Review Board News

Announcing Review Bot 4.1

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 17:59:17 -0700

Review Bot 4.1 is out today, bringing updated compatibility for several popular tools, improved networking diagnostics, and a new e-mail notification option.

Updated Tools

Several tools have changed their output format in recent versions, causing parsing issues and garbled comments. Review Bot 4.1 restores correct behavior for:

cargo clippy and cargo test (up to v1.94)
cppcheck (up to v2.20)
go test and go vet (up to v1.26)
rubocop (up to v1.85)

New Notification Options

Tools can now be configured to only send the author of a review request the review feedback from the tool, rather than e-mailing all participants of the review request. This is especially useful for tools that may be particularly noisy, but you may want to turn it on for all tools when you have e-mails configured to send to a mailing list.

Plus...

Fixes for installation issues in modern Python environments
Enhanced logging in the Review Board extension to catch communication issues

See the Review Bot 4.1 release notes for full details and upgrade instructions.

Help Fund Review Bot and Review Board development

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 30 day trial.

These help us continue to fund and grow Review Board development. Contact us to discuss how we can work together to help support Review Board at your company.

Announcing Punch Card Review for Review Board

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 12:21:34 -0700

Too many developers are still stuck in the 1960s. We want to bring them into the 1970s and beyond.

Today, we're announcing Punch Card Review, featuring:

Drop Detection
Column Commenting
Support for most USB punch card readers
And several other features to help teams get the most out of their stack.

This is now available for the following platforms:

IBM 1401
IBM 1620
IBM System/360
IBM System/370
UNIVAC 1107
UNIVAC 1108
CDC 6600
CDC 7600
Burroughs B5000
Honeywell 200
GE-600
PDP-11

Learn more about how Punch Card review can help your full stack developers get the most out of code review.

Our Mainframe Sales division is standing by.

Review Board 7.0.6: Important Fixes for 7.0.5

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:39:02 -0700

Last week, we released Review Board 7.0.5, which simplified installation, added support for the new-style Bitbucket API tokens, and fixed several bugs.

Unfortunately the release build was impacted by a new version of one of our dependencies, which broke editing review request fields. We pulled the 7.0.5 release and have worked to address the breakage.

The new Review Board 7.0.6 is a re-release of 7.0.5 with these problems fixed. As a refresher, this supports:

Expanded Installation Support

The following Linux distributions are now supported by the Review Board Installer:

Amazon Linux 2 and 2023
CentOS Stream 8–10
Debian 10–13
Fedora 36–43
openSUSE Leap 15–16
openSUSE Tumbleweed
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8–10
Rocky Linux 8–10
Ubuntu 18.04–25.10

Several installation issues with modern Python environments have also been addressed.

Security Enhancements

We've updated our dependencies to use the latest security-hardened builds, and strengthened Review Board's cryptographic foundation across repository communication, data storage, and internal operations.

Updated Bitbucket Authentication

Review Board now supports authenticating with Bitbucket repositories using their new API tokens. These replace their legacy App Passwords.

Support for App Password-based authentication will be shut off in June 2026. After upgrading, we recommend editing each of your Bitbucket repositories and switching those credentials to the new tokens.

See Link Your Bitbucket Account for more information on how to create and use these API tokens.

Plus...

Improved syntax highlighting for source code in diffs and discussions
Small UX improvements during configuration
Bug fixes with commenting, search, and Dark Mode

See the release notes for 7.0.5 and 7.0.6 for more details.

Coming Up

We've been working hard on new major releases of Review Board and Power Pack. These will bring Office document review and diffing, user roles and rules, self-signed certificate management for internal services, new extension capabilities, and a more seamless approach to managing licenses and getting support.

You'll hear more soon.

Let's get started!

To learn more about upgrading your server, see our upgrade instructions.

You can also use our official Docker images for easy deployment.

Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 30 day trial.

Your support and licenses help us continue building and improving Review Board. Reach out to us and we'll work with you on a plan that fits your needs.

Review Board 7.0.5: Expanded Installation and Better Stability

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:18:55 -0700

Today's release of Review Board 7.0.5 simplifies installation across a wide range of Linux distributions, adds support for the new-style Bitbucket API tokens, and fixes several bugs.

Expanded Installation Support

The following Linux distributions are now supported by the Review Board Installer:

Amazon Linux 2 and 2023
CentOS Stream 8–10
Debian 10–13
Fedora 36–43
openSUSE Leap 15–16
openSUSE Tumbleweed
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8–10
Rocky Linux 8–10
Ubuntu 18.04–25.10

Several installation issues with modern Python environments have also been addressed.

Security Enhancements

Updated Bitbucket Authentication

Review Board now supports authenticating with Bitbucket repositories using their new API tokens. These replace their legacy App Passwords.

See Link Your Bitbucket Account for more information on how to create and use these API tokens.

Plus...

Improved syntax highlighting for source code in diffs and discussions
Small UX improvements during configuration
Bug fixes with commenting, search, and Dark Mode

Coming Up

You'll hear more soon.

Let's get started!

