| name | document-review |
| description | Review requirements or plan documents using parallel persona agents that surface role-specific issues. Use when a requirements document or plan document exists and the user wants to improve it. |
Document Review
Review requirements or plan documents through multi-persona analysis. Dispatches specialized reviewer agents in parallel, auto-fixes quality issues, and presents strategic questions for user decision.
Phase 1: Get and Analyze Document
If a document path is provided: Read it, then proceed.
If no document is specified: Ask which document to review, or find the most recent in docs/brainstorms/ or docs/plans/ using a file-search/glob tool (e.g., Glob in Claude Code).
Classify Document Type
After reading, classify the document:
- requirements -- from
docs/brainstorms/, focuses on what to build and why
- plan -- from
docs/plans/, focuses on how to build it with implementation details
Select Conditional Personas
Analyze the document content to determine which conditional personas to activate. Check for these signals:
product-lens -- activate when the document contains:
- User-facing features, user stories, or customer-focused language
- Market claims, competitive positioning, or business justification
- Scope decisions, prioritization language, or priority tiers with feature assignments
- Requirements with user/customer/business outcome focus
design-lens -- activate when the document contains:
- UI/UX references, frontend components, or visual design language
- User flows, wireframes, screen/page/view mentions
- Interaction descriptions (forms, buttons, navigation, modals)
- References to responsive behavior or accessibility
security-lens -- activate when the document contains:
- Auth/authorization mentions, login flows, session management
- API endpoints exposed to external clients
- Data handling, PII, payments, tokens, credentials, encryption
- Third-party integrations with trust boundary implications
scope-guardian -- activate when the document contains:
- Multiple priority tiers (P0/P1/P2, must-have/should-have/nice-to-have)
- Large requirement count (>8 distinct requirements or implementation units)
- Stretch goals, nice-to-haves, or "future work" sections
- Scope boundary language that seems misaligned with stated goals
- Goals that don't clearly connect to requirements
Phase 2: Announce and Dispatch Personas
Announce the Review Team
Tell the user which personas will review and why. For conditional personas, include the justification:
Reviewing with:
- coherence-reviewer (always-on)
- feasibility-reviewer (always-on)
- scope-guardian-reviewer -- plan has 12 requirements across 3 priority levels
- security-lens-reviewer -- plan adds API endpoints with auth flow
Build Agent List
Always include:
compound-engineering:document-review:coherence-reviewercompound-engineering:document-review:feasibility-reviewer
Add activated conditional personas:
compound-engineering:document-review:product-lens-reviewercompound-engineering:document-review:design-lens-reviewercompound-engineering:document-review:security-lens-reviewercompound-engineering:document-review:scope-guardian-reviewer
Dispatch
Dispatch all agents in parallel using the platform's task/agent tool (e.g., Agent tool in Claude Code, spawn in Codex). Each agent receives the prompt built from the subagent template with these variables filled:
| Variable | Value |
|---|
{persona_file} | Full content of the agent's markdown file |
{schema} | Content of findings-schema.json |
{document_type} | "requirements" or "plan" from Phase 1 classification |
{document_path} | Path to the document |
{document_content} | Full text of the document |
Pass each agent the full document -- do not split into sections.
Error handling: If an agent fails or times out, proceed with findings from agents that completed. Note the failed agent in the Coverage section. Do not block the entire review on a single agent failure.
Dispatch limit: Even at maximum (6 agents), use parallel dispatch. These are document reviewers with bounded scope reading a single document -- parallel is safe and fast.
Phase 3: Synthesize Findings
Process findings from all agents through this pipeline. Order matters -- each step depends on the previous.
3.1 Validate
Check each agent's returned JSON against findings-schema.json:
- Drop findings missing any required field defined in the schema
- Drop findings with invalid enum values
- Note the agent name for any malformed output in the Coverage section
3.2 Confidence Gate
Suppress findings below 0.50 confidence. Store them as residual concerns for potential promotion in step 3.4.
3.3 Deduplicate
Fingerprint each finding using normalize(section) + normalize(title). Normalization: lowercase, strip punctuation, collapse whitespace.
When fingerprints match across personas:
- If the findings recommend opposing actions (e.g., one says cut, the other says keep), do not merge -- preserve both for contradiction resolution in 3.5
- Otherwise merge: keep the highest severity, keep the highest confidence, union all evidence arrays, note all agreeing reviewers (e.g., "coherence, feasibility")
3.4 Promote Residual Concerns
Scan the residual concerns (findings suppressed in 3.2) for:
- Cross-persona corroboration: A residual concern from Persona A overlaps with an above-threshold finding from Persona B. Promote at P2 with confidence 0.55-0.65.
- Concrete blocking risks: A residual concern describes a specific, concrete risk that would block implementation. Promote at P2 with confidence 0.55.
3.5 Resolve Contradictions
When personas disagree on the same section:
- Create a combined finding presenting both perspectives
- Set
autofix_class: present
- Frame as a tradeoff, not a verdict
Specific conflict patterns:
- Coherence says "keep for consistency" + scope-guardian says "cut for simplicity" -> combined finding, let user decide
- Feasibility says "this is impossible" + product-lens says "this is essential" -> P1 finding framed as a tradeoff
- Multiple personas flag the same issue -> merge into single finding, note consensus, increase confidence
3.6 Route by Autofix Class
| Autofix Class | Route |
|---|
auto | Apply automatically -- local deterministic fix (terminology, formatting, cross-references) |
present | Present to user for judgment |
Demote any auto finding that lacks a suggested_fix to present -- the orchestrator cannot apply a fix without concrete replacement text.
3.7 Sort
Sort findings for presentation: P0 -> P1 -> P2 -> P3, then by confidence (descending), then by document order (section position).
Phase 4: Apply and Present
Apply Auto-fixes
Apply all auto findings to the document in a single pass:
- Edit the document inline using the platform's edit tool
- Track what was changed for the "Auto-fixes Applied" section
- Do not ask for approval -- these are unambiguously correct (terminology fixes, formatting, cross-references)
Present Remaining Findings
Present all other findings to the user using the format from review-output-template.md:
- Group by severity (P0 -> P3)
- Include the Coverage table showing which personas ran
- Show auto-fixes that were applied
- Include residual concerns and deferred questions if any
Brief summary at the top: "Applied N auto-fixes. M findings to consider (X at P0/P1)."
Protected Artifacts
During synthesis, discard any finding that recommends deleting or removing files in:
docs/brainstorms/docs/plans/docs/solutions/
These are pipeline artifacts and must not be flagged for removal.
Phase 5: Next Action
Use the platform's blocking question tool when available (AskUserQuestion in Claude Code, request_user_input in Codex, ask_user in Gemini). Otherwise present numbered options and wait for the user's reply.
Offer:
- Refine again -- another review pass
- Review complete -- document is ready
After 2 refinement passes, recommend completion -- diminishing returns are likely. But if the user wants to continue, allow it.
Return "Review complete" as the terminal signal for callers.
What NOT to Do
- Do not rewrite the entire document
- Do not add new sections or requirements the user didn't discuss
- Do not over-engineer or add complexity
- Do not create separate review files or add metadata sections
- Do not modify any of the 4 caller skills (ce-brainstorm, ce-plan, ce-plan-beta, deepen-plan-beta)
Iteration Guidance
On subsequent passes, re-dispatch personas and re-synthesize. The auto-fix mechanism and confidence gating prevent the same findings from recurring once fixed. If findings are repetitive across passes, recommend completion.
