ThinkReview Goes Open Source: Accelerating AI Code Review Innovation Together
ThinkReview Goes Open Source: Accelerating AI Code Review Innovation Together
Today marks a significant milestone in ThinkReview's journey. After months of development and serving 128+ developers with a 5.0★ rating, we're excited to announce that ThinkReview is now open source!
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🎉 A New Chapter Begins
We're thrilled to announce that ThinkReview is now open source! The source code for our AI-powered code review browser extension for GitLab and Azure DevOps is now available under the AGPL-3.0 license.
This isn't just about publishing code—it's about inviting the developer community to join us in making code reviews better for everyone.
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📊 What We've Built So Far
Since launching on the Chrome Web Store, ThinkReview has achieved:
- ⭐ 5.0/5 rating - Validated by real users
- 🏆 Featured by Chrome Web Store - Recognized for quality
- ✅ Good publisher record - Trusted by Chrome
- 📜 Follows recommended practices - Built with best standards
But numbers only tell part of the story. What matters most is that developers are using ThinkReview daily to:
- Review GitLab merge requests with AI insights
- Analyze Azure DevOps pull requests instantly
- Catch security vulnerabilities early
- Get code quality suggestions powered by frontier models
- Review code in multiple languages
- Save time with zero-setup AI reviews
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🚀 Why We're Going Open Source
Transparency
We believe developers should know exactly how tools they use work. Open sourcing ThinkReview allows anyone to:
- Verify our security practices
- Understand data handling
- Review code quality
- Audit privacy implementations
Your code reviews deserve transparent tools.
Trust
Open source code builds confidence. When you can see exactly what a tool does, you can trust it more. This is especially important for code review tools that analyze your intellectual property.
Collaboration
The best ideas come from diverse perspectives. By open sourcing ThinkReview, we're inviting developers worldwide to:
- Suggest improvements
- Report bugs
- Contribute features
- Share expertise
- Help make code reviews better for everyone
Innovation
Open source accelerates innovation. When developers can extend and customize tools for their specific needs, everyone benefits from the improvements and learnings shared back to the community.
Education
We want ThinkReview to be a learning resource. The codebase demonstrates:
- Building Manifest V3 Chrome extensions
- Integrating with GitLab and Azure DevOps APIs
- Implementing OAuth authentication
- Creating seamless UI integrations
- Working with AI APIs (frontier models)
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🛠️ What's Open Source
We're open sourcing the complete browser extension frontend, including:
- ✅ Full extension source code (Manifest V3)
- ✅ UI components and integrations
- ✅ GitLab & Azure DevOps API integrations
- ✅ OAuth authentication flows
- ✅ Complete documentation
- ✅ Contribution guidelines
- ✅ Version history (v1.0.0 - v1.3.8)
What Remains Proprietary
To maintain our competitive advantage and sustainability, our backend infrastructure remains proprietary:
- AI model integration and optimization
- Code review processing pipeline
- User management and subscriptions
- Hosted backend services
The extension requires our backend to function, providing natural protection while allowing complete transparency of the client-side code.
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📜 Why AGPL-3.0?
We chose the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0) for specific strategic reasons:
Copyleft Protection
AGPL-3.0 ensures that any modifications to ThinkReview must also be open sourced. This prevents competitors from taking our code and creating proprietary forks.
Network Protection
The "Affero" clause is crucial—if someone hosts ThinkReview as a service, they must make their modifications available. This protects against "SaaS loopholes" in traditional GPL licenses.
Commercial Flexibility
We can still offer commercial licenses for companies that want to fork ThinkReview for internal use with proprietary modifications. This supports our business model while keeping the main project open.
Community Contribution
Contributors can trust that their work will always remain open source and won't be relicensed to proprietary later.
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🌟 Repository Highlights
Production-Ready Code
This isn't a proof-of-concept or experimental project. You're getting:
- Battle-tested code used by 128+ developers
- Production-grade quality with a 5.0★ rating
- Active maintenance with regular updates
- Comprehensive documentation built over months
Clean Architecture
The repository includes:
- Well-organized structure - Easy to navigate and understand
- Modular components - Clean separation of concerns
- Documented architecture - Design decisions explained
- Testing guidelines - Quality assurance practices
Complete History
We're not hiding our development journey. The repository includes:
- Release notes documenting changes from v1.0.0 to v1.3.8
- Clear commit messages explaining changes
- Migration guides for major updates
- Evolution documentation showing how we got here
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🤝 How You Can Contribute
We welcome contributions of all types and sizes!
