---
title: "Label PRs by risk"
description: "Classify pull requests as low, medium or high risk and mirror the tier to a risk label on GitHub."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trevize.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Label PRs by risk

Every pull request in a connected repository can get a risk tier, `low`,
`medium` or `high`, mirrored to a `risk:low`, `risk:medium` or `risk:high`
label on GitHub. Reviewers see at a glance which PRs need careful eyes.

Risk labels are in early access: ask us to turn on `risk_labels` for your
workspace.

## How the tier is decided

1. It starts at the proposed tier. With no proposal it starts at `medium`.
2. Every path rule that matches a changed file raises it to that rule's tier.
   Rules never lower a tier. A rename matches on both its old and new path.
3. A person can override the result. The computed tier is kept alongside it.

A diff too large for GitHub to list in full (over 3,000 files) is `high`.

The built-in rules raise PRs that touch:

| Paths | Tier | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `migrations/`, `migration/`, `migrate/`, `alembic/`, `flyway/` and `liquibase/` folders, `*.sql`, `schema.prisma`, `schema.rb` | high | Schema or data migration |
| `auth/`, `authz/`, `permissions/`, `rbac/`, `oauth/`, `sso/` and `security/` folders (and similar), code files named after auth, permissions, passwords, tokens, secrets or crypto | high | Authentication or authorization |
| `billing/`, `payments/`, `checkout/`, `invoices/` and `subscriptions/` folders | high | Billing |
| `.github/workflows/`, `.gitlab-ci.yml`, `.circleci/`, `.buildkite/`, `Jenkinsfile`, Azure and Bitbucket pipelines | high | CI pipeline |
| `Dockerfile`, Compose files, `Procfile`, `fly.toml`, `vercel.json`, `netlify.toml`, `render.yaml`, `app.yaml` | high | Build and deploy config |
| `*.tf`, `*.tfvars`, `*.hcl`, and `terraform/`, `infra/`, `k8s/`, `helm/`, `charts/`, `pulumi/` and `cdk/` folders | high | Infrastructure as code |
| `CODEOWNERS` | high | Review and ownership rules |
| Dependency manifests and lockfiles (npm, Yarn, pnpm, Bun, pip, Poetry, uv, Go, Cargo, Bundler, Composer, Maven, Gradle, NuGet, Mix) | medium | Dependency change |

Settings → Risk labels shows the exact globs. Add the paths that matter in your
own codebase as workspace rules.

## Add your own rules

Go to **Settings → Risk labels** in the app. Workspace owners and admins can:

- add path rules, each with a glob, a tier (`medium` or `high`) and a reason
  shown with the assessment,
- turn the built-in rules off.

Rules apply to every repository in the workspace and only ever raise a tier.

## Check every PR automatically

Turn on **GitHub checks** under **Settings → Risk labels** to classify every
pull request in your connected repositories, including PRs your team opens
without Trevize. No CI setup is needed. Each time a PR is opened, reopened or
pushed to, Trevize:

- classifies it with your workspace rules,
- adds or updates a **Trevize risk** check on the latest commit, with the
  tier and the rules that raised it,
- updates its `risk:*` label.

The check is informational: it always completes as neutral, so it never
blocks a merge. Workspace owners and admins can turn checks on once GitHub is
connected.

The Trevize GitHub App needs the **Checks** permission to add the check. If a
repository's installation has not approved it yet, the PR still gets its
label, and the CLI reports that the check was not updated.

## Classify a PR

From a laptop, a local agent session or CI:

```bash
trevize risk classify https://github.com/acme/app/pull/123
trevize risk classify                      # the open PR for the current branch
trevize risk classify --propose low --rationale "Copy change in the footer only"
```

The server fetches the PR's changed files and your workspace's rules, stores
the tier and applies the label. `--no-label` stores without labeling and
`--dry-run` only prints. Exit code 3 means the repository is not connected to
your workspace.

Every `trevize risk` command needs a login (`trevize login`) or an API key.

To classify PRs from your own CI instead of turning on GitHub checks, add a
step with a `TREVIZE_API_KEY` secret. The CLI runs on Node, so it works on
GitHub-hosted runners without installing Bun:

```yaml
- run: npx -y trevize risk classify "${{ github.event.pull_request.html_url }}"
  env:
TREVIZE_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.TREVIZE_API_KEY }}
TREVIZE_WORKSPACE_ID: ${{ vars.TREVIZE_WORKSPACE_ID }}
```

Local agents can use the `classify_risk` and `get_risk` tools of
`trevize mcp`. An agent may propose a tier but never override one.

After the first classification, every push to the PR re-classifies it.

## Override

Add a risk label on GitHub, or run:

```bash
trevize risk set https://github.com/acme/app/pull/123 --tier high --reason "Touches the export job"
trevize risk set https://github.com/acme/app/pull/123 --clear
```

A person adding a label overrides the tier with their GitHub login; if several
are added at once, the highest wins. Removing the only risk label goes back to
the computed tier. For a PR opened by a Trevize task, the override applies to
every PR of that task.

Source: https://docs.trevize.dev/guides/risk-labels/index.mdx