review

name	review
description	Use when code changes need review before merging or completing.
argument-hint	[agent] [scope]
user-invocable	true

Review Suite Skill

Orchestrates code review agents for comprehensive analysis. Run single or multiple agents on various scopes.

Aliases

aliases:
  /review: /review-suite
  /r: /review-suite

defaults:
  agents: reviewer
  scope: uncommitted

shortcuts:
  thorough: --preset thorough
  pre-merge: --preset pre-merge
  spec-first: --preset spec-first
  all: --agents all

Customization: Override defaults in toolkit.toml under [skills.review-suite]. Run bash toolkit.sh customize skills/review-suite/SKILL.md to take full ownership of this skill.

Critical Rules (READ FIRST)

Rule	Description
1. Evidence required for high/crit	High and critical findings without file path, line number, and code snippet are downgraded to medium.
2. No false positives	Every finding must reference specific code; do not report hypothetical or speculative issues.
3. Respect timeouts	Timed-out agents are marked inconclusive, not passed; never silently drop a timeout.
4. Scope bundle first	Always resolve the scope via scope-resolver before launching any review agents.
5. Deduplicate across agents	Merge overlapping findings from different agents into a single entry in the review packet.

Rationalization Prevention

Rationalization	Why It Is Wrong	Correct Behavior
"The code looks clean, no findings expected"	Pre-judging the outcome before running agents defeats the purpose of automated review; even clean-looking code has edge cases	Launch all configured agents on the resolved scope bundle; report whatever they find, including zero findings if that is the genuine result
"This is a style issue, not a bug"	Dismissing findings as style issues allows real quality problems to pass; severity classification is the agent's job, not the orchestrator's	Record the finding with the severity the agent assigned; only downgrade if the evidence rules require it (e.g., high without evidence becomes medium)
"No tests needed for this change"	The reviewer agent's gate criteria require test coverage for new public functions; skipping test review masks coverage gaps	Check the reviewer gate: if new public functions lack tests, mark the gate as failed; report the gap as a finding with actionable: true
"The agent timed out, so it probably found nothing"	Timed-out agents are inconclusive, not passing; treating a timeout as a pass hides potential issues	Mark the agent as timed_out: true with gate_passed: null; report partial findings and flag the timeout in the review packet summary
"This finding overlaps with another agent's finding, skip it"	Overlapping findings from different agents may have different evidence or severity; silent deduplication can lose the stronger evidence	Merge overlapping findings using the highest severity and most complete evidence from either agent; document both agents as sources

---

Usage

Short Slash Commands

/review                    # reviewer on uncommitted (default)
/review my-feature         # reviewer on feature:my-feature
/review security           # security agent on uncommitted
/review qa:deep            # deep QA on uncommitted
/review all my-feature     # all 7 agents on feature:my-feature
/review thorough           # preset:thorough on uncommitted
/review spec-first         # preset:spec-first for spec compliance checking
/review architect          # deep architecture analysis (run infrequently)
/review commit-check       # fast post-commit sanity check on last commit

Full Slash Command

/review-suite --agents reviewer --scope feature:my-feature
/review-suite --agents reviewer,qa,security --scope uncommitted
/review-suite --agents all --scope diffs:main..HEAD
/review-suite --agents qa:deep --scope feature:my-feature
/review-suite --preset thorough
/review-suite --preset pre-merge
/review-suite --preset spec-first

Freeform Natural Language

"review my feature"                         -> reviewer on feature scope
"security scan my changes"                  -> security on uncommitted
"deep test my feature"                      -> qa:deep on feature scope
"thorough qa and ux review on my feature"   -> qa + ux (thorough mode)
"full review this branch"                   -> all on diffs:main..HEAD

Presets

Preset	Agents	Mode
default	reviewer	smoke
quick	commit-check	smoke
thorough	reviewer, qa, security	thorough
ux-docs	ux, docs	smoke
pre-merge	all	thorough
spec-first	reviewer, docs, pm	thorough

When to use spec-first: Use before implementation when working from a detailed spec or plan file. Catches spec drift, missing requirements, and documentation gaps. All 3 agents run in thorough mode focused on specification compliance rather than general code quality.

