What is Bitbucket Code Review?

The Reason You Need Bitbucket Code Reviews

One tiny error in a line of code can have an astronomical impact. Wouldn’t you agree?

A simple typo that’s made during the software development process or the unintentional use of the wrong command can prevent features from functioning properly. 

When these issues don’t get caught before the project goes live, it can ruin an otherwise carefully designed user experience. 

This is a frustrating situation that can have several knock-on effects. 

Even when your software engineers spend hours editing their own work until their vision goes blurry, mistakes can still be overlooked.

As a result, your client receives a piece of software that doesn’t work as intended. Shortly thereafter, a snarly review is left on Google and valuable leads are discouraged from working with you.

Not ideal, right?

Going forward, if you want to scale your engineering organization, it’s critical that you avoid clicking “publish” on a script that’s error-ridden and badly laid out. 

You must ensure your development team can clearly communicate  with each other and collaborate in depth on each new project that comes their way. Bitbucket code review reports are the ideal solution.

What Is Bitbucket?

According to creator Atlassian, Bitbucket is a “Git repository management solution designed for professional teams.”

Put simply, it creates a central location for your engineers to:

• Manage Git repositories
• Collaborate on source code
• Follow the development flow
• Conduct detailed code reviews

As a result, you can track project progress and ensure that even remote workers are working toward the same goal. 

What Is a Code Review?

A code review is an ongoing task where engineers are encouraged to regularly and systematically evaluate their colleagues’ work and make suggestions or amendments. 

It follows the idea that “two pairs of eyes are better than one,” generally allowing fewer errors to slip through the cracks. This can be game-changing.

Similarly, Bitbucket code reviews streamline the process of software development by using cloud technology.

How to Review Code with Bitbucket

When your software is set up with unique logins for each of your engineers, generating a Bitbucket code review report is surprisingly simple. 

Atlassian explains:

“When you work on a team with multiple Bitbucket users, you'll each want to work on your own set of code separately from the main codebase. Branches allow you to do just that.”

The Key Processes for Bitbucket Code Reviews

Setting up your first Bitbucket code review is a simple process:

Step 1. Create a repository through Bitbucket.

Step 2. Clone the repository so you don’t edit a live version.

Step 3. Create a “branch” for each employee.

Step 4. Commit code to the branch that needs to be worked on.

Step 5. Encourage employees to upload their progress to Bitbucket.

Step 6. With permission, share work across the organization.

Step 6. Request that teams spend time reviewing each other’s code.

Step 7. Create a pull request when changes need to be made.

Step 8. Allow a comprehensive code review to take place.

Step 9. Facilitate comments, feedback, and questions.

Step 10. Allow your project owner to conduct the relevant revisions.

Step 11. Ensure they seek further approval from their colleagues.

Step 12. Implement the important testing phase.

Step 13. Merge the approved version into the main code.

You can simply rinse and repeat these steps for every new employee, project, or update.

A Checklist for Reviewing Code with Bitbucket

When it’s your turn to lead a Bitbucket code review across your team, there are specific tasks that must be completed, including:

• Reviewing every small detail to eradicate typos
• Pinpointing more efficient ways to code something
• Conducting tests to analyze bugs and address issues
• Considering the overall user experience
• Restructuring the script to make more sense for future updates

Many of these tasks can be easily completed through the use of automation software that integrates with Bitbucket. 

If you don’t have enough manpower to dedicate multiple engineers to every update or code revision, you can rely on DevOps tools to review code and provide operational analytics.

The Next Step After the Bitbucket Code Review

One of the most important parts of providing valid criticism is your attitude in doing so. 

If you want your software engineers to thrive from Bitbucket code reviews rather than respond poorly to them, there must be a sense of team camaraderie. 

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to monitor the reactions of your team as they get feedback and ensure a positive environment for all. 

While some employees may have more to action than others, providing support and training is key to ensuring their ongoing success and commitment.

Where possible, encourage the formation of bonds between your development team and remind everyone that all comments should be informative and helpful. 

How to Embed Bitbucket Code Reviews - FAQs

Conducting a Bitbucket code review doesn’t have to be complicated. By adding a few extra steps into your existing process and digitizing most of the work, you can significantly reduce the risk of errors on a published piece of software. 

When your engineers are able to work in sync and review each other’s work — following the guidance of systematic notifications — they’ll start to produce incredibly high-quality work. 

Want to learn more about automated Bitbucket code reviews? The following FAQs provide the guidance you need.

What is the main purpose of a code review?

The goal of a code review is to identify mistakes and make any relevant changes before a piece of software gets published. Furthermore, you can also revisit an old piece of work that’s received negative feedback and use a bug tracker to pinpoint the problem.

Are code reviews worth it?

Yes. It is so easy to miss a mistake when you’ve read something over and over again. A fresh pair of eyes will bring a new perspective and highlight issues — improving efficiency in software development. In addition, code reviews are mandatory for auditing and compliance.

How should I conduct a code review?

If it’s your responsibility to analyze a colleague’s work, you should be careful and considerate in your approach. Use a tool like Bitbucket to leave comments on specific sections that don’t make sense and try to provide information on your reasoning. 

Track Bitbucket Code Reviews Using Keypup

To truly streamline the progress your employees make through Bitbucket code review checklists, you need a way to automate the collection of operational data.

Keypup is a DevOps tool that gathers insights to grant you keen intelligence across your organization. 

Our pull requests (PR) review ratio metric, for instance, provides the ratio of reviews performed against the required reviews to help you ensure all PRs get processed efficiently.

Our recommended actions metric helps you spot bottlenecks such as identifying which PRs haven’t been assigned a reviewer. This way, you can ensure PRs are efficiently progressing through the software development lifecycle.

With Keypup, you can also measure the response times of different peers as they review and edit code to ensure forward progress.

Interested in learning more about optimizing analytics in your software engineering? 

Contact us for a demonstration and drive informed decision-making across your engineering organization by leveraging real-time insights from your development stack through Keypup today.