I wonder, in lieu of code reviews, we start doing more “spec reviews,” where the (human) developer would write up their proposed changes before coding them. I’m less concerned about the specifics of a code change over knowing whether the dev knows why we’re making the changes in the first place, and whether their approach is the right one. Once reviewed, they’re free to call on the agents to make the change.

It’s no secret that I dislike code reviews, and the sooner we can be rid of them, the better. But I think some means of making sure a developer demonstrates understanding the problem is still important. Over the last month I’ve had decent success in making sure I write down something, anything, before I actually start a coding task. It could be a Jira ticket or an Obsidian note. Lately it’s been a Slack Canvas that I can get others to review, just to make sure the problem is clear to myself and others. Given my role as a senior dev, this is not unexpected. But it isn’t traditionally expected of juniors. Maybe it’s time for that to change.