GitHub Action

The CodeLayers GitHub Action (codelayers-ai/codelayers-action@v1) automatically generates a 3D code visualization for every PR and posts a comment with the interactive share link.

Free for open source. No account required.

Quick Start (Open Source)

# .github/workflows/codelayers.yml
name: CodeLayers
on:
  pull_request:

jobs:
  visualize:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      pull-requests: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - uses: codelayers-ai/codelayers-action@v1

No API key. No sign-up. Open a PR and the action posts a comment with a link to the 3D visualization.

Private Repos

For private repositories, add an API key:

      - uses: codelayers-ai/codelayers-action@v1
        with:
          api_key: ${'$'}{{ secrets.CODELAYERS_API_KEY }}

Setup

1. Create an API key:

brew install codelayers-ai/tap/codelayers
codelayers login
codelayers api-keys create "GitHub CI"

Save the key immediately — it won't be shown again. See API Keys for details.

1. Add the secret — Go to your repo on GitHub: Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → New repository secret. Name: CODELAYERS_API_KEY.

2. Add the workflow — Create .github/workflows/codelayers.yml with the YAML above.

3. Open a PR — The action runs automatically and posts a comment with the 3D visualization link.

Requires a CodeLayers Pro subscription.

Inputs

Outputs

Use outputs in subsequent workflow steps:

Using Outputs

- uses: codelayers-ai/codelayers-action@v1
  id: codelayers
  with:
    api_key: ${'$'}{{ secrets.CODELAYERS_API_KEY }}
    comment: false  # disable auto-comment

- name: Custom step
  run: |
    echo "Share: ${'$'}{{ steps.codelayers.outputs.share_url }}"
    echo "Changed: ${'$'}{{ steps.codelayers.outputs.changed_file_count }}"
    echo "Blast radius: ${'$'}{{ steps.codelayers.outputs.blast_radius_count }}"

What Gets Posted

The action posts (or updates) a PR comment like this:

## CodeLayers — PR Visualization

> **12 files changed** · **47 files affected** by blast radius
> across **582 files** · **45,230 LOC** · Rust (312) · TypeScript (156) · Swift (89)

### Open 3D Visualization →

Expires in 7 days · Updated Feb 11, 2026 19:42 UTC · Generated by CodeLayers Action

The comment is idempotent — pushing new commits to the PR updates the existing comment rather than creating a new one.

How It Works Under the Hood

1. Checks out your code in the GitHub Action runner
2. Runs codelayers share with --base origin/<pr-base> and --head HEAD
3. Tree-sitter parses the entire codebase (11 languages)
4. Builds the dependency graph with metrics
5. Computes git diff between base and head:
   • Identifies changed files
   • Computes per-file lines added/deleted
   • Annotates graph nodes with diff metadata
   • Computes blast radius (BFS through reverse import edges)
6. Encrypts everything with a random AES-256 key
7. Uploads encrypted blob (server never sees your code)
8. Posts PR comment with the link (key is in the URL fragment)

Important: fetch-depth: 0

The actions/checkout step must use fetch-depth: 0 (full clone) so the CLI can compute the diff between base and head branches. Without full history, the diff computation will fail.

Monorepo Support

The action works with monorepos — it parses the entire repository and highlights only the files changed in the PR. The blast radius shows how changes ripple through the dependency graph across the whole repo.