To learn more about upgrading your server, see our upgrade instructions.

You can also use our official Docker images for easy deployment.

Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 30 day trial.

Your support and licenses help us continue building and improving Review Board. Reach out to us and we'll work with you on a plan that fits your needs.

RBTools 6: Now with Jujutsu

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 13:03:01 -0800

RBTools is an extensible set of command line tools, a Python API, and workflow automations for code and document reviews on Review Board.

Today’s release of RBTools 6.0 introduces all-new support for Jujutsu, improved documentation and usability for the Python API, and a few bug fixes.

Introducing Jujutsu Support

Jujutsu is a fairly new version control system that’s rapidly gaining popularity. It works seamlessly with Git servers while providing new and innovative concepts and commands. Because of its interoperability, it's a powerful tool that can be integrated into individual developer workflows without requiring major organizational changes.

This release includes full support for working with Jujutsu clones, including posting, patching, and landing changes. This is compatible with existing Git repositories on all versions of Review Board.

See our workflow guide for information on how to get started with Jujutsu in RBTools.

Easier Development with the Python API

RBTools's built-in Python API now better integrates with modern IDEs and developer tools. The entire API has been updated with Python type hints and docstrings, making it easier to develop custom commands, hooks, and scripts that interact with Review Board.

We’ve also reworked and expanded the API documentation with modern examples and better clarity.

Plus…

Patching support for binary files when using Jujutsu, Git, Mercurial, Perforce and Subversion.
Ability to use web-based login for any command that requires authentication.
Better patching on Mercurial to more reliably apply patches in files with varying newline styles.

See the release notes for the full list of changes.

To learn more about RBTools, see the RBTools downloads page and RBTools 6.0 documentation.

Let's upgrade!

To upgrade RBTools on Linux and macOS, run:

$ pip3 install -U RBTools

A Windows installer for RBTools is also available.

RBTools and Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 30 day trial.

These help us continue to fund and grow Review Board development. Contact us to discuss how we can work together to help support Review Board at your company.

Review Board 7.0.4: New SAML Options, Custom Tab Stop Widths

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 21:15:38 -0700

Review Board 7.0.4 adds an assortment of new SSO SAML features to help meet the needs of IT departments everywhere, and long-awaited customization of tab stop widths in diffs.

All-New SAML Settings

IT departments now have greater control of user provisioning, access, and configuration.

Automatic user provisioning can now be turned off in SAML Settings, letting administrators better control who has access to the server.

Users can be explicitly disabled from logging into Review Board via SAML, even if the Identity Provider otherwise grants access. To do this, edit a user in the Administration UI and turn off their Active flag.

For more specialized SAML configurations, you can now set SAML_CONFIG_ADVANCED in your $sitedir/conf/settings_local.py file to tweak any python3-saml settings needed. For example:

SAML_CONFIG_ADVANCED = {
    'security': {
        'requestAuthnContext': False,
    },
}

Looking to provision a user for SAML SSO or automation purposes via the API? You can now create a user without specifying a password using the User API. The user account will only be accessible using SSO or an API Token.

Customizable Tab Stop Widths

Using tabs instead of spaces? You can finally customize the width of tab characters in your diffs. You can set this system-wide in Diff Settings. It defaults to 8.

Plus...

Improved styling in Dark Mode
Upgrade fixes when moving from very old versions of Review Board
Fixed preserving commit range selections when paginating diffs
Fixed an issue on Postgres where downloaded diffs could sometimes reorder files

All the details can be found in the release notes.

Coming Up

We've been working hard on a new major Review Board 7.1 and Power Pack 6 release, which offers Office document review and diffing, user roles and rules, new extension capabilities, a more seamless approach to managing licenses and getting support.

You'll hear more soon.

Let's get started!

To learn more about upgrading your server, see our upgrade instructions.

You can also use our official Docker images.

Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 30 day trial.

Your support and licenses help us fund and grow Review Board and keeps food on our tables. Reach out to us and we'll work with you on a plan that fits your needs.

RBTools 5.3: Azure DevOps and Windows Fixes

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 16:26:29 -0700

RBTools is an extensible set of command line tools, a Python API, and workflow automations for code and document reviews on Review Board.

Today's release of RBTools 5.3 includes:

Support for newer versions of Azure DevOps Server / Team Foundation Server.
Fixes for running rbt on Windows after upgrading with the installer.
Fixes for excluding filenames containing whitespaces when using rbt post --exclude with Git.
Updates to rename the Cliosoft SOS integration to Keysight SOS.

See the release notes for the full list of changes.

To learn more about RBTools, see the RBTools downloads page and documentation.

Let's upgrade!

To upgrade RBTools on Linux and macOS, run:

$ pip3 install -U RBTools

A Windows installer for RBTools is also available.

RBTools and Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 30 day trial.

These help us continue to fund and grow Review Board development. Contact us to discuss how we can work together to help support Review Board at your company.

RBTools 5.2: Compatibility Updates

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 02:16:41 -0700

RBTools is a set of command line tools and Python API for working with code and document reviews on Review Board.

