I Replaced My $20K/Year Senior Dev With a Local LLM (For Code Review)

I Replaced My $20K/Year Senior Dev With a Local LLM (For Code Review)

Let me be clear upfront: I didn't fire anyone.

But I did automate the task that consumed 40% of my senior engineer's time—code review.

Before: Every PR sat in the queue for 24-48 hours waiting for human review. Reviewers were burned out. Developers were frustrated. We shipped slower than we should.

After: Every PR gets an AI review within 2 minutes of opening. Human reviewers now focus on architecture and edge cases, not obvious bugs. We ship 3x faster.

Total cost: $600 one-time (GPU) + $49/month (Clawctl).

Here's exactly how I set it up.

The Economics

Before (Human-Only Review):

• Senior developer salary: $180K/year
• Time spent on code review: ~40%
• Effective cost for code review: $72K/year
• Average review turnaround: 24-48 hours

After (AI + Human):

• GPU (RTX 3090 used): $600
• Clawctl: $49/month ($588/year)
• Year 1 total: $1,188
• Average review turnaround: 2 minutes
• Human review time reduced: 70%

The AI handles the mechanical stuff—style violations, obvious bugs, missing tests, security issues. Humans handle the judgment calls.

ROI: 60x in the first year.

The Architecture

GitHub Webhook → OpenClaw Agent → Local LLM (Ollama) → PR Comment

Everything runs on-premise. Your code never leaves your network.

Step 1: Set Up Ollama

Install Ollama:

curl -fsSL https://ollama.ai/install.sh | sh

Pull a code-capable model:

ollama pull llama3.1:70b  # Best quality, needs 48GB VRAM
ollama pull codellama:34b  # Good balance, needs 20GB VRAM
ollama pull llama3.1:8b    # Fastest, needs 8GB VRAM

Step 2: Configure OpenClaw

Tell OpenClaw where your LLM lives:

llm:
  name: local-llama
  type: openai-compatible
  base_url: http://localhost:11434/v1
  model: llama3.1:70b
  timeout_ms: 120000

Ollama exposes an OpenAI-compatible API, so OpenClaw works out of the box.

Step 3: Create the Code Review Agent

name: code-reviewer
description: Reviews pull requests for bugs, style, and security

triggers:
  - event: github.pull_request.opened
  - event: github.pull_request.synchronize

tools:
  - name: github_comment
    type: github
    action: create_comment
    requires_approval: false

  - name: github_request_changes
    type: github
    action: request_changes
    requires_approval: true

system_prompt: |
  You are a senior code reviewer. Review the provided diff and provide:
  1. Critical Issues - Bugs, security vulnerabilities, logic errors
  2. Style Issues - Formatting, naming, best practices
  3. Suggestions - Performance improvements, cleaner approaches
  4. Missing Tests - Untested code paths
  
  Be constructive. Explain why something is an issue.

What a Real Review Looks Like

PR: Add user authentication endpoint

Critical Issues

1. SQL Injection vulnerability (line 45) Use parameterized queries instead of string formatting.

Style Issues

2. Inconsistent error handling (lines 23, 67) Some functions return None on error, others raise exceptions.

Missing Tests

3. No tests for invalid input Add tests for: empty email, malformed email, SQL injection attempts.

That review took 47 seconds. A human would have caught the SQL injection—eventually. The AI caught it instantly.

Results After 3 Months

• PRs reviewed: 847
• Average review time: 1m 42s
• Critical bugs caught: 23
• Security issues caught: 8
• Human review time reduced: 68%
• API costs: $0 (local LLM)

Hardware Requirements

Security: Why Local Matters

When you send code to Claude or GPT-4, it goes to their servers. With a local LLM:

• Code never leaves your network
• No API rate limits
• No per-token costs
• Full audit trail
• Compliance-friendly

If you're in fintech, healthcare, or defense—this matters.

The Clawctl Advantage

Running Ollama raw works. But Clawctl adds:

• Audit logs — Every review recorded
• Approval workflow — Human sign-off for change requests
• Egress control — Agent can only post to GitHub
• Webhook security — Signature verification built-in

Ready to automate your code review?

Deploy your code review agent →