carbon-lang/proposals/p0042_decision.md

Decision for: Create code review guidelines

Proposal accepted on 2020-08-03

Affirming:

• austern
• chandlerc
• geoffromer
• gribozavr
• zygoloid

Abstaining:

• josh11b
• noncombatant
• tituswinters

Open questions

There were no open questions.

Rationale

This proposal contains the right goals for the code review process in light of our project goals, and the proposal is well-tailored to achieve them. Specifically:

• Ensure high quality of code, documentation, and other artifacts. We consider these all "code reviews" regardless of whether the final artifact is "code" in a technical sense.
• Encourage broad participation and contribution to the community through code reviews.
• Ensure code reviews are inclusive, respectful, and welcoming.
• Have clear, discoverable, and mechanically enforced (where possible) rules for who can, who should, and who must review any particular change.

We want pre-commit rather than post-commit review, and we want all changes to go through review. These guidelines are consistent with standard code review best practice, including what’s described in the cited sources.