Today's release of RBTools 5.2 improves compatibility across the product and fixes a few bugs. Highlights include:

Subversion patches can now be applied when the patch originates from a different part of the repository (such as a different branch or tag).
Mercurial revision lookups no longer result in unwanted debug output.
ClearCase repositories can once again be located when using Review Board versions prior to 7.0.1.
rbt patch --print can now be used when configuring advanced repository path matching using TREES in .reviewboardrc.
Binary file types can now be detected when the file command isn't available.

See the release notes for the full list of changes.

To learn more about RBTools, see the RBTools downloads page and RBTools 5.2 documentation.

Let's upgrade!

To upgrade RBTools on Linux and macOS, run:

$ pip3 install -U RBTools

A Windows installer for RBTools is also available.

RBTools and Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 60 day trial.

These help us continue to fund and grow Review Board development. Contact us to discuss how we can work together to help support Review Board at your company.

Review Board 7.0.3: Better on Mobile. Better All Around.

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 00:07:44 -0800

Review Board 7.0.3 is all about polish. We've tightened up the mobile experience, broadened diff and repository compatibility, improved performance, and added some new features for extension authors.

Better on Mobile

Review Board 7 introduced all-new UI for mobile devices, and we've greatly refined that UI in 7.0.3. Menus now fit snugly on small screens, instead of running off the side. More components respond natively to touch events. Commenting is cleaned up.

While there's still plenty to do, mobile is shaping up.

Better All Around

This release covers a lot of areas:

Compatibility with a wider range of patch-generation tools
Tweaks to dark mode
Faster startup performance
Faster search indexing performance, particularly when using diff ACL checks
More reliable upgrades from very old versions of Review Board
New extension and API capabilities
Fixes for all sorts of diff rendering edge cases
Bullet-proofing for repository authentication issues

And plenty more!

All the details can be found in the release notes.

Let's get started!

To learn more about upgrading your server, see our upgrade instructions.

You can also use our official Docker images.

Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 60 day trial.

These help us continue to fund and grow Review Board development.

For a limited time, get 18% off any new support contracts or Power Pack licenses. Offer now good until the end of January, 2025!

RBTools 5.1: Better Patching and New Settings

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 23:13:45 -0800

RBTools 5.1 brings a new set of patching improvements and fixes, along with a few new settings you can use to better manage your repositories.

Much-Improved Patching

We've completely rebuilt how RBTools applies patches files and lands changes. The new approach avoids edge cases for repositories like Mercurial, Perforce, and Subversion, and brings wider compatibility across GNU Patch, BSD Patch, and Apple Patch.

Mercurial users will finally be able to land or patch multiple commits in one go, removing the incompatibility between RBTools and Mercurial's own patching tool.

There's also better error handling, with breakdowns on what files failed to patch or simply conflicted with other changes, helping you hand-merge the changes.

If you're building in-house tools that need to land changes, you can now apply patches or customize behavior using the new Patcher implementation.

Centralized Settings Management

TREES

In RBTools 3, we deprecated the largely-hidden TREES setting in .reviewboardrc, which let you map repository paths to Review Board server URLs. We then removed it entirely in RBTools 4.

Bringing this back has been a frequent request. Now, not only can you use TREES again, but you can use it to customize any setting in RBTools, using your own .reviewboardrc!

Here's an example:

TREES = {
    'https://svn.example.com/': {
        'REVIEWBOARD_URL': 'https://reviews.example.com',
    },
    '/home/user/dev': {
        'MARKDOWN': False,
        'TRACKING_BRANCH': 'origin/rewrite',
    }
}

Organizations can also use this in combination with a $RBTOOLS_CONFIG_PATH (Linux/macOS) or %RBTOOLS_CONFIG_PATH% (Windows) environment variable to specify central directories containing shared .reviewboardrc files, to centrally manage RBTools for all developers.

COOKIES_STRICT_DOMAIN_MATCH

If you’re using multiple Review Board servers on the same domain, it can be possible for session cookies (needed for authentication) to conflict with each other. For example, cookies sent from rb.example.com would be used on staging.rb.example.com, and this may not be what you want.

You can now enable strict-domain cookies by enabling COOKIES_STRICT_DOMAIN_MATCH in .reviewboardrc (including in TREES).

For example:

COOKIES_STRICT_DOMAIN_MATCH = True

For compatibility reasons, this is off by default.

Plus...

Improved compatibility and stability for uploading binary files in commits.
New metadata options in rbt status-update set.
Compatibility fixes for older versions of Review Board.

See the release notes for the full list of changes.

To learn more about RBTools, see the RBTools downloads page and RBTools 5.1 documentation.

18% off for Review Board's 18th Birthday!

As a reminder, we're offering 18% off all new Power Pack licenses and support contracts for Review Board's 18th birthday.

This sale lasts until the end of 2024, and will help us ensure the future of Review Board for years to come.

Celebrate Review Board’s Birthday with 18% Off

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 22:58:42 -0800

We recently opened up to you all about the future of Review Board and the challenges of creating and sustaining an ethical business built around an Open Source product and keeping its development funded in a difficult market.

