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In Code We Trust: How to Create a Code Review Checklist

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As any developer knows, code reviews are essential for catching mistakes before they make their way into production. 

Without reviewing code, you risk the chaos of debugging critical issues in production, leading to delays, frustrated users, and a tarnished reputation. 

This article will guide you through creating a code review checklist that ensures your code is clean, secure, and ready for deployment. Let’s get started. 🎢

Why Use a Code Review Checklist?

A well-structured code review checklist adds consistency and thoroughness. It can help ensure that code adheres to consistent naming conventions across the project and that all error-handling scenarios are managed comprehensively. 

Reviewers who follow a checklist are less likely to miss critical elements, such as validating user input or addressing security vulnerabilities. Here are some broad benefits of using a code review checklist:

  • A checklist encourages adherence to best practices. For instance, it can ensure that code changes follow the single responsibility principle, where each function or module handles only one task
  • It can also prompt developers to write efficient code documentation with inline comments, improving code readability and maintainability. This adherence to best practices helps maintain high-quality code and prevents common issues like code duplication or logic errors
  • Checklists help improve collaboration and knowledge sharing among development teams. It can also highlight the importance of reviewing test coverage, prompting team members to discuss and share insights on effective unit tests and integration tests
  • A code review checklist fosters the use of static code analysis tools to detect potential issues early, facilitating a shared understanding of how to address them. This collaborative approach enhances overall code quality and efficiency, making managing and integrating code changes easier

Ultimately, a checklist makes the code review procedure more systematic and reliable, contributing to robust, maintainable, and high-quality software.

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Preparing for Code Reviews

Preparing effectively for a code review involves several key steps to ensure the process is smooth and productive. Before you start with the checklist, you must:

1. Understand the context and scope

Before diving into the code, you must grasp its context, scope, and recent changes made to it. This includes understanding its purpose, its functionality, and how it fits into the larger project. 

Familiarize yourself with related code documentation or design patterns to ensure the code adheres to the overall project goals and coding standards. 

💡Pro Tip:  Use Agile project management retrospectives to refine your code review process, making it more adaptive and focused on immediate improvements for the next sprint.

2. Gather necessary information

Collect all relevant materials before starting the review. This may include the pull request details, related issue tickets, and previous review comments. Using appropriate software and tools can be invaluable here.

For instance, quality assurance software helps track test cases and ensure you cover all aspects of the code, whereas bug-tracking software records known issues and their resolutions. This information provides a comprehensive view of the code’s impact and helps identify potential areas of concern.

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Code Review Checklist

Creating an effective code review checklist is like setting the stage for a flawless outcome—every element must be meticulously checked to ensure the final product is top-notch.

Each aspect of the checklist plays a vital role in maintaining high quality and ensuring the code is ready for production. Here’s a quick summary of the process!

🔎 Feature requirements

  • Ensure the code meets the outlined feature requirements 
  • Make sure it addresses all relevant user stories or tickets

👀 Code readability and maintainability

  • Check if the code is easy to understand and follow
  • Confirm that the code shows clear logic and organization

😎 Coding style

  • Verify adherence to coding standards and conventions
  • Check whether formatting and indentation are consistent

💡 Clear naming

  • Ensure that variables, functions, and classes have descriptive, meaningful names that reflect their purpose

🤝 Proper documentation and comments

  • Check that the code is properly documented with inline comments

👩‍💻 Code structure and design

  • Evaluate the code’s structure for modularity and adherence to design principles

💪🏻 Performance and efficiency

  • Assess the code for performance issues 
  • Ensure it meets efficiency requirements

🧑🏼‍🏭 Error handling and logging

  • Verify proper error handling and logging practices are in place to manage errors gracefully and facilitate debugging

🥅 Security

  • Make sure the code is secure against common vulnerabilities

🛜 Test coverage

  • Review for edge cases and error scenarios
  • Ensure adequate test coverage with both unit tests and integration tests

🌀 Code reusability and DRY principle

  • Verify that the code isn’t repetitive, and is reusable

✍🏼 Dependencies and third-party libraries

  • Make sure dependencies and libraries are updated

CI/CD and deployment readiness

  • Check that the code works in all environments and is deployment ready

Now, let’s look at each of these steps in detail: 🔍

Stage 1: Feature Requirements

Before checking the code, confirm that it meets the specified feature requirements and fulfills all user stories or tickets. You can also use various forms available for software teams to collect data from your team, clients, or customers. This ensures the code aligns with the project’s objectives and expected functionality. 

