Abolish Pull Request Reviews

  2. 2-minute read

As the COVID-19 pandemic gradually receded, companies worldwide invited their employees back into their office buildings. Having witnessed both the benefits and the shortcomings of working from home, some companies embraced a blend of office and remote work by requiring only part of the workweek to happen within their walls. I believe that's a good model for many teams.

I have heard stories of companies that let each individual choose the exact mix of on-site and remote days. The result: Alice sits in an empty office on Mondays talking to Bob's living room via Google Meet, and Bob comes in on Tuesdays to talk to Alice's dining table. That is silly.

The value of showing up at the office is being physically near your colleagues. If your core team is scattered, any benefits of being there do not offset the hassle of the commute. It's only worthwhile if others join in.

illustration of a child on the left side of a seesaw with an empty right side

Software engineers rarely relish PR reviews, whether they are reviewing a peer's work or waiting for their own work to be reviewed. It is not surprising that there is a big push towards AI-powered reviews. Personally, I'm not (yet?) convinced that AI agents can completely take over this responsibility. But let's assume for a moment that they can.

I have seen software engineers feed PRs into an AI agent and copy-paste its feedback into GitHub. Luckily, most teams that bet on AI for PR reviews put in the effort to automate past this and eliminate the meat proxy. (For those who speak Dutch, I offer the portmanteau Claudezak as a synonym.)

But then why bother with PR reviews at all? Every contributor has access to the same AI agents. Make the AI review step part of the local workflow. This eliminates the need for PR reviews altogether – which were designed to facilitate asynchronous human collaboration. Share a skill file with your team. Reviews will be both quicker and more convenient.

If you do value the human perspective and you keep PR reviews after moving the AI review step locally, they become brief and focused on the bigger picture, as the routine issues have been addressed before submission.