roadmap.sh: Code Review Best Practices

What it is

roadmap.sh is a community-built, open source collection of developer roadmaps and best-practice guides; its main GitHub repository, developer-roadmap, had about 368k stars as of 2026-09. Alongside role roadmaps it publishes best-practice checklists, and the Code Review Best Practices page is a "detailed list of best practices for effective code reviews and quality".

The page is laid out as a visual checklist. You can click each item to read a short explanation, and tick items off to track progress if you sign in. roadmap.sh also offers an AI tutor on its pages.

Why it matters in a first job

Your first pull requests are where your team forms its first real impression of your work, and your first reviews of other people's code are where you start contributing beyond your own tickets. Most juniors have never had their code reviewed by a professional team, and even fewer have reviewed someone else's. A checklist gives you something concrete to follow while the habits form:

• As an author: review your own diff first, keep the change focused, write a clear description, add tests, and respond to every comment.
• As a reviewer: understand the goal before reading the code, focus on correctness, design and readability, separate blockers from preferences, and be kind and specific.

How to use it

Do not memorise it. Open it next to your first few pull requests and go through the author items before you click "request review". After a few weeks, do the same with the reviewer items when a teammate asks you to review.

Use it as a sanity check, not as the source of truth: your team's own conventions come first. Google's engineering practices guide (in the Sefism library) is the more detailed reference for what good review looks like, and Conventional Comments helps with how to phrase comments.

Free vs paid

The checklist is free to read. A free account lets you track progress. roadmap.sh has optional paid features, which you do not need for this page.

Is it worth it?

Yes, as a short, practical checklist. It takes an hour or two to go through and it is easy to return to.

Common questions

Is it only for senior engineers? No. Many items are exactly what a junior author should do before asking for review.

Does it cover a specific language? No. It is language agnostic.

Is roadmap.sh official for any company? No. It is community maintained; treat it as a well-organised checklist, not a standard.