Example:

If a pull request (PR) adds a new API endpoint, check the related issue or user story to confirm its necessity and functionality

If you’re implementing a new search feature, verify that it supports all the specified search filters and returns the correct results based on user inputs

Stage 2: Code readability

The code should be clean, well-organized, and easy to understand. Check that the logic flows naturally and that comments and documentation are used appropriately. 

Complex algorithms should be broken down into clear, manageable functions with descriptive comments explaining their purpose. With the help of efficient software development tools, you can stay on top of the project.

⚡️Tip:

  • Follow consistent indentation and spacing
  • Keep functions and methods short and focused on a single task

Stage 3: Coding style

Verify that the code adheres to established coding standards and conventions, including proper indentation, spacing, and bracket placement. This consistency helps maintain a uniform codebase and makes it easier for developers to collaborate and review. 

All variables and functions should be formatted according to the team’s style guide. This prevents unnecessary differences between files.

⚡️Tip:

  • In Python, follow PEP 8 standards
  • In JavaScript, follow ESLint or Prettier formatting rules

Stage 4: Clear naming

Names are important—they should be descriptive and meaningful. Ensure that variables, functions, and classes have names that convey their purpose and functionality. 

⚡️Tip: Use meaningful variable names (such as userEmail instead of ue)

For instance, a function that calculates user scores should be named calculateUserScores rather than calcScores, making its intent immediately clear.

Stage 5: Proper documentation and comments

Is the code well-documented with meaningful comments? Good documentation helps future developers understand and modify the code.

⚡️Tip: Use meaningful docstrings and inline comments

Example

def calculate_discount(price, discount_rate):
    """
    Calculates the discounted price.
    
    Parameters:
    - price (float): Original price
    - discount_rate (float): Discount percentage (e.g., 10 for 10%)
    
    Returns:
    - float: Discounted price
    """
    return price - (price * (discount_rate / 100))

Stage 6: Code structure and design

Evaluate the code’s modularity and adherence to design principles such as the single responsibility principle and object-oriented analysis.

⚡️Single Responsibility Principle (SRS): Don’t place more than one responsibility into a single class or function; refactor into separate classes and functions.

For example, if the code handles user authentication and data processing, consider refactoring it into separate modules to enhance clarity and maintainability.

Stage 7: Performance and efficiency

Performance and efficiency are essential for a streamlined code. Efficient code runs faster and uses fewer resources, making the application scalable.

Assess the code using the best code editors for performance issues, such as inefficient algorithms or memory leaks, and verify that it meets efficiency requirements. 

Check for any unnecessary loops, redundant computations, or expensive operations.

⚡️Tip: Using list comprehension is often more efficient than loops in Python

Example:

Inefficient code ⤵️

for i in range(len(arr)):
    if arr[i] in my_list:
        my_list.remove(arr[i])

Optimized code ⤵️

my_list = [x for x in my_list if x not in arr]

Stage 8: Error handling and logging

Error handling and logging are about having a plan for unexpected mishaps. Verify that the code includes robust error handling to manage potential issues gracefully and log important events for debugging purposes. 

Your code should be able to handle invalid inputs or failed database connections without crashing and provide useful error messages for troubleshooting.

⚡️Tip: Logging specific error messages helps in debugging issues quickly.

Example:

🚫 Bad Error Handling (Hides errors)

try {
  processOrder();
} catch (error) {
  console.log("Something went wrong.");
}

Good Error Handling (Logs useful details)

try {
processOrder();
} catch (error) {
console.error(`Order processing failed: ${error.message}`);
}

Stage 9: Security

Now check if the code is secure against common vulnerabilities. Secure code protects against SQL injection, XSS, CSRF, and data leaks.

