Title: Default behavior of the Bot
Author: WordPress VIP Documentation
Published: August 2, 2021
Last modified: December 31, 2025

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 1. [VIP Code Analysis Bot](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-code-analysis-bot/)
 2. Default behavior of the Bot

#  Default behavior of the Bot

The VIP Code Analysis Bot analyzes and reviews pull requests that are created in
WordPress application repositories that exist within the [WordPress VIP GitHub organization](https://github.com/wpcomvip/).
The Bot has [the GitHub username “wpcomvip-vipgoci-bot”](https://github.com/wpcomvip-vipgoci-bot)
and [adds comments to pull requests](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-code-analysis-bot/feedback/)
to leave feedback. This feedback aims to highlight potential issues before they 
impact sites, and to assist software professionals with improving submitted code.

The Bot performs analysis using different utilities:

 * [PHPCS analysis](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-code-analysis-bot/phpcs-analysis/)
 * [PHP linting](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-code-analysis-bot/php-linting/)
 * [SVG analysis](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-code-analysis-bot/svg-analysis/)

To trigger the VIP Code Analysis Bot to analyze a pull request, create a pull request
in a WordPress application repository that belongs to the wpcomvipGitHub organization.
A [build status](https://docs.wpvip.com/vip-code-analysis-bot/build-status/) appears
when the Bot’s analysis has begun. The build status will update when the analysis
is complete, which usually requires several minutes.

**Note**

The pull request must remain open during the analysis process. If a pull request
is merged or closed before the process is complete, the VIP Code Analysis Bot will
fail to provide feedback.

As more commits are added to the pull request, the Bot will analyze the code again,
flagging any new issues it sees. The Bot will avoid re-posting any previously made
feedback. 

If no issues are found in the code of a pull request, the Bot will not post any 
reviews or comments. Instead, the build state will be “success”, and the build description
displayed will be “No significant issues found”.

![](https://docs.wpvip.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/10/vipgoci-github-build-
status-success.png?w=1024)

Screenshot of a successful build returning the build description “No significant
issues found”

## Limitations

 * **Code or objects committed directly to deploy branches, such as `production`
   or `develop`, will not be analyzed by the Bot.** Committing directly to deploy
   branches is strongly discouraged to prevent potential impacts on stability and
   security on sites. Instead, VIP recommends [submitting code via pull requests](https://docs.wpvip.com/development-workflow/github-pr-reviews/)
   for analysis by the Bot for any branches which lead to deployment on sites, whether
   production, testing, or development. Only after evaluation (and possible improvement)
   should pull requests be merged into the relevant branch.
 * By default, the VIP Code Analysis Bot will not analyze [pull requests that are initiated from the VIP Dashboard Plugins panel](https://docs.wpvip.com/codebase-manager/plugins-panel/).
   This configuration is designed to enable plugin updates to be made as quickly
   and simply as possible.
 * The pull request must remain open during the analysis process. The VIP Code Analysis
   Bot will fail to provide feedback if a pull request is merged or closed before
   the analysis process is complete.
 * The pull request must contain at least 1 commit made within the last 7 days to
   trigger the Bot for analysis. Any new commit made to the branch (e.g. an update
   to `README.md`) will trigger the Bot to analyze the pull request.
 * [Required status checks](https://docs.wpvip.com/required-status-checks/) are 
   optional and can be enabled in branch protection rules to enforce a successful
   check from the Bot before pull requests can be merged.
 * Adding the Bot as a reviewer for a pull request is unnecessary and has no influence
   on the behavior of the Bot.

Last updated: December 31, 2025