beneficial when dealing with large codebases and complex CI/CD setups. We will use the GitHub workflow, the tool that will allow us to achieve this goal, and a few more tricks. Let’s get started.

The Problem: Redundant PR Reviews

So, what's the deal with redundant PR reviews? Well, imagine this: you've got a pull request, and your CI/CD pipeline kicks off a series of checks. These checks could include anything from code style validations to unit tests and integration tests. If your workflow runs these checks every time a developer pushes a change to a pull request, you might find yourself running the same checks over and over again for the same commit. This is especially true if the changes are minor or if the checks themselves take a while to complete. These duplicate runs can lead to several issues. First, they waste valuable time and resources. Your CI/CD infrastructure has limited capacity, and running unnecessary checks consumes these resources. Second, they can slow down the development process. If developers have to wait for the same checks to complete repeatedly, it adds friction to their workflow. Finally, they can clutter your build logs, making it harder to spot real issues. Now, this doesn’t sound ideal, does it? That’s where our solution comes in. We want to stop these redundant checks. This is where we need to introduce a system that detects and skips these duplicate runs.

We need a way to identify if a pull request has already been reviewed with the same commit. The aim is to make the process more efficient, saving time and resources. Think of it as a smart system that only runs the checks if something has actually changed. We can utilize tools, such as GitHub Actions, to check the commits and trigger the workflow automatically. This way, we can be sure that we are only running the necessary checks and keeping everything up to date. This system also helps to keep your logs clear, and it speeds up the whole development process. It is about working smarter, not harder. Let’s face it: no one likes wasted time. By preventing these redundant runs, we can make our entire development cycle faster, more reliable, and more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Solution: Implementing Duplicate Run Detection

Here’s how we tackle this problem: We'll be using GitHub Actions and a special tag to identify existing reviews. Here's a breakdown of the key steps. First, we need to create a mechanism to detect whether a comment has already been tagged. This involves checking the pull request for a specific comment format: . The sha here is the unique commit hash. This allows us to track if the same head SHA has already been reviewed. If it has, we can skip the workflow steps. This is the core of our solution: a check to see if the work has already been done. To do this, we need to add a conditional step in our workflow. This step will check for the presence of the comment and, if found, will stop the workflow. This will also prevent duplicate runs. In practice, this means updating the workflow YAML file. We will start by configuring the workflow to trigger on pull request events. Next, we will add a step that fetches the latest commit hash (SHA) from the pull request. We will also include a step to check for the existing comment using the commit SHA as a key. This step will search for the specific comment format  in the pull request comments. If the comment exists, then it means the pull request with the same SHA has already been reviewed. The following step will be to create a conditional to skip the rest of the workflow steps if the comment is found. This saves time and resources, ensuring that the same checks aren't run multiple times. Finally, we need to add another step to leave a comment with the claude-review:{sha} tag to keep track of the reviews.

By following these steps, you’ll be able to create an optimized system. This is a game-changer when working on large projects with many contributors. The benefits are clear: reduced CI/CD times, less resource consumption, and a more streamlined development process. You will soon notice that your workflow is faster and your team is more efficient. This is the power of a well-designed system, where automation is your friend. To summarize, we are setting up a system that detects whether a PR has already been reviewed, and then it skips the workflow if it is not necessary. Pretty cool, right?

Step-by-Step Guide: Setting Up the Workflow

Let’s get our hands dirty and create the workflow. This section will walk you through the process of setting up the workflow to detect and skip duplicate runs. The steps are designed to be clear and easy to follow. We need to create a GitHub Actions workflow that automatically triggers on pull request events. This workflow will be responsible for detecting duplicate runs. First, let’s start by creating a new workflow file in your repository. Go to .github/workflows/ and create a new YAML file. Give it a descriptive name, like claude-pr-review.yml. This file will contain all the configurations for your workflow. Here's a basic structure to get you started:

name: Claude PR Review
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  claude-review:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Get commit SHA
        id: get-sha
        run: echo