⚡️Tip: Using parameterized queries prevents SQL injection.

🚫 Vulnerable to SQL Injection

query = f"SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = '{email}'"

Use Prepared Statements

cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ?", (email,))

Stage 10: Test coverage

Ensure the code has adequate test coverage, including unit and integration tests, and review for edge cases and error scenarios. 

Testing should include scenarios for valid and invalid inputs and potential failure points so as to ensure comprehensive verification of the code’s functionality. Tests ensure the code functions correctly and prevents regressions.

⚡️Tip:

  • Ensure new code does not break existing tests (run automated tests)
  • Ensure test cases cover all expected inputs

Stage 11: Code reusability and DRY principle

Check to see whether the code avoids duplication and promotes reuse. DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) reduces maintenance effort and makes future updates easier.

⚡️Tip: Refactoring repetitive code into a function improves reusability.

🚫 Repeated Code

def get_user_name(user):
    return user.first_name + " " + user.last_name

def get_admin_name(admin):
    return admin.first_name + " " + admin.last_name

Refactored Code

def get_full_name(person):
    return person.first_name + " " + person.last_name

Stage 12: Dependencies and third-party libraries

Outdated libraries can introduce security vulnerabilities. Never use an old, unmaintained library.

Check to see if dependencies up-to-date and necessary, and look for security patches.

⚡️Tip: Run this code for Javascript and Python projects, respectively

npm audit fix  
pip list --outdated  

Stage 13: CI/CD and deployment readiness

Will the code work in staging, production, and different environments? Ensuring compatibility with DevOps pipelines, cloud environments, and databases prevents deployment failures.

⚡️Tip:

  • Check environment variables instead of hardcoding credentials
  • Validate that CI/CD tests pass before merging the PR

By following these steps, your code review checklist will guide your team through ensuring high-quality code and successful integration into your project.

⚡️⚡️ Bonus Tip: Things to check before finally approving code

  • Previous feedback has been addressed
  • Unit and integration tests are clear
  • Documentation is updated
  • All suggestions and issues have been captured as comments
  • Code fits a 14-inch laptop screen without a need to scroll horizontally
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Code Review Best Practices

Beyond the checklist, here are some best practices that improve the effectiveness of code reviews:

1. Review small, frequent changes

Smaller PRs are easier to review, reducing cognitive load and improving feedback quality.

Best practice:

  • Encourage incremental PRs (e.g., 200–400 lines instead of 1,000+)
  • Use feature branches and merge frequently to avoid large, complex reviews

2. Provide constructive and actionable feedback

Code reviews should help developers improve, not discourage them.

Best practice:

  • Use suggestions instead of criticism, such as, “Consider refactoring this into a separate function for better readability”
  • Use code examples in feedback to clarify suggestions

As a reviewer, find something you like about the PR and comment on that too. Especially if it’s something the same author has had feedback on before. A single “great job remembering to provide a reason string to your assertion method call!” coming from a senior to a junior author provides a big confidence boost and helps ensure that the feedback “sticks”.

b1ackcatReddit

3. Use a mix of automated and manual reviews

Automation catches syntax errors, while manual reviews focus on logic and maintainability.

Best practice:

  • Use linters (ESLint, Pylint, etc.) and static analysis tools before submitting PRs
  • Focus manual reviews on business logic, security, and edge cases

4. Rotate reviewers to avoid bias

Having different reviewers ensures diverse perspectives and avoids knowledge silos.

Best practice:

  • Use reviewer rotation to distribute review tasks fairly
  • In critical projects, require at least two approvals before merging

5. Balance speed and thoroughness

Overly fast reviews may miss issues, while slow reviews delay development.

Best practice:

  • Set an SLA for code reviews (e.g., review within 24-48 hours)
  • Use async tools like GitHub comments for discussions instead of long meetings

6. Learn from past reviews

Repeated issues indicate the need for better training or process improvements.

