Code Review

Overview

Find the defects that would hurt users or the team after merge, prove each with a concrete failing scenario, and keep everything else short. A review with three real bugs is worth more than thirty style notes.

Method

1. Get the change.
   • Branch: git diff <base>...HEAD (base = main unless told otherwise) and git log <base>..HEAD --oneline.
   • Staged: git diff --cached. Pull request: gh pr diff <number>.
2. Understand intent from commit messages, PR description, and tests in the diff.
3. Read beyond the hunk. Open each changed function in full and its callers. Most bugs live where the change meets unchanged code.
4. Hunt with the checklist, category by category: checklist.md.
5. Verify each candidate. Name the exact input or sequence that breaks it. If you cannot, drop it or mark it as a question.
6. Report using the contract below.

Output contract

First line: a verdict — Approve, Approve with nits, or Request changes — and the count of findings by severity.

Then each finding, most severe first:

### [Blocker | Major | Minor] Title
- Location: path/file.ext:line
- What breaks: the concrete input, state or sequence, and the wrong result
- Fix: the change, as a short code snippet when useful

Then, optionally, Nits as one-line bullets (maximum five). Then Questions for things that depend on intent.

If you find no defects, say No defects found and list what you checked. Do not invent findings to fill the review.

Severity

A change that removes an existing guard (null check, validation, auth check, await) is at least Major: the old code proves that case happens.

Common mistakes

• Reviewing only the green lines and missing that a caller now passes null.
• Burying one real bug under twenty formatting comments. Formatting belongs to linters.
• Flagging intentional behavior as a bug instead of asking.
• Saying "consider adding tests" without naming the case that is untested.
• Approving without reading changed tests: a weakened assertion is a defect.

Made by Wageesha Tripathi · LinkedIn · Email · More skills