Write kind, actionable review comments on a teammate's pull request
Turns your rough review notes into clear comments labeled by severity, so the author knows what blocks merging and what doesn't.
The prompt
Help me write review comments for a teammate's pull request.
PR description and diff: [PASTE, OR THE RELEVANT PARTS]
My rough notes: [WHAT BOTHERS ME, IN ANY FORM]
Author's experience level: [e.g. "new grad in their first month", "senior engineer"]
Team conventions: [STYLE GUIDE, TESTING EXPECTATIONS, COMMENT PREFIXES WE USE - optional]
Steps:
1. Check my notes against the diff. If a note is wrong or unclear, tell me rather than turning it into a comment.
2. Point out anything important I missed: correctness, edge cases, error handling, security, tests, naming.
3. Rewrite each note as a review comment.
Each comment must:
- Start with a label: blocking, suggestion, question, or nit.
- Say what and why in 1-3 sentences, tied to a line or function.
- Offer a concrete fix or code snippet when possible.
- Ask genuine questions instead of making accusations ("What happens if `items` is empty?" not "This is broken").
Also write:
- A short top-level summary: what's good about the PR (specific, not generic praise), the 1-3 things that must change before merge, and whether I'm approving, requesting changes, or commenting.
- For a junior author, one extra line pointing to a resource or pattern they can learn from.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Software Development prompts
What to fill in
- PASTE, OR THE RELEVANT PARTS
- WHAT BOTHERS ME, IN ANY FORM
- e.g. "new grad in their first month", "senior engineer"
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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