adversarial-review

name	adversarial-review
type	review
enforcement	invocable
priority	high
description	Sends a commit range (default: origin/main..HEAD) to an external LLM with the framing "find every little thing wrong as though you're trying to take the engineer's job." Returns a structured findings report under audit-reports/. Designed as the external-audit backstop named in careful-not-clever v1.8.1-alpha §"The limit of this rule" — the rule acknowledges that an author cannot reliably catch their own claim- evidence gaps, and points at an external pass as the real check.
activates_on	{"slash_commands":["/adversarial-review","/adversarial-review <base-ref>","/adversarial-review <base-ref> <model>"],"keywords":["external audit","adversarial review","send to grok","second opinion","review my commits","audit this branch"],"intent_patterns":["ask <model> to review","external pass","second pair of eyes"]}
implementation	admin/external-audit.sh

Adversarial Review

Why this skill exists

Careful-not-clever v1.8.1-alpha §"The limit of this rule" acknowledges that the claim-evidence table is a forcing function, not a guarantee. Two failure modes survive even with the table in place:

• Misuse mode A — Vague evidence: "tests pass" / "verified" with no specific artifact
• Misuse mode B — Narrow claim: the claim is technically supported but is narrower than the actual scope of the change

Mode A a careful reviewer can spot. Mode B is harder for the author to see than vague evidence, because the entry passes their own self-review (the evidence really does support what they wrote). The rule says: "The most reliable check is external."

This skill is that external check, automated. It is a triage aid, not a gate.

When to invoke

Situation	Invoke
Before a PR / merge to main on any Layer 2 or Layer 3 change	YES
After completing a multi-commit batch where you suspect blind spots	YES
Before declaring a long-running thread "complete"	YES
Routine refactor with full test coverage	OPTIONAL
Trivial typo fix	NO (wasteful)

Cost per invocation (Grok): roughly $0.04 for a 9-commit batch (in=5555, out=1768 tokens at grok-3 pricing). Smaller ranges cost proportionally less. GPT-4o on the same range runs about $0.02 but produces fewer unique findings — see "Choosing a model" below.

How to invoke

Slash command

/adversarial-review                 # audits origin/main..HEAD with grok
/adversarial-review HEAD~3          # audits the last 3 commits with grok
/adversarial-review origin/main gemini  # different reviewer

Direct script

admin/external-audit.sh                       # origin/main..HEAD, grok
admin/external-audit.sh HEAD~5 grok           # last 5 commits, grok
admin/external-audit.sh origin/main gpt       # alternate model

Choosing a model

Empirical from two reviews (audit-reports 2026-05-13):

Model	Cost / 9 commits	Findings produced