Forensic Record of Generated Review Comments
The comment is kinder than the reviewer felt, which was the intended outcome of the intermediate step.
Forensic record initiated following a code review containing fourteen comments, eleven of which were rephrased from their original drafts using a generative tool before posting. The original drafts were direct. The posted comments were collegial. The code had the same problems in both versions.
This is the forensic record of generated review comments.
The initiating observation is current and widespread. Someone uses AI to soften code review comments before posting them to a teammate. The softening is genuine: the tool removes friction from a communication that would otherwise require the reviewer to manage their own tone while also managing the technical content. The result is better comments, by most definitions of better.
Consequence sequence: generated review comments adds one private manual check. The check is the review of the softened comment before it posts, confirming that the technical substance survived the tonal revision. That check becomes part of the normal workflow, invisible to the person receiving the comment and undisclosed by the person writing it. Assisted work becomes routine while disclosure stays exceptional, which is the condition of the profession in late 2023.
The contradiction will not resolve itself. The help is useful enough to use and awkward enough to disguise. Neither side of this has changed. The tool produces better interpersonal outcomes and belongs to a category of assistance that the workplace has not formalized an opinion on.
Under the governing rule, generated review comments becomes procedure once repetition feels safer than reconsidering it. It became procedure in approximately Q3 of this year, silently and by consensus of individual adoption.
The comments were collegial. The code still needs fixing.