Thread Conversation Agent

When a developer replies to a Baloo inline review comment, a lightweight agent reads the conversation and responds appropriately — explaining, suggesting fixes, or conceding when the developer's reasoning is valid.

How It Works

1. Developer replies to a Baloo inline comment on a PR
2. Baloo classifies the response: acknowledged, disagreed, question, or unclear
3. Based on classification, Baloo may reply once (explain, concede, or answer)
4. If Baloo concedes, a feedback signal is saved for the repo

Feedback Signals

When Baloo concedes that a flagged pattern is intentional, it stores this as a feedback signal. In future reviews, these signals are injected into the review prompt so Baloo avoids re-flagging the same patterns.

Signals are: - Per-repo — one developer's feedback benefits all future reviews - Category-scoped — e.g., "Silent Failures in retry code" - Optionally file-scoped — can target specific directories - Time-limited — signals expire 180 days after they are created (FEEDBACK_SIGNALS_TTL_DAYS), whether or not they were used

Escalation Cap

Baloo replies at most twice per thread (original finding + 2 replies = 3 total Baloo messages). After that, the thread is left for human review.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
THREAD_AGENT_ENABLED	false	Enable the thread conversation agent
THREAD_AGENT_MODEL	haiku	Model for thread replies
THREAD_AGENT_MAX_REPLIES	3	Max Baloo messages per thread before escalation
THREAD_AGENT_MAX_CONCURRENT	3	Max parallel thread agent calls
FEEDBACK_SIGNALS_ENABLED	true	Write and read feedback signals (requires DATABASE_ENABLED)
FEEDBACK_SIGNALS_TTL_DAYS	180	Days after creation before a signal expires

Cost

Thread agent uses a cheap model (Haiku/Flash). Typical cost: ~$0.001 per thread reply.