Trigger when user says: "team review", "have specialists review", "review my changes", "re-review", "review again", "another pass", "ask the team", "specialist review", "/empire-dev:team-review", "have the team look at this", "get specialists to review", "run a team review", "do a specialist review". Spawns parallel specialist subagents to review diffs and consolidates findings. Never posts to GitHub.
Render the canonical PR description body. Use when drafting, writing, updating, or regenerating a "PR description", "PR body", "pull request description", "pull request body", "PR summary", "PR template", "GitHub PR body", or any text bound for `gh pr create --body`, `gh pr create --body-file`, `gh pr edit --body`, `gh pr edit --body-file`, or a GitHub PR template. Triggers on "draft a PR", "write the PR", "summarize this branch for review", "regenerate PR body". MUST be invoked before any `gh pr create --body*` or `gh pr edit --body*` per empire-git rules. Outputs markdown for stdin.
Gate then merge a single pull request safely. Use when the user says "merge this PR", "merge the PR", "land this", "ship this PR", "merge when green". Verifies CI is green (investigates and attempts a fix when red), rebases and resolves conflicts when the branch is behind, triages unresolved review threads intelligently (resolve, fix, or ask — never blindly block), then merges and deletes the branch. Fast-forwards the local base checkout (e.g. updates `master`) when it is checked out.
Trigger when user says: "address review", "address the review", "address review comments", "address PR comments", "handle review comments", "fix review comments", "respond to the review", "reply to review comments", "resolve review comments", "address the feedback", "work through the review", "/empire-dev:address-review". Verifies every unresolved review comment adversarially, evaluates whether the reviewer's proposed change is the best fix, rechecks any alternative it prefers, implements accepted fixes in parallel, and replies to every comment in a direct tone. One compact TLDR confirmation gates all GitHub writes (push + replies).
Trigger when user says: "socratic review", "socratic pr review", "socratic code review", "review this PR socratically", "review the PR with questions", "ask questions on the PR", "question-style review", "leave socratic comments", "/empire-dev:socratic-pr-review". First explains in plain words what the PR does and sanity-checks its direction, then runs team-review, turns findings into short question-style inline comments, walks each past the user with a quick note on the code it touches, and posts ONE review (approve / request changes / comment) at the end. Posts to GitHub only after the user confirms the comments and the final verdict.
Use for `/empire-dev:handoff` and when one coding task should run unattended through the full chain — implement, review, address feedback, open the PR, pass CI, label — delivering a finished pull request, not a check-in per step. Often points at a ticket or spec. Invoking the skill IS the ship-intent signal: it authorizes the full push-and-PR chain. NOT for a single stage in isolation (review, PR body, implement, plan each have their own skills). Flags judgment calls for human review instead of guessing silently. Trigger phrases: "handoff this", "drive this to a PR", "take this and run with it", "implement, review, and open a PR", "build it, have the team review, then push a PR", "do the whole thing", "run this autonomously", "I'm stepping away — carry this to a PR", "ship this for me".
Diagnose system design problems and guide architecture decisions — catches over- and under-engineering, surfaces missing integration points, drives toward a walking skeleton before full build-out. Use when designing a system, when architecture feels too complex or too vague, or when integration points are unclear. Findings stay local. Trigger phrases: "system design", "how should I structure this", "too much abstraction", "under-engineered", "where do I start building", "design this system", "walking skeleton", "/empire-dev:shape".
Break overwhelming development tasks into right-sized, independently deliverable units — diagnoses why tasks stall and applies decomposition patterns. Use when a task feels too big to estimate, when unsure where to start, when blocked by dependencies, or when scope keeps growing. Trigger phrases: "task too big", "can't estimate", "overwhelmed by scope", "where do I start", "break this down", "epic needs breakdown", "slice this up", "/empire-dev:slice".