Your engineers have made significant headway in their latest project, and now it’s time to review their code. They can’t help but feel some level of dread, making sure every API call goes as expected, and every dependency is passed into your development environment. Your code review checklist doesn’t go into enough depth or guide their review from start to finish. To top it off, the feedback loop buried in email threads is inefficient, leading to much more time spent following up than necessary.
So, how do you streamline your code review and create a positive experience with tight feedback loops?
You can lead faster and more effective code reviews with a clear code review checklist, improvements to your code review strategy, and the right communication tool. Find out how you can kick-start code reviews that move the needle for improvements—and provide a more enjoyable experience for all involved.
The purpose of code review and what most developers are missing
Code reviews should follow a clear process for systematic testing and feedback on code, enabling your team to provide consistent reviews and maintain standards.
However, developer teams often have an inconsistent code review checklist, resulting in different output quality. Some engineers may do quick, high-level reviews and miss important details, while others may focus on smaller details more than core functionality that could prevent bugs. Or, they fail to provide full context during the review process, such as what a function looks like during a test.
During a solid code review, there should be both clear expectations and steps for quality assurance, an easy way to communicate review feedback, and accountable action steps to optimize product delivery.
If your code reviews have any of these issues, assessing and improving your code review checklist is a strong first step in the right direction.
Code review checklists: Key elements and challenges
Before your next code review, take time to assess the checklist your engineers use. Consider the following components to update your current list or build a new one from this template:
Functionality and efficiency: Test and analyze each line of code to avoid preventable bugs and clunky user experiences. Does the code work as intended? Is it increasing compile time or syntax errors?
Organization and readability: Is the code clear and organized so you can understand it if you look at it several weeks from now? Does it follow your coding style guide, code formatting, and design patterns? Many of these code review nits make a big difference when it’s time to review, improve, or update code in the future.
Security issues and ethics: Does the code produce or expose security vulnerabilities for users, such as sensitive data? Are you using the correct encryption?
Documentation: Did the author-engineer provide clear notes, descriptions, and direction for complex sections?
Continuously evolve your code review checklist
As you refine your code reviews, you can improve the code checklist and process by using key metrics to gauge improvements.
For example, defect density is measured by analyzing the number of errors per line of code. Inspection rate measures how fast your team can do inspections. And metrics like defect repair time measure the time it takes engineers to correct defects and address the code review feedback itself. The test coverage can measure how much code your engineers have tested to understand how comprehensive your quality assurance is.
Over time, these metrics can reveal if your team produces fewer errors and improves turnaround times for debugging, error handling, and unit tests.
Code peer review challenges
No matter how good your checklist is, you are still likely to face roadblocks to effective code reviews. The first and most difficult challenge is always communication. Engineers need a way to provide clear feedback, with complete context, that produces actionable steps for efficient delivery.
Everyone wants that kind of feedback process, but it can be difficult with only live video or in-person sessions. When diving deep into code, keeping track of the high-level lessons that will guide your code in the future can be tricky and delay timelines. There’s the risk of viewers missing important points in real time. Comments can get lost in a team chat or lengthy, text-only email threads. Teams often have trouble providing full context around a change or improvement, which can be pivotal during high-impact sessions like solving complex bugs.
Instead, you can use video messaging and screen sharing to reduce miscommunication and provide fuller context.
Loom video messaging, for example, can streamline code reviews when engineers can record their screens and webcams simultaneously. After the review, they can add action steps and send it back to the author-engineers, who can comment on the video to continuously interact with the review afterwards.
4 best practices for effective code reviews
Your newly improved checklist helps provide a roadmap for streamlined code reviews. But even if you might have the most accurate map available, you still need a dependable vehicle to get where you want to go. These four strategic code review best practices can help you refine your review process and enjoy a reliable, pleasant code review journey.
1. Get specific to improve communication
Saying “you can do better” or “this doesn’t work” won’t cut it. Vague criticism isn’t helpful, and it actually slows the code review process by confusing engineers and sometimes causing offense. Instead, your reviewers should offer direct, constructive feedback.
For example, if the code has extra or awkward spacing, instead of saying, “Work on better organization and formatting,” your reviewer can label a suggestion as a nitpick comment, which hints that it’s a minor detail, and say, “These lines have extra spacing. Can you fix them and review the rest of the code?” This addresses the issue explicitly and prevents more of it from happening in the same project. This specific feedback also helps prevent the same errors by thoroughly explaining them for future cases.
Loom videos make specificity easy. Your team can display the lines of code on-screen to address them on camera. They can even annotate or point to the exact line for greater clarification. If you’re going through an edge case, there’s no more guessing or misunderstanding, and your team can see the issue immediately. Capturing and sharing feedback via asynchronous video messaging also means that the engineers can watch the code review when they are most productive and ready to absorb and implement necessary changes.
2. Don’t bite off more code than you can chew
It’s tempting to try to knock out as much as possible in one code review sitting. If you have a nice setup in the office complete with a comfy chair and good music, it may seem easy to jump into deep work and get everything done. Science says otherwise, however, when you review too much at one time. Slack reports that productivity decreases by 20% when people work after hours, doubling burnout.
