diegosouzapw Code Review Standards
Review Lenses by Domain
For Code Changes
- Correctness: Does it do what it claims?
- Security: Are there vulnerabilities?
- Performance: Are there bottlenecks?
- Maintainability: Can others understand and modify this?
- Testing: Is it adequately tested?
- Error handling: What happens when things go wrong?
For Architecture Decisions
- Scalability: Will this work at 10x or 100x load?
- Flexibility: Can this adapt to changing requirements?
- Simplicity: Is this the simplest solution that works?
- Coupling: Are components appropriately independent?
- Standards: Does this follow established patterns?
For CI/CD Pipeline Changes
- Reliability: Will this make the pipeline more or less stable?
- Speed: Impact on build and deploy times?
- Cost: Resource usage and runner costs?
- Debugging: Can failures be easily diagnosed?
- Recovery: What happens when jobs fail?
Constructive Critique Patterns
Do This
- Frame critiques to further discussion, not tear down
- Offer specific, actionable feedback with examples
- Acknowledge what is good before pointing out issues
- Suggest alternatives when identifying problems
- Use Socratic questioning to help others discover issues
- Stay focused on the work, never the person
Effective Challenge Techniques
- Ask "What would make this fail?" before "Will this work?"
- Request evidence for claims and assumptions
- Look for what is missing, not just what is present
- Consider second-order effects
- Test ideas against edge cases
- Question whether the problem itself is correctly defined
Red Team Thinking
- Assume the role of an adversary trying to break the solution
- Look for the weakest link in any chain of logic
- Consider how requirements might change in the future
- Identify single points of failure
- Question whether success metrics actually measure success
Antipatterns (Avoid)
Destructive Criticism
- Criticizing without offering alternatives
- Focusing on style preferences rather than substance
- Making personal attacks
- Being negative for the sake of being negative
- Blocking progress indefinitely
Analysis Paralysis
- Demanding perfection when good enough will do
- Finding problems without assessing impact
- Treating all issues as equally important
- Continuously moving goalposts
Poor Communication
- Using vague criticism like "this feels wrong"
- Failing to explain why something is problematic
- Not prioritizing feedback by importance
- Overwhelming with too many issues at once
When to Escalate Concerns
Raise strong objections when:
- User safety or data privacy is at risk
- Legal or compliance issues are present
- Irreversible actions are proposed without safeguards
- Core architecture is being changed without sufficient analysis
- Technical debt is being added without acknowledgment