After years of reviewing PRs and building tools to automate parts of the process, I realised that what most teams lack is a shared, structured mental model of what a good review actually covers.
So I built the PR Review Canvas — a free, open‐source kit that makes the reviewer's mental model explicit.
🎯 What's inside
📋 51‐item interactive checklist
A live web tool with a "Review Readiness" gauge, collapsible categories, dark/light mode, and progress saved in your browser. No install, no account, no tracking.
👉 Try it live
📝 PR description templates
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Basic template for everyday changes.
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Advanced template for complex, high‐risk PRs (with risk/rollback tables).
📖 Step‐by‐step guides
- For first‐time reviewers — how to not feel overwhelmed.
- For experienced reviewers — techniques for reviewing fast at scale.
- How to give constructive feedback (with actual phrases to use and retire).
- How to receive feedback without taking it personally.
📚 Annotated examples
- A well‐written PR — annotated to show why it works.
- A poorly‐written PR — annotated to show how to fix it.
- A full review transcript — comment by comment, with reasoning.
🧠 Code review anti‐patterns
A reference list of the recurring ways review goes wrong — on both sides of the diff.
🔗 Ready‐to‐paste templates
Import the checklist into Notion or Obsidian in one click.
🚀 Why a checklist?
A checklist isn't bureaucracy — it's a substitute for the senior engineer who isn't always available to stand over your shoulder.
The categories in this kit map to the actual sequence an experienced reviewer's brain runs through:
- Context & Purpose
- Architecture & Design
- Code Quality
- Testing
- Performance & Security
- Documentation
- Standards Compliance
- Final Considerations
Each item includes a "why" — so you're not just ticking boxes, you're understanding the reasoning behind each check.
🎨 Try it live — right now
You don't need to install anything. The interactive checklist is hosted on GitHub Pages:
👉 projekta2.github.io/pr-review-canvas
Open it, check items off as you review, and export your notes when you're done. Your progress is saved locally in your browser.
📦 The repo
Everything is MIT licensed, so you can fork it, adapt it, and use it with your team:
👉 github.com/projekta2/pr-review-canvas
Contributions are welcome — new checklist items, sharper feedback phrasing, translated versions, or a template for a workflow this doesn't cover yet.
💡 From the same workshop
This kit grew out of the same review fatigue that led to building other developer tools. But this one is free, open, and standalone — you don't need anything else to use it.
If you review code regularly, I'd love to hear what's missing or what could be sharper. Drop a comment below, open an issue on GitHub, or send me a message.
Built with care by Alexandre Iglesias – Girona, Spain.