Before you begin.
- An Apple Silicon Mac. Intel Macs, Windows and Linux are not supported.
- git and GitHub’s gh. Install both and sign in through gh. Airlock uses the same gh login to send a draft review or a sign-off to GitHub, and only when you press the button for it.
- Your Claude Code login. You need a claude.ai subscription. Airlock uses it directly and does not bill you for tokens.
- A GitHub pull request with a pushed branch. Airlock supports GitHub pull requests.
Install Airlock
Download Airlock for Mac and open the app. Make sure git and gh are installed, then sign in to gh and Claude Code before opening your first pull request.
Download for MacSend to your MacFrom a PR to your review.
- Open your PR. Paste its URL or choose from the chronological inbox across projects on your Mac. Airlock finds the checkout, fetches the branch and shows the commits and files immediately.
- Get oriented while the plan is prepared. Read the commit messages and inspect the changed files while the agent prepares the complete plan. Planning can take minutes. Airlock shows the elapsed time while you wait.
- Follow the reading order. Each section explains why it is here. Read the references, open the highlighted files, and mark sections read as you go. Every source line comes from git.
- Ask and keep. Ask in your own words, follow up in the thread, inspect the citations, and explicitly keep the answers or notes you want.
- Finish in Your review. Edit entries in place, preview exactly what will copy, and export Markdown — or send it to the pull request as a draft review, which only you can see until you submit it on GitHub. Each entry says beforehand whether it will sit on its lines, on its file or in the summary. With every section read, Sign off on GitHub adds a green
airlock/reviewcheck to the commit you read. Airlock never posts anything without that press, and never submits a review.
Check the PR description against the code.
Statements in the PR description are checked against the code and marked supported, contradicted or unchecked, with the evidence named. Recheck a claim when you choose: the new verdict appears beside the original one.
Free-text questions produce answers with path and line citations. Follow-up questions continue the thread. Generated questions distinguish between what the agent can check by reading and what depends on the author’s intent.
The agent never guesses the author’s reasoning. Carry those questions into your review for the author to answer.
Keep your place after a push.
Sections you read are marked stale—out of date—when their files change, with the paths named. Claims are marked stale when their evidence changes. Files not covered by the plan get a new section at the end.
Your existing reading order stays in place. Recheck claims when you choose, with each new verdict shown alongside the original.
A sign-off belongs to the commit you read, so a push leaves the new commit without an airlock/review check. Read what changed, and sign off again.
Your licence and free month.
Public repositories are free without limit. Try private repositories free for one month, then use an individual licence to keep planning new private reviews.
| Use | Terms |
|---|---|
| Public repositories | Free without limit. No licence needed. |
| Private repositories | $99/year for an individual licence. GitHub Enterprise internal visibility counts as private. |
| Private trial | One month, starting with your first private PR, not installation. No account required. |
| Paid licence | A key bought on airlock.build, pasted into the app and verified on your machine. |
| After the trial | Without a licence, no new private reviews can be planned. Existing sessions, review documents and exports stay open. |
| Model usage | Your own Claude subscription. Airlock never bills for tokens. |
A licence is a key, not an account. Buy it here and paste the key into Airlock to activate private-repository reviews.
If you cannot open the PR.
Check that git and gh are installed, gh is signed in, the PR is on GitHub, and the branch has been pushed. Model access also requires your Claude Code login through a claude.ai subscription.
If a sign-off or draft doesn’t reach GitHub.
- Check gh. Both go through your own gh login, so it must be signed in with access to the repository. Run
gh auth statusto see. - Wait for new commits to arrive. A draft review is held back when the pull request has commits Airlock hasn’t caught up with yet, because its line numbers were worked out against the commit you read. It goes through once they have arrived.
- One draft at a time. GitHub allows one pending review per person per pull request. Replacing it discards anything you changed in it on GitHub, so Airlock asks first.
- Sign-off waits for the whole plan. Every section has to be read, and a section whose files changed after you read it has to be read again.
If you are still stuck, include your app version and what you were trying to do in a feedback report.