Review Board

Review Board is an open-source, web-based code and document review tool designed to track changes and manage development discussions. It provides a centralized platform for organizations to review pending code, graphics, and documents to maintain quality and reduce bugs. The software acts as a hub for tracking all decisions made about a product, ensuring that changes are vetted before they are merged into a project.

The software is deployed as a server application and is accessed via a web browser. It includes a companion command line suite called RBTools that allows developers to post changes for review, land reviewed changes, and patch local trees from their terminal on Windows, Linux, and macOS. This combination of a web interface and a CLI ensures that the review process integrates directly into the developer workflow without requiring constant browser interaction for submission tasks.

Key features

• Diff viewer with syntax highlighting and moved line detection
• Support for indentation change indicators and interdiffs
• Integration with Git, Mercurial, Perforce, CVS, and Bazaar
• Compatibility with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps
• API and extension frameworks for custom features and UIs
• Command line interface via RBTools for workflow automation
• Pluggable automated code review through ReviewBot
• Support for reviewing non-code assets including graphics and documents

Review Board is built with Python and utilizes the Djblets framework for its API and data grids. It is designed for a wide range of users, from small teams of two people to large enterprises with thousands of employees. The architecture supports various version control systems and hosting providers, ensuring it fits into existing development pipelines. Users can extend the core functionality through a rich API, allowing for the creation of custom review interfaces and data analysis tools without needing to fork the main codebase.

This tool serves as a dedicated infrastructure for managing the peer review process across diverse project types and version control environments.