Reviewing in GitHub is fine for small PRs. For big ones, pull locally:
gh pr checkout 247 # GitHub CLI: one-shot fetch + switch
# or:
git fetch origin pull/247/head:pr-247
git switch pr-247
Now you can:
- Use your editor's full toolchain (jump-to-def, hover types, search-across-PR).
- Run tests locally.
- Use
git range-diff main..origin/main main..pr-247 if the PR was rebased.
- Use
git log -p main..pr-247 to read commit-by-commit instead of squashed diff.
When done, switch back: git switch main. Cleanup the local PR branch when merged:
git branch -D pr-247
Many senior reviewers do their entire review locally and just leave comments via the GitHub UI for the discussion thread.