Code Review Skill

This skill helps you perform thorough, consistent code reviews following industry best practices and your team's coding standards.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

•Review pull requests or merge requests
•Check code quality and identify potential issues
•Ensure compliance with coding standards
•Provide constructive feedback to developers
•Identify security vulnerabilities or performance issues

Review Process

1. Initial Assessment

Before diving into details, understand the context:

•Read the PR description and linked issues
•Understand the purpose and scope of changes
•Check if tests are included

2. Code Quality Checks

Review the code using the checklist:

•Correctness: Does the code do what it's supposed to do?
•Readability: Is the code easy to understand?
•Maintainability: Will this be easy to modify in the future?
•Performance: Are there any obvious performance issues?
•Security: Are there any security vulnerabilities?

3. Run Automated Checks

Use the provided scripts to automate common checks:

bash

# Run the review helper script
./scripts/review-helper.sh <path-to-file>

4. Provide Feedback

Follow the feedback guidelines for constructive comments:

•Be specific and actionable
•Explain the "why" behind suggestions
•Distinguish between required changes and suggestions
•Acknowledge good practices

Common Patterns to Watch For

Security Issues

•Hardcoded credentials or secrets
•SQL injection vulnerabilities
•Cross-site scripting (XSS) risks
•Insecure deserialization
•Missing input validation

Performance Issues

•N+1 query problems
•Unnecessary loops or iterations
•Missing caching opportunities
•Large memory allocations
•Blocking operations in async code

Code Smells

•Functions that are too long (>50 lines)
•Too many parameters (>4)
•Deep nesting (>3 levels)
•Duplicated code
•Magic numbers or strings

Templates

Use the comment templates for consistent feedback:

•[REQUIRED] - Must be fixed before merge
•[SUGGESTION] - Nice to have, not blocking
•[QUESTION] - Seeking clarification
•[PRAISE] - Acknowledging good work

Example Review Comments

Good Example

code

[SUGGESTION] Consider extracting this logic into a separate function 
for better testability. The current implementation mixes data fetching 
with business logic, making it harder to unit test.

Bad Example