| name | engram-auto-reviewer-fairy-judgement |
| description | Decision rubric for whether to dispatch a reviewer-fairy at each PR-review decision point when reviewer_fairy_policy is auto. Load at the review-dispatch decision. |
engram-auto-reviewer-fairy-judgement
When to load: at each PR-review decision point when reviewer_fairy_policy == "auto".
Purpose: deterministic heuristic for whether to spawn a reviewer-fairy or do the review directly.
Heuristic
Spawn a reviewer-fairy when ANY of the following conditions hold:
- Test files are touched (
tests/ directory, *_test.py, test_*.py, or equivalent). Test changes have correctness implications that benefit from a fresh-eye pass.
- More than ~100 lines of substantive code change estimated. Below this threshold, the fixed overhead (spec writing + dispatch + handoff) dominates per-line cost.
- Another fairy is already running on a stacked change. Sequencing matters; the parallel fairy may be operating on related code.
Otherwise: do the review directly. Apply the same rigor — read the diff, check correctness, flag risks — without the dispatch overhead.
Per-invocation overrides
The user can override the heuristic in either direction:
"review-fairy this" / "just review" / "spawn reviewer-fairy only" → spawn reviewer-fairy (even if below threshold)"review it yourself" / "no reviewer-fairy" → review directly (skip fairy)
These overrides take precedence over the heuristic for the single invocation. The reviewer-only invocation works post-commit too ("review what I just wrote").
Customization
Edit this file to fine-tune the heuristic for your workflow. The conditions, threshold, and override phrasings are all yours to adjust.
Lineage
Initial heuristic calibrated by empirical input. Lean: aggressive toward staying direct.
