[Chore] Turn CodeRabbit automatic review off and request it by comment

[juanmaguitar]

Why

The WordPress organisation's CodeRabbit trial ended on 2026-09-11 (confirmed by the org admin on Slack). The free open-source plan includes about one review per hour for the whole organisation, on a rolling window: today it reset after 3, 10, 19, 57, 30 and 10 minutes on consecutive PRs. With automatic review on, every PR marked ready spends that slot at a moment nobody controls, and a PR that hits the limit is lost: CodeRabbit marks the commit as reviewed and refuses a later @coderabbitai review ("does not re-review already reviewed commits. This command is applicable only when automatic reviews are paused"). Of the last twelve PRs, ten got "Review limit reached" instead of a review.

What changes

auto_review.enabled: false in .coderabbit.yaml. The author asks for a review with @coderabbitai review once their own pass is done and the head commit is the one to review; if it is rate limited, they wait the stated time and ask once more, and if that is refused too they record the review as not run. A refused manual request does not burn the commit, so it can be repeated.

drafts and base_branches go with it: they only govern the automatic trigger. No path or title filters: with a manual trigger the author decides which PRs get the slot. .github/instructions/code-review.instructions.md, AGENTS.md and CONTRIBUTING.md said CodeRabbit reviews every non-draft PR; they now say how to request one.

How to test this

Platforms: any. Config and docs only.

Starting state: this PR, open and non-draft.

1. Check the PR's checks and comments on open: no CodeRabbit check and no walkthrough appear. Before this change a "CodeRabbit" check and a walkthrough or "Review limit reached" comment appeared within a minute of marking ready.
2. Comment @coderabbitai review. Expected: either a review starts ("Review in progress") or the bot answers "Review rate limited" with a wait time, without the "already reviewed commits" note.
3. grep -rn "every non-draft" --include='*.md' . from the repository root: the only hits are in TESTING.md and AGENTS.md about the journeys workflow, none about CodeRabbit.

What must not have happened: no other key in .coderabbit.yaml changed (git diff trunk -- .coderabbit.yaml shows only the header comment and the auto_review block).

Risks and limitations

The slot is shared with every other repository in the WordPress organisation that installs CodeRabbit, so a manual request can still be refused. Nothing in this repository can change that; the docs say what to do when it happens. Whether a manual request on a PR that was never auto-reviewed behaves as the docs say is verified on this PR itself, see the review outcome below.

Related

Follow-up to #400.

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Design decisions and alternatives considered

Keep automatic review and filter by PR title or label (ignore_title_keywords, labels): rejected. It still spends the slot at an uncontrolled moment, and a code PR that hits the limit is still lost. Ask the bot first with @coderabbitai rate limit: rejected, on #441 it answered "Reviews are available now" and a review seven minutes later was refused.

Review outcome (required — see AGENTS.md)

• Review: not run — CodeRabbit; head 982be40 / base d7319be; on open it posted "Review skipped: automatic reviews are disabled" (the config change works), the one @coderabbitai review request answered "Review limit reached, next in 49 minutes" without the "already reviewed commits" note, and the PR was merged before the window rather than spending the slot on a config-and-docs change. Author's pass: config and docs only, lint and both CI suites green.
• Since review: none

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_018WiWyxXHdciZLQ8Q1hubdv

[coderabbitai]

Important

Review skipped

Auto reviews are disabled on this repository. Please check the settings in the CodeRabbit UI or the .coderabbit.yaml file in this repository. To trigger a single review, invoke the @coderabbitai review command.

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Advanced

Run ID: 5ab6d8b9-b651-4035-8746-7ebd4d09b533

You can disable this status message by setting the reviews.review_status to false in the CodeRabbit configuration file.

Use the checkbox below for a quick retry:

• 🔍 Trigger review

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_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.}

[juanmaguitar]

@coderabbitai review

[coderabbitai]

⚠️ Action not completed

Review rate limited.

Note: CodeRabbit is an incremental review system and does not re-review already reviewed commits. This command is applicable only when automatic reviews are paused.