Execution Flow

1. Parse Arguments

   • Extract agents, scope, mode from input
   • Apply defaults and presets

2. Resolve Scope

   • Call scope-resolver skill to get Scope Bundle
   • Captures: files, diff, risk_profile, entrypoints, commit_hash

3. Resolve and Launch Agents For each agent to launch, determine the loading strategy:

   If installed (.claude/agents/<name>.md exists):

   • Use Task(subagent_type="<name>", prompt="<scope bundle>", ...)
   • This is the most efficient path (~1KB context per agent)

   If not installed (file does NOT exist in .claude/agents/):

   • Read the agent prompt from .claude/toolkit/agents/<name>.md using the Read tool
   • Launch with Task(subagent_type="general-purpose", prompt="<full agent prompt content>\n\n---\n\n<scope bundle and task instructions>")
   • This uses more context per invocation (~10KB) but avoids always-on system prompt cost
   • Log: "Agent not installed -- using general-purpose fallback"

   Launch up to 3 agents in parallel via Task tool. Apply timeouts: smoke (10m), deep (60m)

4. Collect Results

   • Wait for all agents to complete
   • Enforce evidence requirements:
     • high/crit without evidence -> downgrade to med, actionable=false
     • bug without repro_steps -> actionable=false

5. Merge into Review Packet

   • Combine findings from all agents
   • Deduplicate overlapping findings
   • Sort by severity (crit -> high -> med -> low -> info)

6. Write Artifacts

   • Directory: artifacts/<scope_slug>/<run_id>/
     • scope_bundle.json
     • review_packet.json
     • review_packet.md (human-readable)
     • <agent>_findings.json (per-agent)
   • Update latest symlink

   Directory Creation: Use the Write tool directly - it auto-creates parent directories. Do NOT use mkdir with command substitution like $(date ...) as this causes permission prompts. Generate the run_id timestamp in your response (e.g., YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS) rather than via shell.

7. Report Results

   • Summary: findings count by severity
   • Gate status per agent: pass/fail/timeout/inconclusive
   • Link to artifacts

Gate Criteria

Agent	FAILS if...
reviewer	crit/high actionable bug OR missing test for new public function
qa	Reproducible crash, broken nav, or failed smoke test
security	Secrets found OR high SAST issue
ux	Missing a11y id blocks automation OR screen reader nav
pm	(no gate - advisory only)
docs	README/install steps drift detected
architect	Critical resiliency issue OR severe architecture violation

Model Selection

Note: Subagents inherit the parent session's model by default. Use /model sonnet for cost savings.

Model portability: The model names below (haiku, sonnet, opus) represent version-agnostic performance tiers — fastest, balanced, and most capable respectively. As new model versions are released, these tier names remain valid. The table describes which tier each agent needs, not a pinned model version.

Agent	Smoke Mode	Deep Mode	Rationale
commit-check	haiku	haiku	Speed for background checks
security	haiku	sonnet	Tools do heavy lifting; sonnet correlates
docs	haiku	sonnet	String matching; sonnet sufficient
reviewer	(inherit)	opus	Bug/edge case finding benefits from opus
qa	(inherit)	opus	Complex test analysis benefits from opus
ux	(inherit)	opus	Nuanced a11y assessment benefits from opus
pm	(inherit)	opus	Thorough product analysis benefits from opus
architect	opus	opus	Always needs deep reasoning

Model behaviors:

• (inherit): Uses session model (opus/sonnet/haiku based on /model command)
• haiku: Always haiku regardless of session model (fastest, cheapest)
• sonnet: Always sonnet regardless of session model (balanced)
• opus: Always opus regardless of session model (most capable)

Cost-saving tips:

• Run /model sonnet before smoke reviews - inheriting agents will use sonnet
• Use smoke mode (default) for quick feedback
• Reserve deep mode for pre-merge or complex changes

Override behavior:

• /review --model haiku forces most agents to haiku (fast/cheap)
• Exception: architect always uses opus regardless of override (needs deep reasoning)

Parallel Execution

Config	Value
max_parallel_agents	3
smoke_timeout	10 minutes
deep_timeout	60 minutes

"Review All" Execution

When --agents all or "review all" is requested:

1. Launch in batches (respecting resource constraints):

   • Batch 1: reviewer, security, docs (no UI tools, run in parallel)
   • Batch 2: qa, then ux (UI tools - run sequentially if they share resources)
   • Batch 3: pm, architect (run in parallel)

2. Mode applies to all agents

3. Example Task calls (smoke mode):

# For each agent, check if installed before launching.

# If agent IS installed in .claude/agents/:
Task(subagent_type="reviewer", prompt="...", run_in_background=True)

# If agent is NOT installed (fallback):
# First: Read(".claude/toolkit/agents/reviewer.md") to get agent prompt
# Then: Task(subagent_type="general-purpose", prompt="<agent prompt>\n\n---\n\n...", run_in_background=True)

