I've noticed that when I open a pull request (PR), a significant amount of time—about 80%—is spent just trying to understand the runtime flow of the changes. Instead of immediately reviewing the logic, correctness, or edge cases, I often find myself trying to piece together what the change actually does at runtime. Questions constantly pop up: Where does the code start? Is it triggered by an API handler, a background job, or a queue consumer? What downstream systems are impacted? Does the change interact with the database before hitting the cache? Did a new external API call get tucked away somewhere in this complex flow? It's tough to get clarity, even with well-written code, because the diff doesn't reveal all these details. By the time I figure this out, I'm usually mentally drained, so my actual review becomes surface-level. Even PR descriptions don't help much; they're often vague or outdated. I'm looking for advice on how to reduce this cognitive load and get to a good understanding of the changes quickly enough to provide a thorough review.
5 Answers
Automated linters should take care of obvious ‘smells’ in the code. But for the challenging parts that are tough to review, I feel it really takes time, especially in complex projects. There’s usually no quick fix for this.
Ideally, the PR should be broken into meaningful commits that tell a story. Each commit should include clear messages that describe what the changes are meant to achieve. Unfortunately, that rarely happens, making reviews difficult.
It's hard to tell what changed sometimes. If the author makes unrelated changes, it can get messy quickly. I've worked with people who would save tons of lines for minor tweaks, which complicates the review. Luckily, I managed to get them to make their code more manageable.
If the PR is straightforward and only involves minor changes, I usually focus more on checking for correctness. But when a PR is complex, I start by reviewing the task requirements to see how the changes address the problem at hand.
I assume that my coworkers know what they're doing. Keeping up with their tasks during planning or standup helps me stay in the loop. But I wonder, shouldn’t we be more thorough in our reviews? Assuming competence might lead to missing important flaws.
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