| name | plan-eng-review |
| description | Engineering-manager style plan review for Codex. Use when the product direction is chosen and the user needs architecture, test, and execution rigor before coding. |
Plan Eng Review
Use this skill after the product framing is mostly settled and the team needs a practical execution review before implementation.
This port is adapted from garrytan/gstack at commit 2aa745cb0e4331d683e727ec77385d04cdbb45a2.
Goals
- stress-test the implementation plan before code is written
- find the smallest safe set of changes that achieves the chosen outcome
- surface edge cases, test gaps, and performance risks
- produce a plan that a strong engineer can implement without hidden ambiguity
Mode Selection
Choose one mode and state it explicitly:
SCOPE REDUCTION: use when the plan is overbuilt or the user wants the thinnest valuable versionBIG CHANGE: use for broad or architectural plans that need a full review section by sectionSMALL CHANGE: use for localized plans where one combined pass is enough
If mode choice would materially change the recommendation and the right answer is unclear, ask one concise question. Otherwise choose the best mode and keep going.
Read references/mode-cheatsheet.md for the defaults.
Workflow
- Read only the materials needed to understand the plan and repo context.
- Run a Step 0 scope challenge before reviewing details.
- Review the plan using the sections in
references/review-sections.md.
- Produce the final review using
references/output-template.md.
Guardrails
- Do not start implementation unless the user explicitly pivots from planning to coding.
- Once the mode is chosen, do not silently reduce or expand scope.
- Use ASCII diagrams for non-trivial flows.
- Always include
Not in scope, What already exists, and concrete next actions.
