36 Code Review Prompts for AI: Debug & Refactor (2026)

Code review is one of the highest-leverage activities in software development. Done well, it improves quality, reduces bugs, and spreads better practices.

AI can support code review effectively — but only when you ask focused questions. Generic requests like “review this code” often produce shallow feedback. Specific prompts produce much better results.

This article gives you 36 practical AI prompts for code review, debugging, and refactoring. They are grouped so you can quickly find the right one.

A. General Code Review Prompts

1. Full Code Review

Act as a senior software engineer performing a code review.
Review this code for correctness, readability, maintainability and potential bugs:
[paste code]
Provide prioritised feedback.

2. Review for Readability

Review this code purely from a readability perspective:
[paste code]
Suggest improvements to naming, structure and clarity.

3. Review for Maintainability

Evaluate how maintainable this code is:
[paste code]
Identify what would make it harder to change later and suggest improvements.

4. Review for Simplicity

Review this code and suggest ways to simplify it without changing behaviour:
[paste code]

5. Strengths and Weaknesses

Review this code and list:
- What’s done well
- What should be improved
- The highest-priority changes
[paste code]

B. Debugging Prompts

6. Find Likely Bugs

Analyse this code for likely bugs and edge-case failures:
[paste code]
Explain each issue and why it matters.

7. Debug a Specific Problem

I’m seeing this bug:
[describe expected vs actual behaviour]

Here is the relevant code:
[paste code]

Help me identify the most likely causes and how to verify them.

8. Add Defensive Checks

Suggest defensive checks and guards that would make this code safer:
[paste code]
Avoid over-engineering.

9. Error Handling Review

Review the error handling in this code:
[paste code]
Suggest clearer and more reliable handling of failures.

10. Race Conditions / Concurrency Issues

Analyse this code for concurrency or race condition risks:
[paste code]
Explain potential issues and safer alternatives.

C. Refactoring Prompts

11. Refactor for Clarity

Refactor this code to improve clarity and readability while preserving behaviour:
[paste code]
Explain the key changes.

12. Extract Functions / Modules

Refactor this code by extracting clearer functions or modules:
[paste code]
Focus on single responsibility and readability.

13. Reduce Nesting

Refactor this code to reduce nesting and improve control flow:
[paste code]

14. Improve Naming

Suggest better names for variables, functions and classes in this code:
[paste code]
Explain why the new names are clearer.

15. Remove Duplication

Identify duplication in this code and refactor to reduce it:
[paste code]
Keep the result simple.

16. Simplify Conditional Logic

Refactor the conditional logic in this code to make it easier to understand:
[paste code]

17. Replace Complex Logic with Clearer Structure

Propose a cleaner structure for this complex logic:
[paste code]
Explain the benefits of the new structure.

D. Performance & Efficiency

18. Performance Review

Review this code for meaningful performance issues:
[paste code]
Only suggest optimisations that are likely to matter in real usage.

19. Memory / Resource Usage

Analyse this code for potential memory or resource usage problems:
[paste code]

20. Algorithmic Improvement

Suggest a more efficient approach for this code if appropriate:
[paste code]
Explain the trade-offs.

E. Security & Safety

21. Security Review

Review this code for common security issues:
[paste code]
Focus on input validation, injection risks, secrets handling and unsafe defaults.

22. Input Validation

Suggest stronger input validation for this code:
[paste code]

23. Safe Defaults

Identify unsafe defaults or risky assumptions in this code and recommend safer alternatives:
[paste code]

F. Testing & Reliability

24. Missing Test Cases

Review this code and suggest the most important test cases that are likely missing:
[paste code]

25. Edge Case Analysis

Identify important edge cases this code may not handle well:
[paste code]

26. Testability Review

Evaluate how testable this code is and suggest changes that would make testing easier:
[paste code]

G. Architecture & Design

27. Design Review

Review the design decisions in this code:
[paste code]
Comment on coupling, cohesion and separation of concerns.

28. Dependency Review

Analyse the dependencies in this code and suggest ways to reduce unnecessary coupling:
[paste code]

29. Interface / API Clarity

Review this interface/API for clarity and ease of use:
[paste code]
Suggest improvements.

H. Documentation & Communication

30. Improve Comments

Suggest better comments for this code where they would actually help:
[paste code]
Avoid obvious or noisy comments.

31. Write a Clear Summary

Summarise what this code does in plain language:
[paste code]

32. Explain Risk Areas

Identify the riskiest parts of this code and explain why they need careful attention:
[paste code]

I. Style & Consistency

33. Style Consistency

Review this code for style and consistency issues:
[paste code]
Suggest improvements aligned with clean coding practices.

34. Idiomatic Code

Refactor this code to be more idiomatic for [language]:
[paste code]

J. Final Review Prompts

35. Prioritised Review Summary

Review this code and give me a prioritised summary:
- Critical issues
- Important improvements
- Nice-to-have clean-ups
[paste code]

36. Before / After Refactor Plan

Create a safe refactor plan for this code:
[paste code]

Break the improvements into small steps I can apply and verify one at a time.

How to Use These Prompts Well

Always paste the real code.
Give context about the language, framework and constraints.
Ask for prioritisation when feedback is long.
Use debugging prompts before refactoring unstable code.
Apply one improvement at a time and verify behaviour.

Final Thoughts

AI is a powerful code review assistant when you ask focused questions. These 36 prompts help you move beyond generic feedback and into specific, useful improvements.

Use them to debug faster, refactor with more confidence, and raise the overall quality of your code.

Key takeaways