Gunnar Morling

Gunnar Morling

Random Musings on All Things Software Engineering

Gunnar Morling

Gunnar Morling

Random Musings on All Things Software Engineering

The Code Review Pyramid

Posted at Mar 10, 2022

When it comes to code reviews, it’s a common phenomenon that there is much focus and long-winded discussions around mundane aspects like code formatting and style, whereas important aspects (does the code change do what it is supposed to do, is it performant, is it backwards-compatible for existing clients, and many others) tend to get less attention.

To raise awareness for the issue and providing some guidance on aspects to focus on, I shared a small visual on Twitter the other day, which I called the "Code Review Pyramid". Its intention is to help putting focus on those parts which matter the most during a code review (in my opinion, anyways), and also which parts could and should be automated.

As some folks asked for a permanent, referenceable location of that resource and others wanted to have a high-res printing version, I’m putting it here again:

code review pyramid

You can also download the visual as an SVG file.

FAQ

  • Why is it a pyramid?

    The lower parts of the pyramid should be the foundation of a code review and take up the most part of it.

  • Hey, that’s a triangle!

    You might think so, but it’s a pyramid from the side.

  • Which tool did you use for creating the drawing?