The Best Way to Make an Ultimate Code Review Guideline

A code review is a process where someone other than the Author evaluates a piece of code for errors(s). In this post, we are going to talk about below topics

1. Advantages of code review
2. Setting up a review process

Advantages of code review

• Promote collaboration.
• Knowledge sharing.
• Improve code security and quality.
• Bringing together development methods.
• Helping reduce bugs and logic errors.
• Offering training opportunities.

Setting up a review process

The review process usually involves the Author and the Reviewer. There should be four stages to creating a code review policy.

1. Guideline for Setting up a coding standard.
2. Guideline for Author.
3. Guideline for Reviewer.
4. Setting up Automated Code Review

Let's dig into it a bit further.

Guideline for Setting up a coding standard

Developers must follow a set of guidelines known as a project style guide while writing code. Which helps assist a team in the following ways.

• A piece of code is understandable by all team members.
• Onboarding a team member becomes super easy. Google maintains a comprehensive library of coding standards for all languages.

Guideline for Author

Developer's guidelines help them create pull requests, making it simpler to get their code examined quickly and with better results. A few of the things should include.

• How to write good pull request descriptions.
• The ideal size of code in a pull request.
• How to handle a rejected pull request.

Guideline for Reviewer

Reviewer's guidelines ought to make it possible for them to carry out evaluations quickly and effectively, together with their expertise. A few of the things should include.

• Code review standards.
• Observational items to check off the list.
• A high-level approach.
• Speed
• How to give feedback
• Handling the developer's response

Setting up Automated Code Review

The ideal outcome of a code review process is to increase efficiency. Outside of code review, reviewers have many tasks, so making the most of their time is critical. Automating code review enables the early detection of formatting and security issues. An effective code review tool allows the reviewer to focus purely on the code. There are several code-reviewing services available on the market. Manual code reviews should come after automated code reviews.