Approval Theater
ELI5 - The Vibe Check
Approval theater is when a pull request gets its required two approvals in under ninety seconds from reviewers who very clearly did not read a single line of the diff. The green checkmark is real, the actual review behind it is not, and everyone quietly knows it, but the process looks satisfied so the PR merges anyway.
Real Talk
Approval theater describes code review approvals granted as a formality to satisfy a branch protection rule or process requirement rather than reflecting genuine scrutiny of the change, often driven by review fatigue, unclear ownership, or social pressure to unblock a teammate quickly. It defeats the purpose of mandatory review gates and is typically addressed by reducing PR size, clarifying reviewer expectations, and treating review time as real, protected work rather than an interruption to it.
When You'll Hear This
"That was approval theater, they LGTM'd it four minutes after it was opened." / "We started requiring a comment on every approval to cut down on approval theater."
Related Terms
Code Review
A code review is when another developer reads your code before it gets merged, looking for bugs, bad practices, or anything confusing.
LGTM (Looks Good To Me)
LGTM is the two-word code review approval that can mean anything from 'I carefully reviewed every line and this is perfect' to 'I glanced at the title and...
Review Fatigue
Review fatigue is PR fatigue's cousin — the mental exhaustion of reviewing code all day. After 8 reviews, you're not actually reading anything.
Rubber Stamping
Approving a pull request without actually reading the code. Just clicking 'LGTM' and moving on. We've all done it. We've all been burned by it.