Chapter 12: Review

Evidence deals with false findings. There is a second way a reviewer wastes your time: everything it says is true, tidy, and not about the behaviour.

Review in the abstract

Also called Abstract review

Reading code with nothing to check it against: no run, no stated intent, no question to answer. The reviewer fills the gap with what can be said about any code, which means small style points and warnings about things you may not need.

A reviewer needs a narrower job than "review this". Give it one behaviour to check and a way to check it, and the easy comments stop being the answer. Leave it open and you can spend your tokens, and your afternoon, on comments that were never going to change what the code does.

Say it to your agent

“Review this diff against one question: does POST /refunds still refund at most what was paid, when the same request arrives twice? Run it and paste the output. Leave out style, naming and anything that only matters after a future change. If you have nothing on that question, say so and stop.”

The workshop

Name a word, or describe what you mean in everyday language.