| name | review |
| description | Validate plans, execution, or PRs against wish criteria — returns SHIP / FIX-FIRST / BLOCKED with severity-tagged gaps. |
/review — Universal Review Gate
Validate any artifact against its wish criteria. Dispatch as a subagent — never review your own work inline.
Context Injection
This skill receives its scope from the dispatch layer:
- Target — what is being reviewed (wish draft, completed work, or PR diff)
- Wish path —
.genie/wishes/<slug>/WISH.md in the shared worktree
- Injected criteria — acceptance criteria extracted from the wish
If context is injected, use it directly. Do not re-parse for information already provided.
When to Use
- Before
/work — validate a wish plan is ready for execution
- After
/work — verify implementation meets acceptance criteria
- Before merge — check a PR diff against wish scope
Flow
- Detect target — determine what is being reviewed (wish draft, completed work, or PR diff).
- Select pipeline — match target to Plan, Execution, or PR checklist below.
- Run checklist — evaluate each criterion, collecting evidence.
- Run validations — execute any validation commands; capture pass/fail output.
- Tag gaps — classify every unmet criterion by severity.
- Return verdict — one of SHIP, FIX-FIRST, or BLOCKED (see Verdicts).
- Write next steps — exact fixes, files, and commands for each gap.
Council Participation
When a council team is active, the review can incorporate council perspectives:
- Post review findings to team chat for council input via
genie chat post --team <team>
- Council members may surface risks or blind spots missed by the standard checklist
- Council input is advisory — the verdict is still determined by the checklist
Pipelines
Plan Review (before /work)
Execution Review (after /work)
PR Review (before merge)
Severity & Verdicts
| Severity | Meaning | Blocks? |
|---|
| CRITICAL | Security flaw, data loss, crash | Yes |
| HIGH | Bug, major perf issue | Yes |
| MEDIUM | Code smell, minor issue | No |
| LOW | Style, naming preference | No |
| Verdict | Condition | Next step |
|---|
| SHIP | Zero CRITICAL/HIGH gaps, validations pass | See SHIP Next-Steps below |
| FIX-FIRST | Any CRITICAL/HIGH gap or failing validation | Auto-invoke /fix |
| BLOCKED | Scope or architecture issue requiring wish revision | Escalate to human |
SHIP Next-Steps (context-dependent)
| Review Context | On SHIP |
|---|
Plan review (after /brainstorm) | Proceed to /wish to create executable plan |
Plan review (after /wish) | Proceed to /work to execute the plan |
Execution review (after /work) | Create PR targeting dev |
| PR review (before merge) | Merge to dev (agents) or approve for human merge |
Auto-Invocation on FIX-FIRST
When the verdict is FIX-FIRST:
- Auto-invoke
/fix with the severity-tagged gap list.
- After
/fix completes, re-run /review (max 2 fix loops).
- If still FIX-FIRST after 2 loops, escalate as BLOCKED.
Unclear Root Cause
When a failure is found but the root cause is unclear:
- Invoke
/trace to investigate before dispatching /fix.
/trace produces a diagnosis report; /fix uses it to apply the correction.
Dispatch
The reviewer must not be the engineer. Always dispatch review as a separate subagent.
genie agent spawn reviewer
Task Lifecycle Integration (v4)
When a PG task exists for the reviewed work, log the verdict as a task comment:
| Verdict | Task Action |
|---|
| SHIP | genie task comment #<seq> "SHIP — all criteria passed" |
| FIX-FIRST | genie task comment #<seq> "FIX-FIRST: [gap list]" then genie task move #<seq> --to build |
| BLOCKED | genie task block #<seq> --reason "<reason>" |
Graceful degradation: If no PG task exists for the reviewed work, skip all genie task commands. Verdict logging is an enhancement — the review flow must never fail due to missing tasks.
Example
After /work completes wish fix-dispatch-initial-prompt, the orchestrator dispatches /review:
genie agent spawn reviewer
genie agent send 'Review wish fix-dispatch-initial-prompt execution. Criteria:
1. initialPrompt added to all 5 dispatch call sites
2. protocolRouter.sendMessage kept as backup with warning logging
3. bun test passes
4. bun run typecheck clean
Check: gh pr diff 746, then run validations.' --to reviewer
Reviewer output:
## Review: fix-dispatch-initial-prompt (Execution)
### Checklist
- [x] All acceptance criteria met — 5/5 call sites have initialPrompt
- [x] Validation: bun test — 1137 pass, 0 fail
- [x] Validation: bun run typecheck — clean
- [x] No scope creep — only dispatch.ts and team.ts modified
- [x] No regressions — test count unchanged
### Gaps
(none)
### Verdict: SHIP
Next: create PR targeting dev
Rules
- Never mark PASS without evidence — verify, don't assume.
- Never ship with CRITICAL or HIGH gaps.
- Never implement fixes during review — hand off to
/fix.
- Every FAIL includes actionable fix (file, command, what to change).
- Keep output concise, severity-ordered, and executable.
Turn close (required)
Every session MUST end by writing a terminal outcome to the turn-session contract. This is how the orchestrator reconciles executor state — skipping it leaves the row open and blocks auto-resume.
genie done — work completed, acceptance criteria metgenie blocked --reason "<why>" — stuck, needs human input or an unblocking signalgenie failed --reason "<why>" — aborted, irrecoverable error, or cannot proceed
Rules:
- Call exactly one close verb as the last action of the session.
blocked / failed require --reason.genie done inside an agent session (GENIE_AGENT_NAME set) closes the current executor; it does not require a wish ref.
