Code Quality & Review Standards

Foundation Milestone

Phase: code

CFR

Overview

What

Trunk-based development with protected main branches, mandatory PR reviews, code quality standards, and version control best practices.

Business Value

Prevents 95% of direct-to-main commits and catches code quality issues 3-5 days earlier through automated PR reviews and branch protection

DORA Impact

Lead Time
Change Failure Rate

Key Features

Git Workflow Standard
PR Review Checklist
PR Review Turnaround SLA
Conventional Commit Messages
Pair/Mob Programming
Code Readability Standards

Who

engineer

teams

platform

When

Foundation (0-90 days)

Capabilities in This Epic

Git Workflow Standard

>= 95% of code changes follow trunk-based development or GitHub flow (feature branches < 2 days old).

Target: >= 95% branches merged within 2 days

PR Review Checklist

>= 90% of PRs have checklist completed before merge (tests, docs, security, performance).

Target: >= 90% PRs have completed checklist

PR Review Turnaround SLA

>= 80% of PRs receive first review within 4 business hours.

Target: >= 80% PRs reviewed within 4 hours

Conventional Commit Messages

>= 85% of commits follow conventional commit format (type(scope): description).

Target: >= 85% commits follow conventional format

Pair/Mob Programming

>= 40% of complex features (>= 5 story points) developed using pair or mob programming.

Target: >= 40% complex features use pairing

Code Readability Standards

>= 70% of modules have README with setup, usage, and architecture notes. Code review checks readability.

Target: >= 70% modules have comprehensive README

Implementation Journey

Prerequisites

Complete these before starting:

Git repository established with protected main branch
At least one service/application in active development
Team has basic Git workflow knowledge

Typical Timeline

2.5 weeks

Effort Estimate

100 hours

≈ 13 days

Breakdown by role:

Engineering:60 hours

Platform:40 hours

Team Composition

Cross-functional team including: engineer, teams, platform

Applicable Environments

regulated

non-regulated

Success Metrics

Entry Criteria

Prerequisites to start implementing this epic:

Git repository established with protected main branch

At least one service/application in active development

Team has basic Git workflow knowledge

Exit Criteria

Criteria defined at the Foundation milestone level:

deployment Frequency: >= weekly (staging)

lead Time: <= 7 days (commit to staging)

change Failure Rate: <= 20%

mttr: <= 4h (staging)

observability Coverage: >= 80% services instrumented

ci Success: >= 90%

flaky Tests: < 5%

sbom Coverage: >= 90% services

secrets Policy: Approved secrets manager only

pr Cycle Time: p50 <= 24h

build Success: main >= 95%, PR >= 90%

ownership Coverage: >= 90% services

DORA Metrics Impact

30 days to 7 days

77%

CFR

30% to 20%

33%

Resources

Implementation Kit

Step-by-step guide, templates, and tools for this epic

View Code Quality & Review Standards Implementation Kit

Templates

Ready-to-use templates for implementing capabilities

Browse All Templates

Learn More

Tutorials & Learning Paths Case Studies & Examples

Common Pitfalls

Protected main branch bypassed using admin privileges
Mitigation: Enable "Include administrators" in branch protection. Use audit logs to track bypass events.

PR reviews rubber-stamped without actual code inspection
Mitigation: Set minimum review time (e.g., 30 min). Require specific checklist items checked. Track review quality metrics.

Coding standards documented but inconsistently applied
Mitigation: Automate with linters (ESLint, Prettier). Block PRs that fail lint checks. Update standards based on lint violations.

Next Steps

After Completing This Epic

Once you've met all exit criteria, consider these next steps:

Review metrics to validate DORA improvements
Document lessons learned and update team playbooks
Share success stories with other teams

Continue To

The natural next epic in the roadmap sequence:

CI/CD & Build Automation

Alternative Paths

Other epics that can be tackled in parallel:

Backlog Quality & Planning Enablement CI/CD & Build Automation Testing Strategy & Quality Gates Release Management Foundations