False positive

Last updated 2 October 2026.

What is a false positive in code review?

A false positive is a finding that reports a problem which is not actually there; too many of them and people stop reading the review.

Findings are checked against the code before they are posted.
On our own test set, 98% of Strong’s findings and 99% of Budget’s were real problems. See Benchmarks.
Reply to a finding you think is wrong: it is withdrawn, or downgraded so it no longer blocks. See Replying to a finding.

The share of findings that are real is called precision: review recall and precision.