Best practice:

  • Maintain a knowledge base or common issue log from past reviews
  • Encourage peer learning sessions to discuss best practices
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Making Code Review and Documentation Smoother With ClickUp

A survey by GitLab identified code reviews as the third leading cause of developer burnout, following long work hours and tight deadlines. Therefore, it’s important to have a detailed code review checklist and a process management solution that helps accelerate the review process.

ClickUp, a project management tool, offers tailored solutions that can elevate your entire code review process. For instance, using ClickUp Docs, you can create a customized code review checklist, track progress, and manage reviews in one place.

ClickUp Task Checklists are the simplest way to create and manage code review checklists. Checklists are essentially simple to-do lists within a task—items are either done or not done. 

ClickUp Task Checklists
Assign ownership of various stages in the code review to specific team members with ClickUp Task Checklists

You can use ClickUp Task Checklists to track each stage of your code review. Organize the review stages easily using the drag-and-drop function, and add assignees to each stage so you know who’s responsible. 

💡Pro Tip: You can even create custom code review checklists and save them as ClickUp Checklist Templates. Multiple software teams across an organization can use the same checklist template, maintaining consistency across its code review practices.

ClickUp Checklist Templates
Create checklists you can use across multiple software teams and save them as templates in ClickUp

Create code review checklist templates with ClickUp

ClickUp offers free templates tailored to streamline several software development processes including code reviews. One standout option is ClickUp’s Bug & Issue Tracking Template.

This template helps you efficiently track and manage bugs and issues throughout the code review process, making it easier to stay on top of critical fixes and ensure code quality.

Simplify your code review approach through structured bug tracking with the ClickUp Bug and Issue Tracking Template

Using the ClickUp Bug and Issue Tracking Template, a code reviewer can:

  • Centralize bug reports and issue tracking in a single organized view
  • Manage and prioritize code issues efficiently, ensuring they’re addressed promptly
  • Assign bugs to developers, track progress, and monitor code fixes—all within the same platform

To further enhance your code review checklist, you can add Custom Statuses like In Review, Resolved, and Reopened and Custom Fields such as Bug Severity, Assigned Developer, Fix Deadline, and Status Updates. This way, you gain a complete overview of your team’s progress and ensure no bug slips through the cracks.

Other ClickUp features for Agile teams

ClickUp also provides a range of tools specifically designed to support Agile teams. ClickUp Agile Project Management helps teams plan, track, and manage sprints, allowing for seamless collaboration and faster delivery cycles. As part of the Agile testing process, it can also help conduct code reviews.

ClickUp's Agile Project Management
Streamline your Agile workflow with ClickUp’s Agile Project Management

Using ClickUp’s Agile Project Management, you can:

  • Organize sprints, backlogs, and tasks in one central space
  • Prioritize tasks and track sprint progress with customizable Kanban boards or List Views
  • Collaborate with your team in real-time using features like Comments, @mentions, and file attachments
  • Gain insights with ClickUp Dashboards that provide an overview of key metrics like velocity, task completion, and team performance
  • Boost productivity with ClickUp Brain, which offers AI-powered suggestions for improving workflows and automating repetitive tasks
Code review setup process in ClickUp as explained by ClickUp Brain
ClickUp Brain can guide you through the process of setting up code reviews in ClickUp!

With this software, you can ensure smoother sprints, better collaboration, and faster product iterations, all while keeping your team aligned with Agile best practices. No matter what your workflow setup is, ClickUp has the perfect solution to make software development and deployment as easy as possible!

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Ensure Code Quality and Developer Efficiency With ClickUp

Developer teams can improve collaboration, reduce errors, and maintain high code quality by following a detailed and well-structured code review checklist paired with the right tools. 

However, a checklist like this should evolve with your project, adapting to new requirements and best practices. ClickUp’s powerful features and customizable templates streamline this process, making code reviews more efficient and manageable.

By automating tasks and centralizing feedback, ClickUp helps maintain consistency across reviews and boosts team productivity. Give ClickUp a try and simplify your code review process today!

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