Kill the code review theater, keep the review
The New Stack 3 weeks ago 44 ● 5 sources
The author argues that teams have largely replaced meaningful code review with AI review loops that focus on diffs and miss the decisions that shape the code. The article cites a 31.3% rise in PRs merged with no review at all and reports 242.7% more incidents per PR in Faros’ 2026 engineering report. It proposes a new review workflow that preserves human judgment by recording disagreements, intent, acceptance criteria, and ownership while letting machines handle repeatable checks, so the review process becomes decision-focused instead of line-by-line theater.