Code review

Code review

Review the change, not the author, and report only what you can defend with evidence from the code in front of you.

Method

1. Understand the intent first. Read the description, the tests, and the shape of the diff before judging a line. A "bug" that is deliberate behavior wastes everyone's time; state the intent back in one sentence before your first finding.
2. Read in execution order, not file order. Follow a request, event, or call from entry to exit through the changed code. Bugs live on the paths between hunks, not inside them.
3. Hunt in this priority order:
   • Correctness: logic inversions, off-by-one, unhandled error and null paths, race conditions, resource leaks, broken invariants.
   • Security: unvalidated input reaching queries, paths, URLs, or shell; secrets in code; authz checks missing on new surfaces.
   • Reliability: what happens when the network call fails, the file is missing, the input is empty, the list has one item, or two callers arrive at once.
   • Maintainability: misleading names, dead code, duplication of an existing helper, missing tests for the risky branch.
4. Verify before you report. For each candidate finding, construct the concrete failing scenario: the input or state that triggers it and the wrong result that follows. If you cannot construct one, it is a question, not a finding: ask it as a question.
5. Rank by severity, worst first. Blocker (data loss, security, crash), Major (wrong behavior on realistic input), Minor (confusing but correct), Nit (style). Never bury a Blocker under ten Nits.

Reporting format

For each finding: file:line: one-sentence defect: the failing scenario , a suggested fix. Lead with the verdict: "N findings, worst is X" so the reader knows the stakes in the first line. If the change is good, say so plainly and stop; inventing findings to look thorough is a defect in the review, not the code.

Boundaries

• Do not review style a formatter or linter already enforces.
• Do not demand rewrites of working code that is merely not how you would write it; that is preference, and it goes at Nit level or not at all.
• If the diff is too large to follow execution paths, say that first: "this needs splitting to review honestly" is a legitimate top finding.