7 tools for code review engineers (GitHub edition)
Tags: tooling, codereview, github
Published: 2022-01-25 15:43:47

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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://blog.codacy.com/how-to-code-review-in-a-pull-request/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=review-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Code reviews</a> are a fundamental part of the software development lifecycle, allowing you to identify bugs early. If you perform code reviews at your company, you can incorporate several tools to have a more robust development workflow and to make your job easier.</p>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify">This blog post focuses on tools that can help you improve your code review <strong>GitHub workflow</strong>. Some can be integrated directly in GitHub, while others work as standalone desktop clients. Let’s check them out.</p>
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<h2 id="h-bolt-by-whitesource">Bolt (by WhiteSource)</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://www.whitesourcesoftware.com/free-developer-tools/bolt/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>Bolt</strong></a> was designed to find and help fix open source vulnerabilities, to close the gap between code development and security. This tool runs as an app on GitHub (as well as an extension on Azure DevOps). Bolt works by scanning all of your repositories and detecting vulnerable components.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image td-caption-align-https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Bolt.jpeg"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Bolt-1024x948.jpeg" alt="A vulnerability dependency tress and a suggested fix with Bold" class="wp-image-4831"/><figcaption>A vulnerability dependency tree and a suggested fix with Bold, inside GitHub</figcaption></figure></div>
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<h2 id="h-devhub">DevHub</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://devhubapp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>DevHub</strong></a> is a GitHub client focused on GitHub notifications, activities, and pull requests. With this tool, you are always up to date with what’s going on: you can create columns for the repositories and people that matter to you and receive desktop push notifications about them. DevHub allows you to manage those notifications and issues, pull requests and activities, and bookmark things for later. You can also apply advanced filters on each column, like filter by label, hide all bot activity, among others.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image td-caption-align-https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/DevHub.jpeg"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/DevHub-1024x624.jpeg" alt="DevHub dashboard" class="wp-image-4834"/><figcaption>DevHub dashboard</figcaption></figure></div>
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<h2 id="h-gitify">Gitify</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://www.gitify.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>Gitify</strong></a> informs you of any GitHub notifications on your menu bar. It allows you to connect multiple accounts, and you are free to customize the notifications to your preferences. The goal is to make you more productive and not interrupt your workflow or distract you from your tasks.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Gitify.png" alt="Gitify notifications" class="wp-image-4836"/><figcaption>Gitify notifications</figcaption></figure></div>
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<h2 id="h-gitpod">Gitpod</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://www.gitpod.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>Gitpod</strong></a> is a cloud-based service for setting up ready-to-code development environments. It allows you to instantly and remotely create a developer environment directly from your browser or your desktop IDE. In addition, Gitpod can be integrated with GitHub (as well as with GitLab and Bitbucket) and automatically prebuild dev environments for all your branches.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image td-caption-align-https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Gitpod.png"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Gitpod-1024x491.png" alt="Gitpod browser extension for integration with GitHub" class="wp-image-4838"/><figcaption>Gitpod browser extension for integration with GitHub</figcaption></figure></div>
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<h2 id="h-imgbot">Imgbot</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://imgbot.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>Imgbot</strong></a> is a friendly robot that optimizes your images and saves you time by leveraging the power of pull requests. Webpages with optimized images load faster, and Imgbot can help you in that process. You only need to install it into your GitHub projects and stop worrying about compressing your images.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image td-caption-align-https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ImgBot.png"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ImgBot-1024x843.png" alt="ImgBot integration with GitHub" class="wp-image-4840"/><figcaption>ImgBot integration with GitHub</figcaption></figure></div>
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<h2 id="h-quests">Quests</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://github.com/steamclock/quests" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>Quests</strong></a><strong> </strong>is similar to Gitify, but it is only available on macOS. It allows you to have GitHub notifications on your menu bar and manage issues and pull requests.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Quests.png" alt="Quests menu bar" class="wp-image-4841"/><figcaption>Quests menu bar</figcaption></figure></div>
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<h2 id="h-reviewpad">Reviewpad</h2>
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<p class="has-text-align-justify"><a href="https://reviewpad.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>Reviewpad</strong></a> is a code review tool for GitHub (as well as GitLab and Bitbucket) that simplifies the review process by having the ability to review code with or without pull requests. It also provides an automated Kanban board of pull requests to help you quickly identify bottlenecks in the review process.</p>
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<div class="wp-block-image td-caption-align-https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Reviewpad.png"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img src="https://blog.codacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Reviewpad-1024x730.png" alt="Reviewpad Kanban view for code reviews" class="wp-image-4844"/><figcaption>Reviewpad's Kanban view for code reviews</figcaption></figure></div>
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<p>Note: <em>GitHub acquired Pull Panda, a company responsible for </em><a href="https://pullpanda.com/assigner" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Pull Assigner</em></a><em> and </em><a href="https://pullreminders.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Pull Reminders</em></a><em>. Those tools are currently being </em><a href="https://docs.github.com/en/organizations/organizing-members-into-teams/managing-code-review-settings-for-your-team" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>migrated into GitHub products</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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<p><strong>Do you know and love other tools? Feel free to contribute your suggestions, and let’s keep the conversation going in </strong><a href="https://community.codacy.com/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=review-tools" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><strong>our community</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
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