# Batch 1 - launch in parallel (resolve each agent first)
Task(subagent_type="reviewer", prompt="...", run_in_background=True)       # or general-purpose fallback
Task(subagent_type="security", model="haiku", prompt="...", run_in_background=True)  # or general-purpose fallback
Task(subagent_type="docs", model="haiku", prompt="...", run_in_background=True)      # or general-purpose fallback

# Batch 2 (sequential for shared resources)
Task(subagent_type="qa", prompt="...")       # or general-purpose fallback
Task(subagent_type="ux", prompt="...")       # or general-purpose fallback

# Batch 3
Task(subagent_type="pm", prompt="...", run_in_background=True)             # or general-purpose fallback
Task(subagent_type="architect", model="opus", prompt="...", run_in_background=True)  # or general-purpose fallback

Tool Coordination

Agents that use overlapping tools should not run simultaneously:

Resource	Agents	Coordination
Browser/Playwright	qa, ux	Can run in parallel (separate contexts)
Mobile simulator	qa, ux	Run sequentially
Security scanners	security, reviewer	Can run in parallel

Commit-Check Execution

When running the commit-check agent (via /review commit-check or preset quick):

1. Scope: Always uses the last commit (diff:HEAD~1..HEAD), ignoring the --scope argument
2. Model: Always haiku (fast background check)
3. Timeout: 60 seconds (hard limit for background checks)
4. Output: Status-based (ok/warning/alert) rather than severity-based findings
5. Gate: Advisory only — never blocks. alert status is highlighted to user, warning logged, ok silent

This agent is designed for fast post-commit sanity checks. For thorough review, use the reviewer agent.

Timeout Handling

If agent times out:

• Mark timed_out: true
• Report partial findings with severity: med
• Do NOT count as gate pass — timed-out agents are treated as inconclusive

Infrastructure Failures

If tooling fails (exit code 4):

• Mark infra_failed: true
• Set gate_passed: null (inconclusive)
• Report as environment issue, not product bug

Keyword Mapping

Agent Keywords

Keyword	Agent
review, check, bugs	reviewer
test, qa	qa:smoke
deep test	qa:deep
security, secrets	security
ux, a11y, accessibility	ux
docs, documentation	docs
pm, product	pm
architect, architecture	architect
commit-check, sanity, quick	commit-check
all, full, everything	all

Scope Keywords

Scope resolution uses the scope-resolver skill with your project's features.json.

Diff Scopes:

Keyword	Scope
(none), changes, my changes	uncommitted
last commit	diff:HEAD~1
this branch	diffs:main..HEAD

Review Packet Schema

The review_packet.json artifact uses this structure:

{
  "run_id": "<YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS>",
  "scope": "feature:my-feature",
  "commit_hash": "abc1234",
  "agents_run": ["reviewer", "qa", "security"],
  "duration_ms": 45000,
  "summary": {
    "total_findings": 5,
    "by_severity": { "critical": 0, "high": 1, "medium": 3, "low": 1, "info": 0 },
    "gate_status": {
      "reviewer": "pass",
      "qa": "pass",
      "security": "fail"
    }
  },
  "findings": [
    {
      "id": "f-001",
      "agent": "security",
      "severity": "high",
      "type": "vulnerability",
      "summary": "SQL injection via unsanitized user input",
      "evidence": {
        "file": "src/db/queries.py",
        "line": 42,
        "snippet": "cursor.execute(f\"SELECT * FROM users WHERE id={user_id}\")"
      },
      "actionable": true,
      "gate_failing": true,
      "suggestion": "Use parameterized queries: cursor.execute('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=?', (user_id,))"
    }
  ],
  "timed_out_agents": [],
  "infra_failed_agents": []
}

Finding fields:

Field	Required	Description
id	yes	Unique finding ID within the packet (e.g., f-001)
agent	yes	Which agent produced this finding
severity	yes	critical, high, medium, low, or info
type	yes	bug, vulnerability, quality, a11y, docs, architecture, product
summary	yes	One-line description of the issue
evidence	yes for high/crit	File path, line number, and code snippet
actionable	yes	true if the finding has a clear fix; false for informational
gate_failing	yes	true if this finding causes the agent's gate to fail
suggestion	no	Recommended fix

Evidence downgrade rule: Findings with severity: high or critical that lack evidence are automatically downgraded to medium with actionable: false.

Output

Returns a summary message with:

• Findings count by severity
• Gate status per agent
• Path to full review packet
• Any critical issues highlighted