All topics / Code Review Etiquette

Code Review Etiquette

How to give and receive code review feedback without damaging the relationship: tone, phrasing, picking your battles, handling criticism without getting defensive, and the unwritten norms nobody explains.

Download EPUB
  1. Reviewing Someone Else's Code Without Being a Jerk Text reads harsher than you mean it. Phrase feedback as questions or observations instead of commands, and learn to tell a style nitpick apart from a real bug and an architecture concern.
  2. Receiving Feedback Without Getting Defensive A comment on your PR isn't a comment on your competence. Learn the difference between healthy pushback and defensiveness, and what to do when you genuinely think the reviewer is wrong.
  3. The Etiquette Nobody Tells You Unwritten code review norms: reasonable response times, the real difference between approving with comments and blocking, and what LGTM culture gets wrong about actually reading the diff.