Reviews#

Changes will usually go through a 2-stage review process:

  1. SciTech review; carried out by someone that understands the area of code being developed

  2. CodeSys review; carried out by a member of the Simulation Systems and Deployment Team or the Core Capability Development Team

Trivial tickets are an exception and do not require a SciTech review.

Linked tickets will move through the review states together.

Note

Expect some iteration with the reviewers. This aims to improve the quality of your change, considering a range of scientific and technical aspects. Normally, this process is indicated by ticket ownership changing whilst maintaining the ticket status. By exception, if a change needs major reworking, then it will be regressed to ‘in progress’.

Tip

Tickets included in a release are based on those in code review before the code review deadline. Get ready for review with plenty of time to give SciTech reviewers and the approvers time to do their jobs.

Important

Get in touch with your SciTech Reviewer before you feel ready for review. They will have valuable insights into the code and, particularly for larger changes, may appreciate the opportunity to look at your work as it progresses.

Important

While your reviewers are in a good position to advise and make suggestions on your changes it is also important that they are able to maintain an impartial perspective, and therefore should not get involved in the development.

In the case that a reviewer, either SciTech or Code, does get too involved then another person should be brought in to finish the review process and provide that external viewpoint.

Preparing for Review#

To help you get ready for review a Ticket Summary should be attached to each ticket involved in your change. This will provide a checklist of things to consider including approvals, documentation and testing. Following this through completely makes a big difference to the review experience.

Once you are happy that everything is in place then you are ready to continue to review.

Important

If your development changes answers then make sure you have followed the steps on preparing a KGO ticket for review.

If you suspect there may be a change in answers but none have shown up during testing then run the rose-stem all group to confirm this.

Tip

Check that your changes meet the coding standards for the codebase you are working on:

Tip

Remember to follow all code-related steps and commit all your changes before running final testing to avoid needing to re-run.

Tip

Sometimes you may wish to proceed with the reviews without all approvals in place. Take a risk based approach and make sure the approvals are clearly pending.

Some reasons to do this include:

  • An approver and their deputy have not replied

  • The outstanding approver is also one of the reviewers

  • Time pressure combined with a low risk or complexity of ticket

Science/Technical Review#

The SciTech review is done by someone who is familiar with the area being changed to check that the change does what is says, in a sensible way, and doesn’t do what it shouldn’t. First refusal for completing the SciTech review should go to the main code owner(s) for the area affected. If they don’t want to then they may have suggestions for other suitable reviewers or you can approach anyone who would have good insight into the changes made.

Changes that have a linked LFRic Core ticket should find a SciTech reviewer from the CCD Team.

The review process will iterate between the developer and reviewer until the changes made are agreed to be of sufficient quality. The SciTech reviewer will fill in a SciTech Review Checklist which makes sure all aspects of the ticket are considered. Once the reviewer is satisfied, they will pass the ticket on to code/system review.

Guidance for the SciTech reviewer can be found on the SciTech review page.

Code and System Review#

Requesting a code reviewer is the responsibility of the developer and is done by emailing the SSD Team. Reviewers are assigned to email requests a couple of times a week.

The code reviewer will check that the change meets the coding standards and fits with the overall system design. They will also fill in a Code Review Checklist to ensure that nothing is overlooked.

Again, the review process is likely to be iterative between the code reviewer and the developer with the ticket ownership passing between the two while keeping the status as Code Review. If major changes are needed then the ticket may be rejected which will put it back to In Progress and a further SciTech Review will be needed in this case.

Once the code reviewer is satisfied they will move the ticket into the approved state, ready for commit to the trunk.

Guidance for the code reviewer can be found on the Code Review page.

Tip

Page Templates

To help with the review process each step has a wiki page template that should be used and filled in. To do this:

  1. Add one of the below lines to the ticket (in either the associated with or description box), replacing tXXXX with your ticket number

[wiki:ticket/tXXXX/TicketSummary]
[wiki:ticket/tXXXX/TicketDetails]
[wiki:ticket/tXXXX/SciTechReview]
[wiki:ticket/tXXXX/CodeSystemReview]

  1. Click the preview button and you will see a greyed out link (as this doesn’t yet exist). Click the link this creates to open a new “blank” wiki page.

  2. Select the appropriate template from the drop down list, then click Create this page.

  3. The page created will contain an appropriate checklist which should be completed by deleting each Y/N/NA and adding comments as appropriate.

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