Code Contributions
- Bug fixes - Help us squash issues
- Feature additions - Extend functionality
- Performance improvements - Make it faster
- UI enhancements - Improve user experience
- Code refactoring - Enhance maintainability
Non-Code Contributions
- Documentation - Improve guides and examples
- Bug reports - Identify issues with detailed reports
- Feature requests - Suggest improvements
- Testing - Verify functionality across platforms
- Translations - Help us support more languages
Getting Started
1. ⭐ Star the repository - github.com/Thinkode/thinkreview-browser-extension
2. 🔍 Explore the code - Clone and examine the architecture
3. 💬 Join discussions - Share ideas and ask questions
4. 🐛 Report bugs - Help us improve quality
5. 🔧 Submit PRs - Contribute improvements
Read our Contributing Guide to learn more.
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🎯 What This Means for Users
For Current Users
Nothing changes! Your ThinkReview extension continues working exactly as before:
- ✅ Same powerful AI reviews
- ✅ Same zero-setup experience
- ✅ Same great support
- ✅ Same regular updates
- ✅ Plus: Full code transparency
For New Users
You now get additional benefits:
- ✅ Verify security - Audit the code yourself
- ✅ Understand privacy - See exactly what we do
- ✅ Customize locally - Modify for your needs
- ✅ Learn from code - Study production-quality extension
- ✅ Contribute improvements - Help shape the future
For Enterprise Teams
Open source provides:
- ✅ Code auditing - Verify compliance requirements
- ✅ Security review - Audit before deployment
- ✅ Customization options - Adapt to your workflow
- ✅ Commercial licensing - Available for proprietary modifications
- ✅ Long-term confidence - Code won't disappear
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🔮 Looking Forward
This is just the beginning. Going open source opens up exciting possibilities:
Community-Driven Features
We're looking forward to community input on:
- Additional platform support (GitHub, Bitbucket?)
- More AI model integrations
- Enhanced customization options
- Advanced filtering and configuration
- Plugin/extension architecture
Transparency First
We're committed to:
- Regular updates and communication
- Responsive issue management
- Thoughtful PR reviews
- Open roadmap discussions
- Community involvement in decisions
Sustainable Growth
We're balancing:
- Open source values - Transparency and collaboration
- Business sustainability - Continued development and support
- Community needs - Responding to feedback
- Innovation - Pushing boundaries
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💡 Technical Deep Dive
For the developers who love technical details, here's what you'll find in the repository:
Architecture Highlights
- Manifest V3 - Modern Chrome extension architecture
- Modular design - Clean component separation
- Event-driven - Efficient background service worker
- OAuth 2.0 - Secure authentication flow
- RESTful integration - Clean API interactions
- Optimized media - Only 4.9MB (down from 29MB)
Tech Stack
- Vanilla JavaScript - No framework bloat
- Chrome Extensions API - Native platform integration
- Frontier AI Models - Powerful language models
- GitLab API - Seamless MR integration
- Azure DevOps API - Native PR support
- HTTPS - All communications encrypted
Code Quality
- ESLint configured - Consistent code style
- Validation scripts - Automated checking
- Error handling - Graceful failure management
- Performance optimized - Fast and responsive
- Security focused - Best practices throughout
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🙏 Thank You
This milestone wouldn't be possible without:
Our Users
Thank you for trusting ThinkReview, providing feedback, and helping us improve. Your 5.0★ rating and continued support made this possible.
Early Adopters
Thank you to the 128+ developers who believed in us early. Your feedback shaped every feature and improvement.
The Community
Thank you to the open source community for inspiring us with transparency, collaboration, and innovation.
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🎯 Call to Action
Ready to dive in?
1. Check Out the Code
Visit our GitHub repository and explore:
👉 github.com/Thinkode/thinkreview-browser-extension
2. Try ThinkReview
If you haven't already, install ThinkReview and experience AI-powered code reviews:
👉 Install from Chrome Web Store
3. Join the Conversation
Have questions? Ideas? Feedback?
- 💬 GitHub Discussions
- 📧 Contact us
- 🌐 Visit our website
4. Star and Share
Help us spread the word:
- ⭐ Star the repository
- 🔄 Share with your team
- 📣 Tweet about it
- 💬 Tell fellow developers
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🚀 The Journey Continues
Open sourcing ThinkReview isn't the end of a chapter—it's the beginning of a new one. We're excited to see what the community will build, suggest, and improve.
Together, we can make code reviews:
- ✅ More accessible
- ✅ More transparent
- ✅ More powerful
- ✅ More collaborative
- ✅ Better for everyone
Thank you for being part of this journey.
Let's build the future of code reviews together! 🎉
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📚 Resources
- GitHub Repository: github.com/Thinkode/thinkreview-browser-extension
- Chrome Web Store: Install ThinkReview
- Website: thinkreview.dev
- Contributing Guide: How to Contribute
- Code of Conduct: Community Guidelines
- License: AGPL-3.0
- Contact: thinkreview.dev/contact
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Built with ❤️ by the Thinkode team. Powered by frontier models.