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A Pragmatic Guide to Code Review
Reviews should catch bugs and spread knowledge without becoming a bottleneck. Here is the bar we hold.
Code review is the highest-leverage habit a team has, and the easiest to turn into theater.
What we ask of a review
- Correctness first. Does it do what it says? Look hard at closures, off-by-ones, and error paths.
- Then clarity. Will the next person understand this in six months?
- Severity-tagged comments. "blocking" vs "nit" so the author knows what actually gates merge.
A review that only finds style nits missed the point. Read for the bug that the tests won't catch.
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