# Code Reviews During Emergencies

DevFeed: [Code Reviews During Emergencies](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/code-reviews-during-emergencies-24992.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://codeahoy.com/2022/01/01/emergency-code-reviews/>)

Author: umer

Published: 2022-01-01T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Code Ahoy - Articles](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/code-ahoy-articles.md>)

Topics: [Code review](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code-review.md>), [Pull Request](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/pull-request.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [Security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/security.md>)

Tags: [code-review](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code-review.md>), [code-reviews](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/code-reviews.md>), [pull-request](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pull-request.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [slack](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains how to distinguish genuine emergencies from ordinary release pressure and how to adapt code review during emergencies. It argues that changes should still be reviewed when addressing production bugs, major security issues, urgent legal concerns, or major release blockers.

## Source excerpt

It's 3:40pm on a fine Friday afternoon. You are about to wrap up the main logic for a feature you've been working on for a couple of days when you notice you have unread Slack notifications. One catches your eye in particular: "Hey! Emergency. Need approval on my PR. I have tested everything on dev so if you can quickly approve, I can merge it before the weekend." Emergency. Alright, they have your attention. You could stop what you are doing and do a superficial code review on their pull request (PR) because after all, it's an emergency. But you are curious and fire back seeking to understand the context: "Sure, I can take a look right now. What's the emergency? Is it a bug in production or does the legal team want something updated ASAP?" They reply back right away: "No, I want to merge this code that does <insert something innocuous> because I'm OOO on Monday and want to get this released today" Urgent? Perhaps. But does this constitute an emergency? Definitely not. In this post, we'll discuss how to review code during emergencies. Let's first begin by establishing an understanding of what constitutes a real emergency. Emergencies An emergency is a critical bug in production that's affecting users, a major security issue, an urgent legal concern or something that's blocking a major feature release that has a significant impact on KPIs. I think it's easier to understand if we look at a few examples of what is not an emergency: Not Emergencies The following examples are not emergencies. The author has been working very hard and long hours on the feature and wants to get it out ASAP. It's 30-minutes to the weekend code-freeze deadline so it'll be nice to get it merged. The author's manager told them that it'd be great if they can release the feature this week. The author will be away for the next couple of days. These could relate to urgent situations or special circumstances that could definitely be important. Delaying a release may not be ideal, but it's not usual