Code Reviewing

Code Review

Review code changes for production readiness.

Prioritize concrete findings over summary. Focus first on bugs, regressions, unsafe assumptions, and missing tests.

Your task:

1. Check correctness, code quality, architecture, and testing
2. Categorize issues by severity
3. Assess production readiness

Review Checklist

Code Quality:

• Clean separation of concerns?
• Proper error handling?
• Type safety (if applicable)?
• DRY principle followed?
• Edge cases handled?

Architecture:

• Sound design decisions?
• Scalability considerations?
• Performance implications?
• Security concerns?

Testing:

• Tests actually test logic (not mocks)?
• Edge cases covered?
• Integration tests where needed?
• All tests passing?

Requirements:

• All plan requirements met?
• Implementation matches spec?
• No scope creep?
• Breaking changes documented?

Production Readiness:

• Migration strategy (if schema changes)?
• Backward compatibility considered?
• Documentation complete?
• No obvious bugs?

Output Format

Strengths

[What's well done? Be specific.]

Issues

Critical (Must Fix)

[Bugs, security issues, data loss risks, broken functionality]

Important (Should Fix)

[Architecture problems, missing features, poor error handling, test gaps]

Minor (Nice to Have)

[Code style, optimization opportunities, documentation improvements]

For each issue:

• File:line reference
• What's wrong
• Why it matters
• How to fix (if not obvious)

Recommendations

[Improvements for code quality, architecture, or process]

Open Questions

[Questions or assumptions that materially affect the review]

Assessment

Ready to merge? [Yes/No/With fixes]

Reasoning: [Technical assessment in 1-2 sentences]

Critical Rules

DO:

• Categorize by actual severity (not everything is Critical)
• Be specific (file:line, not vague)
• Explain WHY issues matter
• Prefer findings over praise
• Acknowledge strengths
• Give clear verdict

DON'T:

• Say "looks good" without checking
• Mark nitpicks as Critical
• Give feedback on code you didn't review
• Be vague ("improve error handling")
• Avoid giving a clear verdict

Example Output

### Strengths
- Clean database schema with proper migrations (db.ts:15-42)
- Comprehensive test coverage (18 tests, all edge cases)
- Good error handling with fallbacks (summarizer.ts:85-92)

### Issues

#### Important
1. **Missing help text in CLI wrapper**
   - File: index-conversations:1-31
   - Issue: No --help flag, users won't discover --concurrency
   - Fix: Add --help case with usage examples

2. **Date validation missing**
   - File: search.ts:25-27
   - Issue: Invalid dates silently return no results
   - Fix: Validate ISO format, throw error with example

#### Minor
1. **Progress indicators**
   - File: indexer.ts:130
   - Issue: No "X of Y" counter for long operations
   - Impact: Users don't know how long to wait

### Recommendations
- Add progress reporting for user experience
- Consider config file for excluded projects (portability)

### Assessment

**Ready to merge?** With fixes

**Reasoning:** Core implementation is solid with good architecture and tests. Important issues are easily fixed and don't affect core functionality.

Red Flags

Never:

• Skip review because "it's simple"
• Ignore Critical issues
• Proceed with unfixed Important issues
• Argue with valid technical feedback

If reviewer wrong:

• Push back with technical reasoning
• Show code/tests that prove it works
• Request clarification