How do I review code written by an AI assistant?

QUICK ANSWER

Review the change as you would any contribution: understand the behavior, inspect the diff, test meaningful edge cases, and check security and dependencies. Keep the change small enough to explain and maintain. Passing one happy-path test does not establish correctness.

What to do next

Restate the expected behavior

Write the trigger, expected result, and important failure cases. Check that the proposed change fits the existing architecture.

Inspect the entire diff

Look for unrelated edits, new dependencies, exposed secrets, missing validation, and incorrect assumptions about APIs or data.

Validate the complete flow

Run appropriate checks and exercise the feature through its real interface. Confirm errors are handled and existing workflows still work.

Useful tools to explore

Open a profile for more detail, or check the vendor’s current plans.

Cursor

Developers and engineering teams considering Cursor for this job: AI-assisted code editing.

GitHub Copilot

Developers and engineering teams considering GitHub Copilot for this job: AI coding assistance in development workflows.

Before you decide

  • Keep secrets out of prompts and generated files.
  • Check dependency versions and licenses.
  • Do not merge code you cannot explain.
Keep in mind

Generated code can look conventional while using an unavailable API or omitting a critical failure path.

A LITTLE FEEDBACK GOES A LONG WAY

Did this answer help?

Let us know if it made your next step clearer.

0 people found this helpful
Back to all community questions