PR Routing & Approval

PR Routing & Approval routes pull requests to the right reviewers and can approve low-risk changes when your criteria are met. It runs on Automations. It does not replace a full code review.

Official: PR Routing & Approval. Configure at Automations.

Policy files: exact basename APPROVAL_POLICY.md, plus optional .cursor/approval-policies/ROUTING.md.

Prerequisites

• Source control connected for the orgs / repos you care about
• Team admin access to edit the automation (non-admins can view only)
• Optional: Bugbot and/or Security Agents if you want those findings in the decision
• Security Review Context needs Security Agents on a team or enterprise plan

Learning objectives

After this page you can:

1. Turn on reviewer assignment and / or automatic approval separately
2. Drop a trusted APPROVAL_POLICY.md in the right directory
3. Know which filenames are ignored
4. See why a PR that edits its own policy will not relax review for that same PR

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What it does

The agent assigns reviewers from code ownership and commit history. It can approve when your approval criteria, risk settings, policy files, AI reviewer findings, and current review state all line up.

Two capabilities you enable independently:

Capability	Official toggle	Job
Reviewer assignment	Enable PR Routing and Requests for Review	Request reviewers
Risk-based approval	Automatically Approve PRs	Approve only after you configure criteria

Signals it can read

AI reviewer awareness

• Bugbot Review Context — Bugbot findings feed the approval decision
• Security Review Context — Security Agent findings feed the approval decision

When enabled, the agent waits for those checks to finish. If Bugbot or Security Agents report findings that need human review, PR Routing will not approve.

Security Agents require a team or enterprise plan.

Risk scoring

• Use Risk Score — classify the PR (customizable with prompting)
• Maximum Risk Threshold — highest risk the agent may approve

If the PR exceeds the threshold, it will not approve.

Policy files

APPROVAL_POLICY.md

For each changed file, the agent walks that file's directory and every ancestor looking for this exact filename:

APPROVAL_POLICY.md

Only exact basename matches are trusted. These are ignored:

• POLICY.md
• approval_policy.md
• APPROVAL_POLICY.md.bak
• team_APPROVAL_POLICY.md

The closest applicable file has the highest priority. Ancestor policies still apply unless they conflict with a more specific one.

.cursor/approval-policies/ROUTING.md

Top-level routing file. YAML list of product entries:

• product — product or area name
• boundary — semantic boundary, or a repository-relative path / glob
• policies — policy prompt pointers (paths or semantic descriptions)

If ROUTING.md is missing, directory-based APPROVAL_POLICY.md discovery still runs. Missing routing does not weaken policy discovery.

Precedence

Applicable approval policy prompts override generic approval criteria, risk thresholds, reviewer-selection guidance, custom approval instructions, and the default automated-review posture.

If policies conflict: follow the most specific. If specificity is unclear: follow the stricter instruction and avoid auto-approval.

If a PR changes an approval policy, the routing file, a routed policy file, or a reviewer-specific policy file, the agent does not use the changed content to relax review for that same PR. It uses the base-branch version when available, or requires human review.

Minimal example (shape only — write the actual rules your team needs):

# APPROVAL_POLICY.md  (docs/ only, for example)

Auto-approve typo and copy edits in this directory.
Require a human reviewer for any change that touches authentication,
billing, or dependency versions.

Setup

Open PR Routing & Approval in Automations.

1. Enable routing and / or automatic approval
2. Choose organizations and repositories
3. Configure triggers:
   • PR opened
   • PR pushed / updated
   • PR commented (comment matching a regex)
4. In Configuration, pick signals: Bugbot context, Security context, risk score, max risk
5. Optional Custom Prompt for local expectations. Policy files still win for applicable files. If empty, Cursor-managed defaults apply
6. Tools: the agent needs at least one primary action — Request Reviewers and / or Approve PR. Optional: Slack, Microsoft Teams, extra MCP
7. Save. Enable or disable later from the detail page

Triggers can be scoped to repos or orgs. Team admins can set broader team scopes.

When to use it

• Large monorepo: route by ownership so the right humans see the PR
• Low-risk docs / generated files: auto-approve only where APPROVAL_POLICY.md says so
• Combine with Bugbot + Security Agents so auto-approve waits on those findings

Keep a human review for auth, payments, and anything your policy marks as out of bounds. This product does not replace that review.

Common pitfalls

Pitfall	Do this
approval_policy.md or POLICY.md	Exact name APPROVAL_POLICY.md
Expect missing ROUTING.md to disable policies	Directory discovery still runs
Edit the policy in the same PR to loosen it	Agent uses the base-branch copy, or requires a human
Enable auto-approve with no primary action	Need Approve PR (and / or Request Reviewers)
Ignore Bugbot / Security findings	If those contexts are on and they need a human, no auto-approve
Treat it as Bugbot	Bugbot comments; this routes and maybe approves

Next steps

• Security Agents — Security Review Context
• Cookbook · Bugbot — Bugbot Review Context
• Cloud Agents — Automations run Cloud Agents
• Official: PR Routing & Approval, Automations