Code Review Skill

Overview

This skill provides a structured approach to code review: what to check, how to communicate feedback, and how to receive it. Activate it when reviewing a PR, preparing your own code for review, or establishing review norms for a team.

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Instructions

Reviewer Checklist

Correctness

• Does the code do what the PR description says?
• Are edge cases handled (empty input, null, overflow, concurrent access)?
• Are error paths handled and errors propagated correctly?
• Are there any obvious logic bugs or off-by-one errors?

Design

• Is the change the right approach, or is there a simpler solution?
• Does it follow existing patterns in the codebase?
• Is the scope appropriate — does it do one thing?
• Are new abstractions justified, or is this over-engineering?

Readability

• Are names clear and intention-revealing?
• Is complex logic explained with comments (the why, not the what)?
• Is the code easy to follow without needing to trace through many files?

Tests

• Are new behaviors covered by tests?
• Do tests test behavior, not implementation details?
• Are failure cases tested, not just the happy path?

Security

• Is user input validated and sanitized?
• Are secrets/credentials handled safely (not logged, not hardcoded)?
• Are permissions/authorization checks in place?

Performance

• Are there any obvious N+1 queries or unnecessary allocations in hot paths?
• Is caching used appropriately?

Giving Feedback

Be specific: Point to the exact line and explain the concern.

Distinguish severity:

• nit: — minor style preference, take it or leave it
• suggestion: — improvement worth considering
• question: — genuinely unclear, needs explanation
• issue: — must be addressed before merge
• blocker: — serious correctness or security problem

Be constructive: Suggest an alternative, don't just say "this is wrong."

Praise good work: Acknowledge clever solutions or clean refactors.

Receiving Feedback

• Don't take it personally — the review is about the code, not you
• Ask for clarification if a comment is unclear
• Respond to every comment (resolve, fix, or explain why you disagree)
• If you disagree, explain your reasoning — the reviewer may have missed context

PR Size Guidelines

• Ideal: < 400 lines changed
• Acceptable: 400–800 lines (with good description)
• Needs splitting: > 800 lines — break into smaller PRs

Large PRs get shallow reviews. Smaller PRs get better feedback faster.

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Examples

Good feedback comment

issue: This function panics on empty input (line 42). The `unwrap()` on
`items.first()` will crash if the slice is empty. Consider returning
`Option<T>` or checking `items.is_empty()` first.

Bad feedback comment → fix it

# Bad
This is wrong.
Why did you do it this way?

# Good
suggestion: Using a HashMap here would reduce lookup from O(n) to O(1).
Since this runs on every request, it may be worth the extra memory.

PR description template

## What
Brief description of the change.

## Why
The problem this solves or the feature this adds.

## How
Key implementation decisions and trade-offs.

## Testing
How you verified this works.

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References

• Google Engineering Practices: Code Review
• Conventional Comments