It hasn’t always been easy, but your responses reminded us why we do this. The outpouring of support, encouragement, and thoughtful feedback left us deeply appreciative and inspired. We’re grateful to have such a passionate and dedicated community behind us — our users are truly the heart of Review Board’s success, and we want to keep building for you.

This year, Review Board celebrates its 18th birthday, marking nearly two decades of helping developers create and collaborate together more effectively. It’s humbling to think back to those early days when we built a tool simply because we were frustrated with e-mailing diffs back and forth for review. The days before Git took off, the days before pull requests existed. Before the market was dominated by 800 pound gorillas and AI-focused upstarts. Our attempt at a modest solution to a common pain point has grown into a tool relied on by thousands of teams around the world, helping build products people enjoy and rely on every day.

Our way of saying thanks and hoping for your business

To thank you all and to celebrate 18 years of Review Board, we’re offering an 18% discount on all new Power Pack licenses and support contracts purchased through the end of the year. Your discount will last for the full 1 year term of any license or contract.

Power Pack and support contracts are how we fund Review Board’s development and how we keep food on our tables. If you depend on Review Board today, you can help us ensure we’re around for years to come. Lock in your 18% discount by purchasing Power Pack today, or talk to us at sales@beanbaginc.com if you’d like to discuss support, Purchase Orders, or billing that meets your year-end or new-year budget cycles.

And thank you once again for helping support Review Board!

— Christian, David, and Michelle from Beanbag

The Future of Review Board

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 12:58:11 -0700

It's been a while since we've talked about the future of Review Board, and we felt it was time. We have some important topics to discuss.

We Need Your Help

We love working on this product. We began developing it in 2006, back before GitHub and Pull Requests existed. Back when code review was done over e-mail, bug trackers, and whiteboards, if it was done at all. It was a painful process, and we knew we had to innovate. Commenting directly on the code, viewing interdiffs, multi-line commenting, filterable dashboards, integration with other tools—all of it was new. Many of those inventions have since become standard across the market.

That's almost 20 years of helping make code review what it is today. But that could change. The instability in the tech sector, the downsizing, the cost-cutting… It's impacted us.

Review Board is open source and will remain so. We've never required a fee to use the software. Continued development is instead funded through support contracts, Power Pack, and sponsored feature development as part of our company, Beanbag, Inc.

We'd like to share some facts you may not know:

Beanbag is a small company. We are three very dedicated people developing Review Board and our family of products.
We're self-sufficient, living off the sales we work hard to earn and keep. We're not burning through VC money or operating as a loss leader for a giant tech company.
Microsoft and GitHub have been doing what they’re good at: dominating the market, putting smaller companies out of business, and making it hard for the rest of us to stand out, stay funded, and innovate.
Review Board is used in a wide range of industries, at companies of all sizes, for software and hardware development, but…
Over 98% of our install base uses Review Board completely for free.

To put it simply, the future of Review Board depends on us making sales.

We have a lot planned for this product. We've been working toward some big changes, capabilities no tool on the market is even exploring, and we want to see our vision through.

We're fighting to make that happen.

But we do need your help.

If your company is using Review Board today and finds any value in it at all, we'd like to talk to you directly to find out:

What you get out of Review Board today.
What would keep you using Review Board tomorrow.
If there’s an opportunity to work with your company on a support contract, Power Pack license, or sponsored development. We'll work with you to meet your budgets.

If you're open to discussion, please reach out directly, and we'll schedule time to talk with you or anyone from your company.

What We're Working On

Here's just a taste of what we've been building and setting the groundwork to build:

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) review and diffing.
Google Docs review and diffing.
New innovations for improving the code review process, visualizing code, and aiding in very large reviews (we're keeping some of these under wraps for now).
Deep pull request integration with GitHub and GitLab, letting you combine the best of their services and the best of ours.
A reworked Dashboard for better filtering and tracking of review status and workloads.
More organizational control over access policies and custom review request approval flows.

These are just some of our plans.

Are we on the right track? Can you help us get there?

Thanks for your time,
Christian Hammond and David Trowbridge
Creators of Review Board

Review Board 7.0.2: A New Administrator Experience

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 01:19:40 -0700

Administrators who also review code: This release is for you.

Mercurial users: You, too.

Administrators, Review and Rejoice!

We never had the best experience for administrators who need to review code. When looking at a review request with a draft in progress, the administrator would see some information from the draft, some from the published review request. Commenting didn't work until the draft was published. It was... subpar.

We've completely reworked this experience.

Now, if you're reviewing code, you'll get the same experience as everyone else. You'll see only what's published. If there's a draft, or you need to make changes, you can switch over to a draft mode and see what the user's working on.

Stronger Mercurial Support

Managing your repositories with Mercurial? We've done a lot this release to make your workflows work better:

Multi-commit review requests are better supported. A lot of corner cases from Mercurial's design have been worked around and fixed.
Commits introducing binary files can now be uploaded, and those files reviewed in the diff viewer.

