Basic steps for the review author
This section describes the basic steps that the author of a review goes through from creating the review to committing the change to the depot.
The following steps are based on the workflow described at the start of this chapter, see Workflow: a step-by-step walk-through.
- Create a changelist.
- Start a review of your changelist, see Start a code review.
- The simplest way to start a review is to add #review to your changelist description and then shelve your changelist.
- Once the review is in progress keep an eye on your Dashboard page, the review will be displayed in your dashboard when you need to do something with it.
- Optional: The project/branch your review is associated with can have default reviewers. If it does they will be added to your review automatically.
- Optional: If you need to add a pending changelist to a review, use the Add Change button on the review page, see Add a changelist to a review.
- The reviewers check the review to see if any changes are required.
- Open the review and check the comments made by the reviewers.
- Unshelve the files in the review and make your changes.
- If a comment is flagged as a task:
- If you have fixed the issue in the comment, click Task Addressed.
- If you don't believe the issue in the comment is valid, click Not a Task. It is a good idea to reply to the original comment to explain why you believe it is not a task, see Make a comment on a review.
- When you have made all of your changes and are ready for them to be reviewed re-shelve the files.
- Navigate to the review and set the review state to Needs Review from the Review State dropdown button, see Change the review state.
- The review/revision cycle is repeated until the Minimum up votes requirement is satisfied, all of the required reviewers have voted the review up, and there are no Down votes on the review. At this point the review state is automatically set to Approved by Swarm.
- When the review state has been set to Approved the review is displayed in your dashboard so that you know the review can be committed to the depot. Commit the change to the depot by selecting Commit from the Review State dropdown button, see Change the review state.
- Delete your shelf now that the change has been committed, see Delete your shelf.
If there are no default reviewers or if you want to edit the reviewers on your review, see Edit the reviewers on a review.
If changes are requested for the review:
The review state is changed to Needs Revision by one of the reviewers so that you know that you need to make changes:
You can reply to a comment if you want to discuss the reviewer's original comment, see Make a comment on a review.
For information about comment task states, see Tasks in Comment view.
Your files are added to the review with a new revision number.
This tells the reviewers that you have made changes and they are ready to be reviewed.
If you have automated tests enabled for your project, it is a good idea to wait until the tests have passed before you request a review.
If changes are not requested for the review:
When the Minimum up votes requirement is satisfied, all of the required reviewers have voted the review up, and there are no Down votes on the review, Swarm automatically sets the review state to Approved.
More review states:
- Rejected: used when a review is completed but the changes are undesirable and should not be committed, see Change the review state.
- Archived: used when the review has been completed for now but it is not rejected, or approved. The review has been filed away in case it is needed in the future, see Change the review state.