Code Review Documentation: What to Document and When

Code review is only as effective as the documentation that surrounds it. Reviewers need context to evaluate risk, future engineers need breadcrumbs to understand why decisions were made, and auditors need traceability. Here is a pragmatic toolkit for documenting the review process without drowning your team in busywork.

Document the Why, Not Just the What

Start with intent. A great PR description answers three questions: What changed? Why now? How should reviewers validate it? Treat the description as a living spec that evolves during the review. Summarize tradeoffs, link to architecture notes, and capture out-of-band decisions in updates.

Essential Artifacts to Capture

Where Documentation Lives

Avoid scattering context across private chats. Standardize on locations:

• PR template: Provide sections for context, tests, and follow-up tasks.
• Repository docs: Update runbooks, ADRs, or README files within the same PR.
• Issue tracker: Link the PR to product requirements and mark acceptance criteria as complete.
• Wiki: For major changes, add an architecture decision record that references the merged PR.

Using Comments as Documentation

Review comments often contain valuable rationale. Encourage reviewers to convert high-signal threads into code comments or documentation before merging. For example, if a reviewer explains why pagination switched to keyset, capture that in the file or ADR so future readers do not dig through closed PRs.

Automate the Boring Parts

Automation keeps documentation current:

• Lint PR descriptions for required sections or missing issue links.
• Use bots to nudge authors when screenshots or test results are missing.
• Generate changelog entries automatically from merged PR summaries, similar to howzero downtime migrations rely on scripted release notes.
• Auto-label PRs by subsystem to simplify searchability and analytics.

Review Documentation Quality

Include documentation in the review checklist. Ask reviewers to rate the description and test evidence before approving. During retrospectives, sample merged PRs to ensure the final documentation stayed accurate after revisions. If gaps appear, update templates or provide training.

Audit Trail for Compliance

For regulated industries, store immutable snapshots of the review: diff, approvals, comment history, and test artifacts. Tools like GitHub’s audit log or self-hosted review portals can export this data. Map each release to a change request or ticket to satisfy auditors.

Documentation should accelerate reviews, not slow them down. By focusing on intent, capturing decisions, and automating tedious tasks, you create a knowledge base that keeps teams aligned long after the merge button is clicked.