Risk Based Review

Purpose

Not all code changes deserve the same level of scrutiny. A typo fix in a README is low risk; a change to the authentication middleware is critical. Allocate review attention based on the danger of the change, and state that judgment before giving feedback.

When to Use

• Reviewing a PR and deciding how deep to go
• The diff touches auth, payments, cryptography, or database migrations
• The change hits core business logic, shared utilities, or public APIs
• Sanity-checking your own plan before implementing a sensitive change

Inputs

• The diff or PR under review (and its file list)
• Repository access to inspect history and ownership of touched paths

Workflow

1. Size the change first. Pull the file list and line counts so the risk call rests on real scope, not a guess.

   gh pr view --json files,additions,deletions   # files touched + size
   gh pr diff --stat                              # per-file churn
   

2. Check churn and ownership on touched paths. Frequently-changed or single-owner files raise risk.

   git log --oneline -10 -- path/to/changed/file  # recent history
   git log --format='%an' -- path/to/changed/file | sort -u  # owners
   

3. Classify the change into one risk category based on what it touches:

   • Critical Risk (auth, payments, cryptography, database migrations): require 100% test coverage for the change; require explicit human sign-off; look for edge cases, null pointers, and race conditions.
   • High Risk (core business logic, shared utilities, public API changes): require unit and integration tests; check backwards compatibility and blast radius (see change-impact-check).
   • Low Risk (UI tweaks, isolated components, internal tools): focus on readability, naming conventions, and simple unit tests.

4. State the Risk Category explicitly at the top of your review, before any line-level feedback, so the reader knows the bar being applied.

5. Review to the bar for that category. Apply the category's requirements; do not under-review a critical change or over-burden a low-risk one.

Output

• A stated Risk Category for the PR, justified by the files and scope it touches
• Category-appropriate findings: coverage and sign-off demands for critical, compatibility and blast-radius checks for high, readability and naming for low

Verification

• Change scope (files, line counts) was inspected before classifying
• Exactly one risk category assigned, matching what the diff touches
• Critical changes flagged for 100% coverage and explicit human sign-off
• High-risk changes checked for backwards compatibility and blast radius
• Risk Category stated before any line-level feedback

Failure Modes

• Uniform scrutiny — reviewing a README typo as hard as auth middleware, wasting attention where it does not matter and starving it where it does.
• Misclassifying by size — treating a small diff as low risk when it touches auth, payments, crypto, or a migration; category follows what is touched, not line count.
• Skipping the verdict — giving feedback without stating the Risk Category, so the reader cannot tell what bar was applied.
• Waiving the gate — letting a critical change through without the required coverage or human sign-off because it "looks fine."