We have more Mercurial goodness coming in the next major release of RBTools.

Plus...

Wider compatibility for downloaded Git and Mercurial diffs.
Compatibility fixes for the latest Perforce for Python releases.
Fixes for sending e-mails when DMARC DNS records aren't in a standard format.
Various improvements throughout the review request UI.

All the details can be found in the release notes.

Let's get started!

To learn more about upgrading your server, see our upgrade instructions.

You can also use our official Docker images.

Review Board development is funded by Support and Power Pack

If you're using Review Board today, we'd like to see how we can work together. We offer:

Full-service support contracts to help your IT department keep things running smoothly.
Power Pack Document Review, Reports, new integrations, and more, with a free 60 day trial.

These help us continue to fund and grow Review Board development.

Power Pack 5.3: Now with Dark Mode (and Security Fixes!)

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 01:10:18 -0700

Dark Mode has arrived in Power Pack!

You can now review documents and analyze reports in the late hours of the night (when you should probably be sleeping) without bright light searing your eyes.

This is a free upgrade for all Power Pack users, and requires Review Board 7.0.1 or higher.

Power Pack 5.3 also comes with:

An important security fix for viewing PDFs (pdf.js CVE-2024-4765).
Automatic scroll lock when viewing diffs of documents.
Better compatibility with Review Board 7.

For the complete list of changes and installation instructions, see the release notes.

What else does Power Pack do?

PDF document review and diffing, allowing you to review documents, schematics, designs, contracts, and code all in one place.
Report generation, giving you insight into code review practices in your organization.
Advanced server management for scalability, database management, and splitting/merging installs.
Eenterprise source code management systems, including AWS CodeCommit, Azure DevOps/TFS, Bitbucket Server, Keysight SOS, GitHub Enterprise, and ClearCase.

Review Board development is funded by Power Pack

You can try Power Pack free for 60 days or purchase a license for your Review Board server.

Review Board 7.0.1: UI and Compatibility Updates

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 01:15:41 -0700

Review Board 7.0.1 fixes some important compatibility issues, and makes further improvements to the UI, building upon what we started in Review Board 7.

Let's dig in.

RBTools 5 Compatibility Fixes

In Review Board 7.0, posting changes against Git or ClearCase repositories using RBTools 5 could sometimes result in an error. This depended entirely on your RBTools and Review Board configuration and affected users who didn't specify an explicit repository in .reviewboardrc on a server without Power Pack.

This was due to a bug in our API combined with an oversight in RBTools 5. We recommend updating to 7.0.1 as soon as possible to avoid any issues posting changes for review.

Document Review Fixes

For users leveraging Review Board 7 with Power Pack for Document Review, you can once again move and resize your draft comments on documents. This had regressed in 7.0 but is now fixed.

UI Improvements

We've been working on further updates to Review Board 7's UI:

Improved font sizes in the page header.
Fixed a few button interactions (enabling/disabling extensions or deleting items from the database in the Administration UI).
Introduced a whole new condition rule editor for configuring integrations.

Plus...

Better stability when your cache server goes down.
Asana integration fixes.
Wider compatibility for building extensions with or without static media.
Fixes for crashes when viewing some interdiffs.
New API and extension improvements as part of the Review Board Platform.

All the details can be found in the release notes.

Let's get started!

To learn more about upgrading your server, see our upgrade instructions. You can also use our official Docker images.

If you need assistance with your server, we can help under a support contract.

Using Stacked Changes with Review Board

michelle@beanbaginc.com (maubin) — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 16:53:40 -0700

Many software development methodologies highlight the importance of writing simple, concise and well organized code. While a lot of thought has been put into coding practices, there hasn't been much attention put towards the way in which we present code for review.

Developers might post one big review request (or pull request) that encompasses an entire feature for review. This approach can be problematic for several reasons:

Large review requests can be overwhelming for reviewers, leading to slower review times and more waiting on the review requester's end.
Having a bunch of changes crammed into one high-level review request puts a heavy cognitive load on the reviewer. They have to understand a substantial amount of new information at once, which can lead to missed issues and lower quality reviews.

A more effective approach is to use Stacked Changes (or Stacked Diffs), a methodology that breaks down complex changes into a series of small, dependent units. Instead of posting one large change for review, you post multiple small ones that stack on top of each other as you progress through your project.

Each change, no matter how minor, has its own review request with a clear description, testing done, and purpose. This makes it easy for others to understand and digest your project, and lets you keep working while waiting for reviews.

Other benefits of stacking include:

Easier to review: Reviewers are looking at manageable pieces of code, making it easier to spot issues and provide meaningful feedback.
Faster reviews: You post a change as soon as its ready and start working on the next, which means no time being blocked while waiting for reviews and no need to context switch to another project while waiting.
Helps you write better code: Stacking forces you to organize your code into clear and distinct pieces, ensuring that each change is logical and self-contained.
Reduces integration problems: Incremental changes are less likely to introduce significant conflicts or integration issues, making it easier to maintain a stable codebase.
Improves traceability: Each change is documented and reviewed separately, providing a clear history of what was changed and why, and who reviewed it, which is invaluable for debugging and future maintenance.

