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Ultrareview is cubic’s deepest review. It runs a longer, multi-pass analysis using cubic’s most capable review models, and usually takes about 9 minutes. The standard review is built for every PR; ultrareview is built for the ones where the blast radius of a missed bug is severe — migrations, auth, payments, concurrency, large refactors. Ultrareview is available on paid and trial plans and uses your team’s reviewed-lines allowance at 3× the standard rate, reflecting the extra compute of its multi-pass analysis.

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Availability modes

The Ultrareview card at the top of AI review → Ultrareview (or reviews.ultrareview in cubic.yaml) controls whether ultrareviews can run at all:
  • Disabled — no ultrareviews. Comment commands get a reply explaining that ultrareview is turned off, dashboard triggers show an error, and automatic triggers never fire.
  • Manual (default) — ultrareviews run only when someone triggers them, via @cubic-dev-ai ultrareview or the PR page in the cubic app.
  • Automatic — the file rules and risk policy below are active. Manual triggers stay available — Automatic includes everything Manual allows.

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Run one manually

Tag cubic on any pull request:
  • @cubic-dev-ai ultrareview
  • @cubic-dev-ai ultrareview: focus on auth edge cases
Anything you write after the command is forwarded to the reviewer as one-off guidance for that run. You can also start an ultrareview from the PR page in the cubic app. cubic posts a comment when the ultrareview starts and posts its findings when it completes. Pushing new commits does not restart it.

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Auto-trigger ultrareviews

You can have cubic start an ultrareview automatically when a PR is opened or marked ready for review. Set the ultrareview mode to Automatic, then configure the triggers per repository in AI review → Ultrareview. There are two independent mechanisms, and they compose:
  1. File rules — glob patterns checked against the PR’s changed files. If any file matches, the ultrareview starts. Deterministic, free to evaluate, and active whenever the mode is Automatic and the list is non-empty — remove all patterns to turn them off.
  2. A risk policy — cubic reads the PR’s diffs and decides whether it warrants an ultrareview.

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Risk policies

  • Off (default): cubic never decides on its own to run an ultrareview. File rules still apply — they are a separate trigger.
  • High-risk PRs (recommended): cubic triggers only when a missed bug would be severe — schema changes, auth, payments, concurrency, public API contracts, cross-cutting refactors. About 15% of PRs qualify; the rest stay on the standard review. See how cubic identifies high-risk PRs.
  • Custom prompt: describe the criteria in your own words, for example “PRs touching auth, payments, or database migrations.” cubic evaluates each PR against your description. There is no fixed threshold, so the share of PRs that qualify depends on how broad your criteria are.
File rules are checked first — a glob match never costs an AI evaluation.

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How cubic identifies high-risk PRs

When a PR is opened or marked ready for review, cubic’s risk analysis answers one question: if the standard review missed a subtle bug in this PR, would the consequences be severe for core business logic, data integrity, security, billing, or production infrastructure? If the risk is above a certain threshold, cubic starts an ultrareview for that PR. Only around 15% of all our customers’ PRs are rated high risk. Your repository’s share depends on what it changes: a repository of migrations and infrastructure code sees more ultrareviews than a marketing site. Edits in these areas usually count as high risk when a missed bug in them would be severe: Touching an area is not enough on its own. A simple change inside a permission check usually stays on the standard review. You can see how cubic rates the risk of your PRs in AI review analytics.

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What to expect

  • Auto-triggers fire only when a PR is opened or marked ready for review. Pushes to an open PR get standard reviews; the ultrareview is not re-triggered per push.
  • Auto-triggered ultrareviews post a PR comment explaining why they started, so the decision is never a mystery.
  • The trigger is conservative: when cubic is unsure, the PR gets the standard review. If the evaluation fails for any reason, the standard review runs as usual.
Start with file rules for the paths you already know are sensitive (for example **/migrations/**), then add the High-risk PRs policy to catch risky changes outside those paths.

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Configure via cubic.yaml

All of this is also configurable in cubic.yaml, which overrides the UI settings per field:
auto_ultrareview_custom_prompt is only used when auto_ultrareview is custom.

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Billing

Every ultrareview — manual or auto-triggered — uses your team’s reviewed-lines allowance at 3× the standard rate. Track usage on the usage page.