Kakao Reveals 'Intent-Based Review' Philosophy for AI Code Review Tool 'CodeBuddy'

Kakao's AI code review tool CodeBuddy is an AI colleague that assists with over 1,200 PRs generated daily. At the if(kakaoAI)2024 announcement, speaker Benedict Kang emphasized through an impression of Chef An Sung-jae that the core of code review lies in 'intent'.

Similarity Between Cooking and PR Review

Just as Chef An Sung-jae values the chef's intent over the taste and seasoning (fundamentals) of a dish, Clean Code (fundamentals) alone is insufficient in code review. CodeBuddy's philosophy is that even if a PR is written cleanly, it should be held from merging if it differs from the original intent.

Implementation of Intent-Based Review

CodeBuddy focuses on understanding PR intent beyond simple syntax checking. In the initial alpha stage, it faced limitations with a fundamentals-centric review, but based on Kakao's past experience in standardizing business processes (such as the JIRA maturity model), it set 'intent identification' as its optimization goal.

Expansion of AI Agent Roles

CodeBuddy is designed to act as a colleague across the entire development workflow, beyond just code review. This suggests that AI must evolve into an AI agent that understands developer intent and collaborates, rather than remaining a simple tool.