Posting and Reviewing Stacked Changes with Review Board

When working on Review Board here at Beanbag, we prefer developing in Stacked Changes. Here's a walk-through of our typical workflow using Git.

1. Create a branch for the first change in the stack

It's best to use one branch to represent one change in the stack. Each branch will have its own review request. We also like to have only one commit per branch to keep things extra simple. But, you're free to create as many commits as you want in one branch, and they will all be shown in the single review request.

Let's create the branch off of main, make some changes, and commit them.

$ git checkout -b my-branch-1 main
$ <make changes>
$ git commit -a

Your tree now looks like this:

o 81abb90 [my-branch-1]
|
o 81a0a95 [main] [origin/main]
|
.

2. Post the first change for review

We want to post the change for review as soon as its ready, so that it has ample time to be reviewed while you start working on your next change. It's as simple as:

$ rbt post
Review request #1001 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/diff/

This will create a review request showing the diff between my-branch-1 and main.

3. Create subsequent branches in the stack

Let's create a branch for your next change, which will be stacked on top of the first change. And this time, you decide to have two commits in the branch.

$ git checkout -b my-branch-2
$ <make changes>
$ git commit -a
$ <make other changes>
$ git commit -a

Now there are two changes in the stack and your tree looks like this:

o 167ba59 [my-branch-2]
|
o a987ee1
|
o 81abb90 [my-branch-1]
|
o 81a0a95 [main] [origin/main]
|
.

You can continue stacking branches like this as needed, always creating the new branch off of the last one.

4. Post stacked changes for review

It's time to post the second change in the stack for review:

$ rbt post --depends-on 1001 my-branch-1..HEAD
Review request #1002 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1002/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1002/diff/

Passing my-branch-1..HEAD, or more generally [previous-branch-in-stack]..HEAD, ensures that only the diff between the previous change in the stack and the current change gets posted to the review request. If we didn't include this, the diff would represent all of the changes between main and my-branch-2.

If there's only one commit in your branch, you can run rbt post HEAD to achieve the same thing. Or if we didn't have my-branch-2 currently checked out, we could have run rbt post my-branch-1..my-branch-2.

Passing --depends-on 1001 marks this review request as dependent on change 1001, which was the first one in the stack. When your teammates go to review this change, they'll see that they should review that change first. They'll also be able to see whether that change has been completed already.

Likewise, on the review request for the first change, they'll see that it blocks the second change, meaning that when it comes time to land the changes and push them to main, this one should land before the second one.

5. Address feedback from reviews

By now you might have some reviews on your first change. Let's make some changes to the commit on my-branch-1 based on review feedback, and post a new diff to the review request:

$ git checkout my-branch-1
$ <address feedback>
$ git commit -a --amend
$ rbt post -u -p -m "Fixed a broken link."
Review request #1001 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/diff/

-u updates the existing review request (or you could pass -r 1001)
-p publishes the review request
-m fills out the change description for the update

Instead of amending the original commit, you could also have created any number of new commits.

Sometimes, the requested changes can be quite complex and could cause a lot of merge headaches when updating the next branches in the stack. In that case, its easier to create a new branch at the end of the stack and make your changes starting from there. In your review request description and replies to reviews, you can link to the review request of the new branch. This helps keep a history of how a project evolves, as new requirements and conditions are discovered.

6. Rebase and update stacked changes

We've made updates to the first change in the stack, so now we have to pull these updates into the rest of the changes in the stack. Let's rebase my-branch-2 onto my-branch-1:

$ git checkout my-branch-2
$ git rebase my-branch-1

While rebasing you may need to deal with some merge conflicts. With Stacked Diffs, you tend to rebase more frequently, but since the changes are small and focused, the merge conflicts are easier to manage compared to rebasing a large branch with a lot of different moving parts in it.

If you have more branches in the stack, you'll have to checkout each branch and repeat the process of rebasing onto the previous one. This can be tedious, so we created a handy script for a git rebase-chain command that lets you rebase a whole stack of branches in one command. For example, if we had some updates in main that we wanted to pull into our stack, you can run:

$ git rebase-chain main my-branch-1 my-branch-2

As of Git 2.38, you can also use the --update-refs option to rebase the whole stack. For example, if we now have 5 stacked branches, and you want to pull the update from my-branch-1 into the 4 other branches, you just need to checkout the last branch in the stack and run the rebase:

$ git checkout my-branch-5
$ git rebase my-branch-1 --update-refs

7. Land your changes

After a few iterations of reviews and updates, you finally get your Ship Its and are ready to land your stack:

$ git checkout main
$ rbt land --dest=main my-branch-1
$ rbt land --dest=main my-branch-2
$ git push

Each branch will be verified for approval before their commits are merged onto main. The old branches will be deleted after they've landed. rbt land has a lot of options you can play with.

And that's the workflow for developing in Stacked Changes using Review Board!

