Code Review Tips for Engineers working in teams

Tips for requesting a code review

• Keep the review small, and related to one bug fix or one piece of functionality.
• Provide an overview of any technical design decisions.
• Provide a link to the ticket for reference to the requirements, visual designs, and documentation.
• Re-read the requirements and ensure that all requirements are met before submitting them for review.
• Be sure new and existing tests pass - unit testing, automation and manual testing.
• Run linting checks and fix errors and warnings if they are not automated.
• Assign your pull request to a reviewer, or tell your team.
• Update your ticket status if needed.
• Be prepared to talk about the work.

Tips for reviewing code

• It is not QA, but depending on the changes, check out the branch, build the project, run the tests, and use the feature. Hopefully, some of this is automated.
• Check requirements and designs, and review the front end, does the front end code render? Again, hopefully, automated tests build this confidence.
• If there are bugs, record them in a comment.
• Look for the most important improvements to code design.
• Look for major diversions from coding standards.
• Test code is as important as functional code, so review the test code.
• If you have a lot of comments to make on this code review, choose the most important comments only.

Tips for writing the code review

• Remember to praise good this, particularly if the engineer is junior.
• Be polite, and use manners.
• Refer directly to coding guidelines docs for code style/standards.
• Refer to the code, not the author.
• Treat people with respect.
• Remember there is more than one approach to a solution.
• Remember there is collective ownership of code in a team.