Code Review Helper

A skill for conducting thorough code reviews with actionable feedback.

When to Use

• Reviewing pull requests or code changes
• Checking code for bugs, security issues, or performance problems
• Ensuring code follows best practices and project conventions
• Providing constructive feedback on code quality

Review Process

Step 1: Gather Context

Before reviewing, gather relevant context:

1. Read the PR description or commit message to understand the intent
2. Check if there's a CLAUDE.md or similar project documentation
3. Identify the files that were changed
4. Understand the scope of changes

Step 2: Analyze Changes

For each changed file, analyze:

1. Correctness: Does the code do what it's supposed to do?
2. Security: Are there any security vulnerabilities?
3. Performance: Are there inefficient patterns or bottlenecks?
4. Maintainability: Is the code readable and well-structured?
5. Testing: Are there adequate tests?
6. Documentation: Is the code appropriately documented?

Step 3: Provide Feedback

Structure feedback using these categories:

• Critical: Must fix before merge (bugs, security issues)
• Warning: Should fix (performance, maintainability)
• Suggestion: Nice to have (style, refactoring)
• Question: Need clarification

Review Checklist

General

• Code follows project conventions
• No obvious bugs or logic errors
• Error handling is appropriate
• No hardcoded secrets or credentials

Security

• Input validation is present
• SQL injection is prevented
• XSS vulnerabilities are addressed
• Command injection is prevented
• No sensitive data in logs

Performance

• No N+1 queries
• Expensive operations are optimized
• Caching is used appropriately
• Memory usage is reasonable

Maintainability

• Functions are appropriately sized
• Naming is clear and consistent
• Code is DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself)
• Comments explain "why", not "what"

Additional Resources

• references/security-patterns.md - Common security patterns and anti-patterns
• references/performance-guide.md - Performance review guidelines
• scripts/generate-review-summary.py - Generate a review summary