If you're not a Git user, Review Board integrates with many other version control systems, including Perforce, Mercurial, Azure DevOps, and Cliosoft SOS. Check out our workflow guides to see how you can follow a similar workflow using your version control system of choice.

TL;DR

Using Stacked Changes with Review Board offers a structured and efficient way to manage code reviews, particularly for complex projects.

By breaking down large changes into smaller, manageable pieces, the review process becomes more streamlined and effective. This makes it easier for you to work through your project and for reviewers to understand your code and provide feedback. Whether you're using Git or another version control system, you can post Stacked Changes to Review Board and easily see the relation between changes in a stack.

In the future we plan on improving our support for Stacked Changes, such as automatically assigning the dependent and blocking review requests when posting a change, and some more intuitive UI for following a stack during review.

Stay up to date on our latest changes through our mailing lists.

If you like to work in Stacked Changes and have ideas for features you want or better ways to support your workflow, let us know by sending us an email or hopping in to our Discord server.

Review Board 7: It’s a bright day for code review!

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 03:53:08 -0700

They say it’s darkest just before the dawn. And whether that’s when you’re most productive, or in the middle of a warm, sunny day, Review Board 7 will help you see the code, documents, images, and reviews in an all-new light.

Review Board 7 introduces Dark Mode, all-new support for reviewing images directly in the Diff Viewer, Microsoft Teams integration, mobile-friendly diff review, and lots more.

And we’re not just releasing Review Board 7 today. We’re also releasing RBTools 5 and Review Bot 4, which help unleash the full power of Review Board 7’s new features.

Dark Mode

There's nothing worse than staying up late to review code and feeling blinded by your screen. With Dark Mode in Review Board 7, you can reduce eye strain and work comfortably no matter the time of day. This sleek new look not only helps in low-light environments but also adds a modern, stylish touch to your code reviews.

You can activate Dark Mode in My Account -> Appearance. You can also have Review Board automatically match your system theme, keeping it in sync with all your other applications.

Dark Mode is currently in beta as we continue to fine-tune its look and expand its availability throughout the product. It's not available yet in the Administration UI, Reports, or Document Review, but those updates are coming soon.

Image Review in the Diff Viewer

Projects aren’t made entirely of code and text files. Images can be a crucial part of your commits, too, often containing essential design updates, new artwork, or visual elements that define your feature. While this used to require uploading these images separately as file attachments, now they can be seen directly in the Diff Viewer with the rest of your change.

To upload images as part of your change, you’ll need to use the new RBTools 5 release and a Git, Mercurial, Perforce, or Subversion repository. This will ensure new images and changes to existing images are included with your code.

Once uploaded, images can be viewed and diffed using several modes:

Two-Up: Shows the old and the new images side-by-side.
Color Difference: Changes in colors are shown like an X-Ray, helping you spot even the smallest changes to an image.
Split Mode: Overlays both images, using a slider to show or hide parts of each image.
Onion Skin: Like Split Mode, but adjusting the transparency of the new image on top of the old.

Microsoft Teams Integration

Staying on top of code reviews is now easier with our new Microsoft Teams integration. Slack and Discord users have enjoyed live notifications of review request activity for years, and now, Teams users can too.

New and updated review requests, as well as any reviews or replies, are sent directly to your Teams channels. This keeps your team informed and responsive, no matter where they are.

An unlimited number of rules can be configured, helping you keep individual channels informed based on repositories, branches, or any other criteria. You can even keep sensitive review requests out of public channels automatically.

Mobile Diff Review

Reviewing code on the go is now easier with our improved Mobile Diff Review. On small screens, the diff viewer automatically switches to a single column, presenting changes in a mobile-friendly way without the need for side-by-side comparisons. This ensures a smooth and efficient review process, even when you're away from your desk.

Plus…

A more polished and accessible UI throughout the product.
Improved Jenkins CI compatibility.
Configurable timeouts for CI builds.
Updated default settings for the Dashboards for new users.
Better Markdown review compatibility.
Backed by Django 4.2 LTS for long-term security and support for your server.
Increased stability, faster performance, and many, many bug fixes.

And that’s just Review Board! We have improvements in RBTools 5 and Review Bot 4 that we haven’t even talked about yet.

To learn more, see the release notes for:

Ready to upgrade?

For most users of Review Board 5 or 6, Review Board 7 will be a drop-in replacement with minimal downtime.

Still, make sure you have a backup of your database and site directory, and please perform a test upgrade on a test server. Then follow the upgrade instructions.

If you’re using Docker, follow our Docker instructions to deploy new containers. Review Board 7’s official Docker images are based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Python 3.11.

Talk to us about Review Board Support to keep your server running smoothly and your developers happy.

Power Pack 5.2.3: Review Board 7 Compatibility and Bug Fixes

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:11:24 -0700

Review Board 7 is coming soon. To get ready, we're putting out a series of releases that you can upgrade to today, starting with Power Pack 5.2.3.

What is Power Pack?

