My workflow (which I believe is pretty standard) is:
* Write code
* Verify that tests pass locally (including stylistic tests, linting)
* Submit pull request
* Pull request triggers build and tests on Travis
* If all tests pass on Travis, code is stylistically and functionally correct
* Merge pull request
How can human reviewers improve this workflow?
Passing tests don't prove that
- tests are covering all functional criteria required
- the code doesn't add 'technical debt', i.e. structural problems that will have to be refactored/worked around in the future.
- check for whether external or downstream services would be affected (in the absence of complete e2e testing)
- check for coding conventions and standards that are not enforceable by linters, such as naming conventions, code structuring, positive/negative testing, effective usage of helper methods
- check for typos
I can write code that reinvents the wheel, instead of using the solid library I've never heard of.
I can do things in non-idiomatic ways that testing and linting will never catch.
A PR is about showing the rest of the team the changes so more than one person knows how stuff work and what's going on in the code base. And for the rest of the team to give feedback on stuff like how the feature was architected, not to nitpick on indenting.
But that's not really applicable here, right?