| name | review-board |
| description | Run the multi-wave Software Engineering Review Board (SERB) over a proposed plan before execution. A read-only board of specialist agents gathers ground truth, critiques from architecture/testing/security/devops/quality lenses, then synthesizes a refined, executable plan with a go/no-go. Use for high-stakes or cross-cutting plans, or when the developer asks to "review the plan", "run the review board", or "SERB this". |
Software Engineering Review Board (SERB)
A rigorous, multi-wave plan review. Gather verified ground truth, critique from five specialist lenses in parallel, then synthesize one refined plan with a go/no-go. Every reviewer is read-only; the board advises, it does not implement.
When to use
Invoke /review-board (or paste .claude/prompts/review-board.md after a plan in plan mode) when:
- The plan is high-stakes (touches auth, money, migrations, production, or a wide blast radius).
- The change is cross-cutting and a surface decision would miss ripples (pair with
.claude/rules/depth-first-impact-analysis.md).
- You want an enterprise-grade refinement of a plan before committing to execution.
Skip it for one-sentence changes; the cost is not worth it there (see .claude/rules/ai-orchestration-decision-gate.md).
How to run
The full agent specifications live in .claude/prompts/review-board.md. Read that file and execute it against the current plan. In brief, it is three waves:
- Wave 1: Discovery (4 parallel, read-only) gathers ground truth, not critique:
- Codebase Deep Explorer (actual paths, selectors, endpoints versus the plan's assumptions)
- Best-Practices Researcher (current standards and pitfalls per technology, via WebSearch)
- Live-State Verifier (real, non-mutating checks of what is actually up)
- Dependency & Risk Mapper (dependency graph, failure modes, hidden assumptions, rollback)
- Wave 2: The Board (5 parallel specialists, read-only) critiques against the Wave 1 ground truth: Chief Architect, Testing & Reliability Lead, Security & Compliance Lead, DevOps & Infrastructure Lead, Quality & Standards Lead. Each returns CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW findings with
file:line evidence and the fix.
- Wave 3: Synthesis deduplicates and ranks findings, resolves conflicts using ground truth, and delivers the aggregate findings table, the refined executable plan, a Go/No-Go (GREEN/YELLOW/RED), and a quality scorecard.
Rules
- Wave 1 completes before Wave 2 launches (the board needs verified facts). Within a wave, run agents in parallel.
- Every agent reads actual files, not just the plan summary. Best-practice research and live-state checks are required.
- Single-writer, many-readers: every reviewer is read-only. The board does not implement. After approval, exactly one agent executes the refined plan.
- Findings meet the evidence bar in
.claude/rules/deterministic-review.md: every finding cites real code or a real source, never an assumption. If the plan is already strong, say so plainly rather than manufacturing objections.
- Do not execute the plan. Return the full review plus the refined plan; the human decides when to go.
Related
.claude/prompts/review-board.md, the full agent specifications to execute.claude/rules/deterministic-review.md, the evidence bar every finding must meet.claude/rules/depth-first-impact-analysis.md, the cross-layer ripple trace the architect lens applies.claude/rules/ai-orchestration-decision-gate.md, when a board is worth the cost.claude/agents/evaluator.md, the lighter-weight single-critic alternative for smaller artifacts
