AI Code Review: Your First Line of Defense Against Bugs

Stop bugs before code review. AI catches issues in seconds that take humans hours to find.

Reading time: 4 minutes Category: Getting Started Published: January 11, 2026

The Problem: Bugs Slip Through

Typical flow:

1. Write code
2. Manual review (miss subtle bugs)
3. Merge
4. Production bug 🔥

AI-first flow:

1. Write code
2. AI review (catches 80% of bugs)
3. Human review (architecture only)
4. Clean production ✅

Quick Start: Your First AI Review

Prompt:

Review this code for bugs:

[paste your code]

Check for:
- Syntax errors
- Logic bugs
- Edge cases
- Security issues

Result in 10 seconds:

Found 3 issues:

1. 🐛 Line 12: Potential null reference
   user.name might be undefined
   Fix: Add null check

2. ⚠️  Line 23: Missing error handling
   API call can throw, not caught
   Fix: Add try-catch

3. 🔒 Line 45: SQL injection risk
   String interpolation in query
   Fix: Use parameterized query

Real Example

Code:

function getUser(id) {
  const user = db.query(`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${id}`);
  return user.name.toUpperCase();
}

AI finds (2 seconds):

• SQL injection (line 2)
• Null reference (line 3)
• Missing async (line 2)

Fixed code:

async function getUser(id: string): Promise<string> {
  const user = await db.query('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?', [id]);

  if (!user) {
    throw new Error('User not found');
  }

  return user.name.toUpperCase();
}

Common Bugs AI Catches

1. Null/Undefined References

// Bug
user.profile.avatar.url

// AI suggests
user?.profile?.avatar?.url || '/default.png'

2. Race Conditions

// Bug
if (!exists(file)) {
  create(file); // Might exist now!
}

// AI suggests
try {
  create(file, { flag: 'wx' }); // Atomic
} catch (err) {
  if (err.code !== 'EEXIST') throw err;
}

3. Memory Leaks

// Bug
useEffect(() => {
  window.addEventListener('scroll', handler);
}); // Listener never removed!

// AI suggests
useEffect(() => {
  window.addEventListener('scroll', handler);
  return () => window.removeEventListener('scroll', handler);
}, []);

Your Review Checklist

Before committing, ask AI to check:

• Null safety
• Error handling
• Security (SQL injection, XSS)
• Performance (N+1, loops)
• Memory leaks

Time: 30 seconds Bugs caught: 3-5 per review

Integration

Add to your workflow:

# Before commit
git diff | claude "Review this code for bugs"

# If clean
git commit

# If issues found
# Fix, then repeat

Results After 1 Week

Metric	Before	After
Bugs in review	2-3	0-1
Review time	30 min	10 min
Production bugs	5/week	1/week

Next Steps

Today: Review your last commit with AI This Week: Review before every commit Next: Try 10-Minute Code Review

Start now: Take your most recent code, run AI review, see what it catches.