PR Review Using Copilot: Smarter Reviews, Faster Merges

Introduction

When developing iOS apps with Swift and SwiftUI, you want your tools to work for you. This settings.json file configures Cursor IDE and GitHub Copilot to provide the best possible developer experience for Swift projects.

Installation

You can install CodeRabbit extension directly in Cursor IDE or VS Code directly. This will help us in reviewing the code changes (both uncommitted and committed).

Authorization

We should authorize the GitHub Copilot with the Cursor IDE. It will redirect to https://github.com/login/device/confirmation

GitHub Copilot Configuration

Before GitHub Copilot Code Review, we will understand the GitHub Copilot Configuration. It should be placed under the following path

GitHub Copilot Enable

"github.copilot.enable": { "*": true, "swift": true, ... }

Copilot Configuration

Copilot Everywhere: Enables Copilot suggestions in multiple languages, including Swift, Objective-C, YAML, Markdown, and JSON.

Smart Inline Suggestions:

• "github.copilot.inlineSuggest.enable": true

• "github.copilot.editor.enableAutoCompletions": true

• "github.copilot.editor.enableCodeActions": true

This ensures Copilot assists you while typing Swift code, suggesting snippets, refactors, and even SwiftUI components.

"swift.languageServer.enable": true,
"swift.sourcekit.enable": true,
"swift.formatting.enable": true,

swift languageServer and sourceKit

iOS File Associations

"files.associations": { "*.swift": "swift", "*.h": "objective-c", "*.storyboard": "xml", ... }

iOS file associations

This section helps Cursor understand file types in iOS projects:

• .swift → Swift.

• .storyboard, .xib, .plist → XML.

File & Search Exclusions

"files.exclude": { "**/Pods": true, "**/DerivedData": true, ... }
"search.exclude": { "**/Pods": true, "**/DerivedData": true, ... }

File Exclusion

This hides build artifacts and dependency folders from search and explorer such as Pods, carthage, .swiftpm

Git, Terminal, and Extensions

"git.ignoreLimitWarning": true,
"terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.osx": "zsh",
"extensions.recommendations": ["GitHub.copilot", "swift.sourcekit-lsp", ...]

Git Terminal

SwiftUI Snippets

"swift_snippets": { "SwiftUI View": { ... }, "ObservableObject": { ... } }

SwiftUI Snippet

Copilot Commands

"copilot_prompts": { "context_setup": [ ... ], "swiftui_patterns": [ ... ], ... }

Copilot Prompts

Detailed Copilot Prompts

"copilot_prompts": {
    "description": "Effective prompts for GitHub Copilot in iOS development",

    "context_setup": [
      "// iOS App using SwiftUI and Swift 5.9+",
      "// Target: iOS 15.0+",
      "// Architecture: MVVM with Combine",
      "// Dependencies: None/SPM packages"
    ],

    "swiftui_patterns": [
      "// SwiftUI best practices:",
      "// - Use @State for local view state",
      "// - Use @StateObject for view models",
      "// - Use @ObservedObject for passed objects",
      "// - Use @EnvironmentObject for shared state"
    ],

    "async_patterns": [
      "// Modern Swift concurrency:",
      "// - Use async/await for networking",
      "// - Use Task for background work",
      "// - Use @MainActor for UI updates"
    ]
  }

GitHub Copilot Prompts

Cursor Feature alongside GitHub Copilot

We should give a try the Cursor Tab Completion feature:

Prompts using GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot uses the LLM models to generate the response. For this, we should provide a meaningful prompts so that this will help to provide accurate results.

You can take a quick animated view of settings.json - configuration file for GitHub Copilot.

I think we can explore GitHub Copilot by prompting “Use Task for background work”

Amazing!

We are able to get the accurate results using GitHub Copilot.

Code Review - GitHub Copilot in Cursor IDE

We can review the code using GitHub Copilot before pushing the code to the branch or creating a Pull Request.

Let’s review what are the code changes we made:

Once reviewed, select Generate commit message using GitHub Copilot

This will help us to understand how to have a meaningful commit message.

Click Copilot Code Review Icon available in Source Control

Animated Version:

Improper Usage - Force Unwrapping - Runtime issues

Hurray! we got the Code review from GitHub Copilot

GitHub Pull Request

I think it’s right time to create a Pull Request in GitHub.com. Assigning the GitHub Copilot as Code Reviewers. Copilot really assists developers in terms of code review.

This enables Copilot can review our code in this PR.

PR Summary

Pull Request is a crucial skill while working with a group of people as a team. Writing a meaningful Pull Request is still a challenge for many developers.

Let’s understand how GitHub Copilot generates PR Summary

Woohoo!
Click Create Pull Request.

Code Review Examples

Let’s talk about something that happens after Pull Request.

Final Thoughts

GitHub Copilot is your AI-powered coding companion—a pair programmer that accelerates development, presents new ideas, and helps you stay focused on what matters most: building great apps.

It’s about writing code smarter.

GitHub Copilot becomes more than an autocomplete tool—it becomes an essential part of your developer toolkit. Type that first character, and let Copilot do the rest.

It’s not just generate code but also review your code.

---