Kill the code review theater, keep the review
Six months ago I wrote about how to kill the code review, and I was wrong. I still think line-by-line The post Kill the code review theater, keep the review appeared first on The New Stack .
Six months after suggesting a "Swiss cheese" model for AI code verification, I realize the original approach was flawed. While multiple layers of trust and automated checks are valuable, they are insufficient on their own. The real purpose of code review is not just finding bugs, but building a shared understanding of the system being developed.
The rise of AI-assisted development has complicated this process, leading to a surge in the number of code reviews, defects, and work restarts. The problem is that AI code review often focuses on the wrong artifact (the diff) and fails to capture the team's collective knowledge. The key is to blend human judgment with AI capabilities.
We should use AI to argue and capture intent, then have humans debate and own the decisions being made. This approach combines the best of both worlds - leveraging AI for efficiency and scale, while preserving the critical role of human judgment in shaping the right software.
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