codeapprove

Good idea, thank you!

Almost everyone agrees that code review is important and worth spending time on, so why don't we think much about our code review tools? Most of us just accept whatever GitHub gives us (esp. smaller or newer teams)

I'm building CodeApprove (https://codeapprove.com) to be a much more powerful, enjoyable, and efficient code review tools for teams on GitHub. If you're interested in trying our Alpha email me.

CodeApprove is a better code review tool for teams on GitHub: https://codeapprove.com

The frontend is Vue 2.0 and TailwindCSS. No other major libraries besides the Vue standards (router, store, etc).

The site is delivered by Firebase Hosting and the backend is all Firebase (Firestore, Auth, Storage and Cloud Functions)

I absolutely love this stack. It’s so simple to run and requires no maintenance. Plus the fixed cost is $0. To deploy I use manually-triggered GitHub Actions workflows.

The best part of the whole thing is the local dev experience. With the Vue CLI and the Firebase Emulators I can run my entire stack locally with hot reload across frontend and backend. When I push to production I am confident.

Hi HN,

CodeApprove is a better way to review Pull Requests on GitHub.

I love GitHub but the code review tools are not as good as what's available to big companies with self-hosted tools. Many of us put up with GitHub's PR reviews because of all of GitHub's other convenient features.

CodeApprove is built to fit right on top of your existing GitHub workflow and help your team do better, faster reviews. Some things we do differently:

- Comments are never lost / hidden and a review is not fully approved until all required comments are resolved. You know exactly what you need to do to at all times.

- Rather than flipping between Conversation / Commits / Files tabs you can see everything in one compact view. Keyboard shortcuts mean you can fly around the review and never even touch your mouse.

- You can quickly filter commits and comments to see what has changed since your last review, so there's no need to keep state in your head between rounds.

- After each round of comments, CodeApprove automatically determines whose turn it is and sets assignees. When you check your CodeApprove inbox you'll see which reviews need your attention right away.

- You can add anyone as a reviewer (not just project collaborators) and comment on any line in the file (not just the lines in the diff).

Here on HN we focus so often on our individual productivity but then we wait hours or days to get our PRs merged! With CodeApprove your team can move faster without sacrificing any quality.

If you're interested in trying CodeApprove for your project just fill out this form and we'll get you onboarded ASAP: https://codeapprove.com/interest

You can enable CodeApprove one PR at a time, so there's no need to throw your whole existing workflow out the window if you're curious. During our alpha period CodeApprove is free for teams of all sizes, but you can check out the pricing page to see our future pricing plans.

Shameless plug: if your team uses Pull Requests but finds GitHub code reviews to be somewhat painful, I'm building https://codeapprove.com to solve your problems.

I think with the right tools and processes GitHub PRs are an amazing collaboration tool.

I'm building a much better code review for tool for GitHub, check out https://codeapprove.com

It combines concepts from GitHub, Gerrit, and other good review tools out there to make it easy and fast to reach consensus (which is what it's all about).

If you want to hear more you can email me at sam at habosa dot com

That's a shame, heard only good things about those tools.

Shameless but timely plug: I'm building a much better code review tool for teams on GitHub. Check out https://codeapprove.com and if you're interested to hear more just email me (sam at habosa dot com).

I built https://codeapprove.com because I love GitHub but I don't love Pull Request reviews.

I wanted to make a drop-in replacement for code review on GitHub that made reviews much more structured and focused while not requiring nearly as much clicking around and loading.

I built this over the last year or so, mostly on nights and weekends but I do hope it can become a full time thing eventually.

(Since we're talking about building here I'll mention that the app is 100% Vue 2 backed by Firebase. It's such a lovely dev stack and never keeps me up at night)

I love this article, clearly you and your team have thought deeply about the process of code review and Pull Requests. By having strong principles you make sure you're not dominated by the process.

I actually don't think Pull Requests are "zero trust", in fact they work much better when they are high trust. They're a formal point for collecting comments and discussion in the workflow. I really value the feedback I get from my team in PRs, it makes my code better and doesn't slow me down because we are able to reach consensus quickly.

Plug: I'm working on a tool to make Pull Requests much better for teams who work on GitHub. If you're interested check out https://codeapprove.com or email me at sam at habosa dot com

At all of the big companies I’m aware of (FAANG big) code review is done by peers. There’s no central code review “team”, every single change must be reviewed by one or more peers depending on who owns that part of the codebase.

Some companies have dedicated test engineers while at others it’s the responsibility of each engineer to write tests for their changes and the tests are reviewed as part of the same process.

Plug: I’m working on a much better code review tool for teams who live on GitHub. If you’re interested check out https://codeapprove.com or send me an email at Sam at habosa dot com

Yep can do a demo or even just get you set up to explore. Send me an email (sam at habosa dot com) and I’ll find a time for us to chat.

I’m building a much better tool for reviewing code on GitHub. Still in early stages and looking for feedback, but our central idea is exactly what you mention. We make sure that all comments are resolved before the review is done and help you focus on what needs resolution.

Check out https://codeapprove.com or just email me at sam@habosa.com if you’re interested

I do agree that the process of comitting, pushing, and opening a PR can be a bit clunky. But I also think PRs are super valuable because they encapsulate code and discussion in one place that's easy to reference in the future.

If I find a line of code that confused me, finding the PR where it happened is often the solution.

That said I think GitHub's code review tools are lacking and hold us back from doing our best.

I'm building something better at codeapprove.com, if you or your team is interested please email me: sam@habosa.com

I totally agree with all of this! Especially "be your first code reviewer" which is something I find very helpful. Seeing my own code in the same interface that my reviewer will use helps me get a different perspective and spot some things early.

If anyone here is looking to improve their code review workflow on GitHub I've been working on a new tool that I think is much, much better than the standard GitHub UI for small teams doing reviews.

Email me at sam [at] habosa [dot] com if you're interested.

I'm building a better interface for code review for teams on GitHub, one that helps you reach consensus quickly and decisively.

If anyone here is interested please email me at sam@habosa.com

This is a great article and I'd like to shamelessly plug my product, which is designed to make code review better for teams that work on GitHub

You can look at https://codeapprove.com for an idea of where we're going but really if your team does code review on GitHub and wants to get better just email me at sam@habosa.com and we can talk.

I really like this terminology! I might see if my team could use this, I've found that not everyone interprets code review comments the same way.

I'm working on a new tool to vastly improve human code reviews for teams on GitHub. One of the main things is making sure that each conversation is "resolved" so that there is no disagreement on when a PR is ready to go.

If you're interested in better code review for your GitHub repo, email me at sam@habosa.com and I can show you what I'm working on. We're in a private Alpha but definitely ready for use by real teams in everyday reviews.

Very cool! I think these types of automations are great for exactly the reason you said: helping reviewers focus on the meaningful changes and not bikeshedding.

I am building a tool to make _human_ reviews on GitHub much better and more powerful. If you or anyone else is interested in better PR reviews on GitHub, you can email me at sam@habosa.com and I can get you into our Alpha.