code-review

name	code-review
description	Review committed or uncommitted changes along two axes — repository standards and the originating capability contract or change spec. Use for a branch, PR, or work-in-progress review.

Two-axis review of the complete requested diff, including staged, unstaged, and relevant untracked files for work in progress:

• Standards — does the code conform to this repo's documented coding standards?
• Spec — does the code faithfully implement the originating capability contract, change spec, or ticket?

Both axes run as parallel sub-agents so they don't pollute each other's context, then this skill aggregates their findings.

The issue tracker should have been provided to you — run $setup-matt-pocock-skills if docs/agents/issue-tracker.md is missing.

Process

1. Pin the review scope

If the user supplied a commit SHA, branch, tag, or merge-base, use it as the fixed point. If they did not, default to the current work in progress against HEAD; do not ask merely to obtain a base.

For work in progress, capture git status --short, git diff --cached, git diff, and the contents of relevant untracked files. For an explicit fixed point, also capture git diff <fixed-point>...HEAD and git log <fixed-point>..HEAD --oneline; then add any current working-tree changes so the review never omits WIP.

Confirm an explicit fixed point resolves with git rev-parse <fixed-point>. Confirm the combined scope is non-empty; a bad ref or empty scope should fail here, not inside the sub-agents.

2. Identify the spec source

Look for the originating spec, in this order:

1. A local spec or ticket path the user passed.
2. A contract or change spec under specs/capabilities/ or specs/changes/ matching the changed surface.
3. A referenced implementation design under specs/.
4. If nothing is found, ask the user where the spec is. If they say there isn't one, the Spec sub-agent will skip and report "no spec available".

3. Identify the standards sources

Anything in the repo that documents how code should be written, such as CODING_STANDARDS.md or CONTRIBUTING.md.

On top of whatever the repo documents, the Standards axis always carries the smell baseline below — a fixed set of Fowler code smells (Refactoring, ch.3) that applies even when a repo documents nothing. Two rules bind it:

• The repo overrides. A documented repo standard always wins; where it endorses something the baseline would flag, suppress the smell.
• Always a judgement call. Each smell is a labelled heuristic ("possible Feature Envy"), never a hard violation — and, like any standard here, skip anything tooling already enforces.

Each smell reads what it is → how to fix; match it against the diff:

• Mysterious Name — a function, variable, or type whose name doesn't reveal what it does or holds. → rename it; if no honest name comes, the design's murky.
• Duplicated Code — the same logic shape appears in more than one hunk or file in the change. → extract the shared shape, call it from both.
• Feature Envy — a method that reaches into another object's data more than its own. → move the method onto the data it envies.
• Data Clumps — the same few fields or params keep travelling together (a type wanting to be born). → bundle them into one type, pass that.
• Primitive Obsession — a primitive or string standing in for a domain concept that deserves its own type. → give the concept its own small type.
• Repeated Switches — the same switch/if-cascade on the same type recurs across the change. → replace with polymorphism, or one map both sites share.
• Shotgun Surgery — one logical change forces scattered edits across many files in the diff. → gather what changes together into one module.
• Divergent Change — one file or module is edited for several unrelated reasons. → split so each module changes for one reason.
• Speculative Generality — abstraction, parameters, or hooks added for needs the spec doesn't have. → delete it; inline back until a real need shows.
• Message Chains — long a.b().c().d() navigation the caller shouldn't depend on. → hide the walk behind one method on the first object.
• Middle Man — a class or function that mostly just delegates onward. → cut it, call the real target direct.
• Refused Bequest — a subclass or implementer that ignores or overrides most of what it inherits. → drop the inheritance, use composition.

4. Spawn both sub-agents in parallel

Spawn the Standards and Spec sub-agents in parallel using the available collaboration mechanism.

Standards sub-agent prompt — include:

• The full combined review scope and any commit list.
• The list of standards-source files you found in step 3, plus the smell baseline from step 3 pasted in full — the sub-agent has no other access to it.
• The brief: "Report — per file/hunk where relevant — (a) every place the diff violates a documented standard: cite the standard (file + the rule); and (b) any baseline smell you spot: name it and quote the hunk. Distinguish hard violations from judgement calls — documented-standard breaches can be hard, but baseline smells are always judgement calls, and a documented repo standard overrides the baseline. Skip anything tooling enforces. Under 400 words."

Spec sub-agent prompt — include:

• The full combined review scope and any commit list.
• The path or fetched contents of the spec.
• The brief: "Report: (a) requirements the spec asked for that are missing or partial; (b) behaviour in the diff that wasn't asked for (scope creep); (c) requirements that look implemented but where the implementation looks wrong. Quote the spec line for each finding. Under 400 words."

If the spec is missing, skip the Spec sub-agent and note this in the final report.

5. Aggregate

Present the two reports under ## Standards and ## Spec headings, verbatim or lightly cleaned. Do not merge or rerank findings — the two axes are deliberately separate (see Why two axes).

End with a one-line summary: total findings per axis, and the worst issue within each axis (if any). Don't pick a single winner across axes — that's the reranking the separation exists to prevent.

Why two axes

A change can pass one axis and fail the other:

• Code that follows every standard but implements the wrong thing → Standards pass, Spec fail.
• Code that does exactly what the issue asked but breaks the project's conventions → Spec pass, Standards fail.

Reporting them separately stops one axis from masking the other.