Beyond Review Comments: Building a Friendlier Code Review Process with Code Reactions
Tags: webdev, productivity, coding, startup
Published: 2023-09-14 12:43:58



[Code Reactions]() 🚀💩
We welcome all ideas and contributions on [GitHub]() 💚!

{% cta https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Adadot.code-reactions %} Install extension → {% endcta %}

-------
{% spoiler **TL;DR**%}
```
We created a vscode extension to add emoji reactions, even 

with comments, to any line of code of any Git repo! React and 

see others reactions to any piece of code straight from your

IDE, and have them follow (or not 😉) the code through 
changes.
```

{% endspoiler %}

## The story behind
After almost a decade of writing code in all sorts of environments, in a small startup or in a big enterprise with thousands of developers, we always felt `that there were some things that should be alongside our code, but never could be`.

1. **Giving and receiving feedback for your code**. As developers we *learn from others*, and their reaction to our code either that being a 👍, 👎 or sometimes even a 💩 or a 🚀, is invaluable to our progress. Unfortunately, apart from reviews we don't really get the chance to tell someone what we think about their code.

2. **Putting a mark or a note in the code**. You are going about your task and suddenly you notice a piece of code that has that `smell`, or just `doesn't look right`, or is `outdated`, or uses an `old syntax`, or looks like it could even be `an issue`. Now your choices are: 
    1. Drop the task you are doing and fix it 
    2. Create an issue somewhere to come back to it at another time (or forever forget)
    3. Do it with your task (*ouch!*)
    4. Leaving a comment in the code and puzzling yourself a few months down the line, when the code has moved/changed, with the quiz *"what was I referring to here"*.

3. Code quality metrics are very cool *as a concept*! However once used we all know that they feel a bit neither here nor there. Eg is a code bad if it has high complexity? Maybe, maybe not! I'd like to **know what my collaborators thinks of the code**, which parts are for a 😍 and which for a 🤔 and which repos and files are the ones that might need a look into cause 💩 has started pilling on.

That's why we wanted to make something that's:
- Open Source 💚 (share the love!)
- It works in the **IDE**
- You can add **emojis** and **comments** 🚀
- You can see others **emojis** and **comments** 👀
- **Follows (or leaves) the code** as it changes 

## What we built
We built an IDE extension (vscode only for the time being,
Intellij is in the works) that allows you to add emoji 
reactions, even with comments, to any line of code of any Git
repo! 

You can react and see others reactions to any piece of code straight from your IDE! 

And `Reactions follow the code!`, meaning that it stays there for as long as the relevant line has not changed - *whitespace doesn't count as change* - and they get removed from the line when it's changed.

This is the **first version**, so it supports limited amount of emojis for now, and it has only a few features. We are super excited to have the community shape the tool and decide on the new features by contributing on GitHub

## Features


![Features](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tm69osiqctdrh84mhh5m.gif)


- **Different ways to see reactions** and add yours (status bar, inline decoration, annotations, reactions feed panel)
- **Notifications** on new reactions (either on the repo or specifically on your lines)
- We didn't want to bloat the IDE, so we created a **lightweight website** for all the views we didn't feel belonged in the IDE (ie cross-repo data) so you are able to get information for all your projects.

![Frontend](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ba1oas4d0xxwe5kqmh2m.png)

## Future features
We are super excited to have your input on GitHub to help us shape the future of this extension with what the community wants and needs!

{% embed https://github.com/AdadotTeam/vscode-reactions %}