Your engineers should ideally focus on only a few hundred lines of code for no more than one hour at a time. These bite-size review sessions can produce more accurate, thoughtful, and streamlined reviews by ensuring engineers have the full energy and bandwidth for such detailed work.
Conduct code reviews with Loom to produce chapter-like sessions for an actionable and manageable critique, whether they’re for a few minutes or an hour. Engineers who implement your feedback can also reference automatic transcripts or Loom video chapters to jump back and forth on the review. This helps them save time when implementing feedback.
3. Provide training and parameters for consistency
Any software engineering firm or app-developer team needs consistency to streamline their product builds. Providing clear training while onboarding engineers is crucial to maintain long-term efficiency and manage expectations during projects. Training also ensures consistent feedback when a code change is necessary.
You can build this strong foundation by compiling a knowledge base for your teams. Loom can host your videos as an accessible resource training hub. Record bite-size videos to explain coding standards, highlight key documentation, walk through code review processes, and even capture code review examples with screen sharing. If you need to reference a long-standing parameter, you’ll have videos at the ready. Or when new coworkers join the team, they can easily access all the training materials they need to get up to speed.
When live training and collaboration isn’t possible, you can also do remote pairing programming through asynchronous videos. This lets team members work on projects together, and it also allows you to provide hands-on training for new team members.
4. Choose a platform that captures full context
The entire coding process can be complex, including the end-to-end writing, testing, and reviewing of the code. It can be difficult to explain complex ideas and provide full context, explanations, and feedback through text alone.
In a Loom interview, Simon Bacher, cofounder and CEO of Ling, the language learning platform, elaborates on the common challenges in his distributed team’s code reviews:
“Given the varied time zones, one challenge we face is ensuring everyone in our geographically dispersed team is on the same page. Discerning the right balance between thoroughness and speed is a constant struggle. We do not wish to compromise code quality, but speedy delivery is equally important.
“We’re consistently striving to enhance our process. To combat time zone challenges, we utilize collaborative tools [...] for creating flexible communication channels.”
Whether you have an in-office, remote, or hybrid team, the right tools can help you overcome different time zones, busy schedules, and difficulty communicating feedback—ultimately improving team alignment.
You can provide effective, clear, and fast code reviews by using asynchronous tools. For example, Ling’s CEO told Loom he uses tools like Slack and GitHub for team chat and collaboration. These are great platforms for developers. But both of these tools fail to provide full context and communication—the type you get when you hear from someone face-to-face.
Asynchronous videos created with tools like Loom give your team the power to communicate effectively through screen sharing and webcams. Engineers can view feedback anytime, anywhere.
How to streamline your reviews with video messaging
Here’s what a code review process can look like using Loom to capture crucial context:
In-depth context: When an engineer-reviewer analyzes code, they can use Loom to record code reviews line by line. At each area for improvement, they can point out hard-to-understand documentation or code that could cause functionality issues, like bugs.
Clear call to action: Once they’ve finished the review, they can add a call to action that clarifies action steps or includes resources and documentation that may help the author-engineer. The reviewer can then send it back to the engineer. If that engineer has questions about improving the software codebase, they can comment on the video page or send a video reply.
Full-circle feedback loop: After the author-engineer makes improvements, they can quickly record a video addressing the steps they took to revise the code. This creates a transparent, accountable chain of custody throughout the review and edit process.
Checklist alignment: Engineers can create these review videos based on each step of the code review checklist so that editors can revise code and modules step-by-step through a consistent process.
With better communication tools and review processes, engineers can review and edit code faster and more efficiently. This is especially true when they have full-context videos that can be recorded and shared regardless of the time zone, schedule, or location.
Loom Cofounder and CTO Vinay Hiremath describes how his team uses Loom videos for their operations:
“Our engineering team uses Loom [as a communication tool that's as critical] in our toolbelt as Slack, or another messenger like Microsoft Teams, or as [...] Google Docs. [...] We really view Loom as a mix of high-fidelity and async video. We use it all across the board […] Most of our code reviews have a Loom on it.”
Use Loom video messaging for better code reviews
Efficient code review requires systematic, transparent workflows that reduce bottlenecks. Loom enhances your review processes by enabling your developers to explain, document, and review code with video that address each step in your checklist and visually demonstrate coding standards, bug fixes, and best practices asynchronously.
Teams can improve and test code for validation and train new engineers with interactive Loom videos that provide clear expectations and instructions.
Recording is easy, too: just click a button on the Chrome extension, your desktop, or mobile device. If an engineer makes a mistake while recording a video, they don’t have to start from scratch—Live Rewind lets them fix the error and pick up where they left off. Your team can even use the Chrome extension in GitHub to review code and track projects seamlessly.
Loom’s casual recording atmosphere and features like emojis and the ability to leave comments make the code review process enjoyable, efficient, and transparent.
Improve your code reviews through better communication.