Simplify Your Code Review Process with Automation Tools!
[sdlc 
As engineering teams grow, code reviews become challenging. We’ve all been there – nitpicking over minor issues while important stuff gets lost.
- Le Senior Reviewer 🗣️: Hey, can you change this tab with 2 spaces instead?
- Author 😐: Okay…
- Le Senior Reviewer 🗣️: Hmmm, i think you should use snake_case instead of camelCase, for this function?
- Author 😐: Okay…
- Le Senior Reviewer 🗣️: Ok, LGTM!
….. 2 hours later
- Product Manager🗿: Hey, Is there any deployment? Why can’t I access the homepage?
- Le Senior Reviewer 🗣️: Checking…. What the *%@$%#… The last PR makes the cache hit ratio drops which bring down the database…
Disclaimer: Not real story of mine..
These nitpicking reviews often become bottlenecks, slowing us down, put heavy toils on developers, or in worst case, even cost us! Developers become so fatigue that they miss to notice fatal mistake in code review. It needs to stop!
It’s very possible to automate this nitpick checks by leveraging existing tools, so that Developers can focus on what really matters. By then, we can speed up the code review and make it more effective. Say goodbye to endless debates about tabs vs. spaces!
- Common Code Review Challenges
- Streamlining Code Review with Tool-Based Solutions
- Effective Code Reviews: Focus on What Really Matters
- Wrapping Up
Common Code Review Challenges
Before diving into solutions, let’s look at some common challenges in “traditional” code review processes:
1. Manual Checks Are Tedious
Reviewers often find themselves bogged down by minor style issues or syntax nits, making it harder to focus on the actual logic.
2. Review Quality Is Inconsistent
Different reviewers may focus on different aspects, which can lead to inconsistent standards across the codebase.
3. Important Details Get Missed
Manual reviews may not always catch edge cases, especially if the reviewer is unfamiliar with certain code sections.
4. Focus Gets Diverted
Time spent on minor issues reduces the focus on essential aspects like performance, architecture, or potential scaling issues.
Streamlining Code Review with Tool-Based Solutions
I don’t want to reinvent the wheel—the only source of truth you should trust is the official documentation for each tool. I’ll provide links and references on how to implement them. 🤞.
1. Linter and Static Code Scanning
Linters ensure code follows a consistent style before it reaches the reviewer, while static code scanning analyzes problems and errors not caught by compilers. Most tools provide both functionalities out of the box.
This allows developers to focus on logic instead of nitpicking style issues. It’s best to not only use it locally during development but also integrate these tools into your CI pipeline to automatically run checks on pull requests (PRs). PRs with style violations are flagged, preventing “bad” code from unintentionally being merged into the trunk/master/main branch.
JavaScript/TypeScript - ESLint
For JavaScript teams, setting up Prettier as a pre-commit hook automatically formats code, eliminating style discrepancies and maintaining consistency across the codebase.
Go - Golangci-lint
For Go teams, golangci-lint is recommended by the official Go Wiki. It bundles tools like Staticcheck and go vet, which are highly regarded by Go authors.
2. Integrate Automated Tests in Pull Requests (PRs)
Automated tests validate functionality and performance. Running these tests on every PR catches bugs before merging. These tests can include unit tests, integration tests, or even performance/load tests. I won’t cover how you should write tests, it’s very broad topic, here are some good source I can recommend:
Integration with CI - GitHub Actions Examples:
Here are samples on how you can set it up in Github Action:
3. Add Code Scanning for Security and Code Quality
Security vulnerabilities and code quality issues can be hard to spot manually, especially in large codebases. Tools like SonarQube perform automated scans to identify issues. This tool will have checking on this area:
- Reliability
- Security Vulnerabilities
- Code Smells
Check the list of available rules in here: rules.sonarsource.com
4. Implement Architecture Unit Tests
Checking for architectural consistency can be hard, especially as systems grow. Architecture tests ensure that code changes adhere to the established design and principles, keeping the codebase organized and scalable.
Tool that pioneering this is ArchUnit, which covers Java and .NET/C#. (I haven’t tried them😅). However, I have tried other tools which inspired by ArchUnit:
You can write custom architecture validation tests and integrate them into your CI pipeline. This is especially useful for teams that want to maintain strict boundaries between modules. For instance, your team’s implementing clean architecture, and you want to avoid Controller layer directly calls DB Layer, you can set up this kind of rules. (Pray for me to write article on this one further)
Effective Code Reviews: Focus on What Really Matters
When Automated tools already handle the tedious parts, reviewers can focus on areas that really matters:
1. Feature Requirements
Check that the code fulfills the requirements by evaluating associated tests and how well they cover the functionality. This helps ensure that the code meets both the functional and non-functional requirements.
2. Performance
Automated tools can only go so far. Performance review might involve checking for inefficient algorithms, slow database queries, or unnecessary data processing, particularly in parts of the system that impact end-users directly.
3. Distributed System Concerns
When working with microservices or other distributed systems, reviewers need to consider failure scenarios, such as network timeouts or partial outages. A well-designed system should handle these gracefully.
4. Scalability
Make sure the code can handle future demands by evaluating scalability considerations. Code that works well under current conditions might fail as user numbers grow, so reviewers should keep an eye on potential scaling issues.
Wrapping Up
Efficient code review process combines automated tools with developer expertise. Your team can reduce time spent on repetitive tasks and focus on what really matters.
This approach aligns with CI/CD practices, enabling frequent merges with confidence. Hopefully, no more silly mistakes get pushed uncaught to production moving forward! ✌️