Essential code review practices that actually save time

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Code reviews are crucial for software quality, but without proper best practices, they can become a bottleneck. Here are three (of course, it can be more) reviews efficient yet high — quality. I’ll include real examples where they help

1. Review in small batches

Don’t wait to review 500+ lines of code at once. Encourage small, focused pull request of 200–300 lines at a maximum.

Real situation: Last month, our team had to review a massive pull request that touched our entire authentication system.

The change included:

• Modification to the user registration flow.
• Updates to the password reset logic.
• Changes to session management.
• Adjustments to role based access control.

The review took three days, with a multiple developer going back and forth. We found critical security issues only after deployment. The scope overhelmed the reviewers. If it had been split into focused changes(user registration, password reset, etc.), we could have caught these issues earlier. Then, we could have deployed with confidence.

2. Use automated checks first