Power Pack is licensed add-on for Review Board, offering:

PDF document review and diffing, allowing you to review documents, schematics, designs, contracts, and code all in one place.
Report generation, giving you insight into code review practices in your organization.
Advanced server management for scalability, database management, and splitting/merging installs
Support for enterprise source code management systems, including AWS CodeCommit, Azure DevOps/TFS, Bitbucket Server, Cliosoft SOS, GitHub Enterprise, HCL VersionVault, and IBM Rational ClearCase.

You can try Power Pack free for 60 days or purchase a license for your server.

What's New in Power Pack 5.2.3

Power Pack 5.2.3 now supports Review Board 3 through 7, and makes the following improvements:

When paid licenses expire, they'll convert to a free perpetual 2-user license.
Installation issues with certain combinations of boto3, urllib3, and requests package dependencies have been fixed.
Fixed an issue with draft comment visibility on PDFs.

For the complete list of changes and installation instructions, see the release notes.

Installing Review Board has never been easier

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:52:45 -0800

We’ve launched a new installer for Review Board, with support for over 50 different system environments.

With a single command, you can be up and running in minutes, on nearly any Linux system, providing a virtually hassle-free experience, whether you’re installing Review Board for the first time or moving your install to a new server.

Using the new installer

It’s as simple as running the following as root:

$ curl https://install.reviewboard.org | python3

Or, if you prefer not to use curl and have pipx installed:

$ pipx run rbinstall

The installer will check your system for the latest compatible release of Review Board. From there, you can get an overview of the commands the installer will run, and then run them.

The installer also sets up:

Automated code review with Review Bot, which can automatically review code using a wide variety of code checking tools, saving your engineers time during review and catching important issues quickly.
A free 2-user tier of Power Pack, providing:

Document Review, to help review your documentation, mockups, schematics, and designs alongside your code.

Reports/Analytics, to gain a better understanding of how well your teams are using code review to improve your products.

Additional repository support, letting you integrate with Azure DevOps, GitHub Enterprise, ClearCase, Cliosoft SOS, and other solutions you may depend on.

Automated/Unattended installs

The installer was built with automation in mind. You can set up entire fleets by running a single command:

$ curl https://install.reviewboard.org | python3 - --noinput

Or, with pipx:

$ pipx run rbinstall --noinput

To learn more, see the Unattended Installs documentation.

Docker is another great option

If you’re looking to simplify maintenance even further, we have official Docker images available.

This is a simple option for spinning up new Review Board servers for deployment or testing, complete with Review Bot and Power Pack. No manual installation required, and kept up-to-date as we release new versions.

Fully supported

Support for the installer, Docker images, and your whole deployment are included with a Review Board support contract.

This comes with 24/7 coverage for any emergencies or assistance you need, keeping you protected and ensuring you’re never on your own when things go wrong. We’re here for any questions you have, any problems you encounter, and any guidance you need.

If your server is currently unprotected, contact us about a support contract to take care of that today.

Learn more

See our guide to the Review Board Installer to learn how to run the installer, automate installation, and prepare older Linux distributions for installation. It’ll help ensure a seamless install the next time you’re setting up Review Board.

Have any questions or feedback about the installer? We’d love to hear from you! Contact us at questions@beanbaginc.com.

Review Board Security/Bug Fix Releases: 6.0.2, 5.0.7, 4.0.13, 3.0.26

christian@beanbaginc.com (chipx86) — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 02:43:43 -0800

Today's releases fix an important security vulnerability we've found in-house, and improve stability overall in Review Board 6.

API Security Fix

We discovered a security issue with two of our APIs while performing an in-house performance audit of our code. This allows a user with legitimate access to a Review Board server to craft a specific API request that returns diff content they wouldn't normally have permission to access (draft diffs or published diffs associated with a private repository or invite-only review group).

Users cannot exploit this bug without legitimate access to the Review Board server (or the Local Site server partition, if used).

We aren't aware of this vulnerability being used in the wild. It requires making use of an optional header when accessing these APIs, plus knowledge of internal database APIs for published diffs.

As part of fixing this security issue, we've done the following:

We sent patches (and custom builds as needed) to our customers with Premium Support contracts.
We audited the remainder of our APIs. This type of issue was not found anywhere else.
We improved our testing infrastructure so that this type of issue would be found automatically going forward.

We recommend that everyone upgrade to the appropriate release of Review Board.

Review Board 6 Stability

We've addressed a few regressions introduced in Review Board 6.0:

Manually uploading diffs (either to new or existing review requests) should now work on all types of repositories.
Batch publishing will now work when using Local Site server partitions.
Empty reviews will no longer be posted if creating a review, leaving comments, and then deleting the comments.
Switching between search engine backends no longer require restarting the web server.
Logging in from the Log Out page now takes you to the dashboard, instead of logging you back out.
Some minor UI issues in the Administration UI have been fixed.

Upgrading

If you're using our official releases, follow the upgrade instructions in the release notes below:

If you're using releases provided by your Linux distribution or a third-party, you will need to inquire with them about your upgrade options and support.

If you need assistance with your server, we can help under a support contract. This entitles you to on-going support for your server, custom builds, backported fixes, pre-release security patches, and solutions tailored for your company's needs.