| name | strategic-review |
| type | skill |
| category | instruction |
| description | Unified multi-agent review of any artifact — a document, plan, proposal, or pull request. The calling agent deploys rbg, pauli, and marsha in parallel, then @james reconciles their findings into one verdict. Pass `comment` and/or `fix` to write the result back to the review surface. Use `--critic` for a fast pauli-only pre-hoc critique. |
| triggers | ["strategic review","review this document","review this proposal","review this plan","review this PR","review PR","review a pull request","adversarial review","/strategic-review","/strategic-review --critic","critic review"] |
| modifies_files | true |
| needs_task | false |
| mode | execution |
| domain | ["framework","quality-assurance"] |
| allowed-tools | Agent, Bash, Read, Glob, Grep, AskUserQuestion |
| version | 3.0.0 |
| permalink | skills-strategic-review |
/strategic-review — Unified Multi-Agent Review
Review any artifact — a document, plan, proposal, or pull request — from several expert
perspectives and return one reconciled verdict. Owned by james (reconciliation), but
you, the invoking agent, own the orchestration: you deploy the reviewers yourself, because a
subagent cannot spawn its own subagents. James is called only at the end, to reconcile.
Modes
- Default — full review: deploy
rbg + pauli + marsha in parallel, then @james reconciles.
--critic — solo pauli: one fast adversarial critique, no reconciliation. For a pre-hoc
sanity check on a plan or proposal before work starts.
Inputs
- The artifact: a file path, a PKB id, pasted text, or a pull request (an
owner/repo#N ref or URL).
- Action flags (optional):
comment, fix, or both. With no flag the review is advisory —
you return the verdict to the caller and change nothing.
Procedure (default mode)
1. Gather context
Identify and load the artifact. If it is a PR, load the diff, description, and any prior
unresolved review comments (gh pr view, gh pr diff). Select the matching review-context
descriptor from review-contexts/ and pass it to every reviewer:
review-contexts/pr-code.md — code PRs.review-contexts/pr-framework.md — framework PRs (skills, agents, hooks, specs).
2. Deploy the three reviewers — in parallel
Spawn all three in a single message (concurrent Agent calls). Give each the artifact, the
context, and the descriptor. You spawn them — not james. Subagents cannot spawn subagents, so
this fan-out must happen here, at the top level.
- rbg — axiom & rule compliance. Always runs.
- pauli — strategic critique: the premise test, then the "is this in the right place, or a
workaround for a root cause that belongs elsewhere?" architectural-fit lens (the 10 cognitive
moves). Always runs. Discipline and the worked specimen live in [[references/premise-test.md]].
- marsha — runtime / verification QA. Runs whenever code or executable behaviour changed;
skip for pure-prose artifacts.
Every reviewer brief carries the epistemic-humility constraint below (§ Epistemic humility): a reviewer may not issue a "this is false / failed / was a misstep" verdict about a real-world event, intent, or state it cannot directly observe — it downgrades to an ADVISORY primary-source flag instead.
3. Reconcile via @james
When all three return, dispatch @james with the original artifact plus all three reviewer
outputs. James does not re-spawn anyone — it reconciles only. It carries the contradictions,
resolves them honestly, and returns one verdict with a synthesis table:
| Agent | Issue | Feedback | Severity |
Severity ladder: REJECT (fundamental — close/redesign) · REVISE (substantial rework, in
scope) · FIX (clear correct resolution exists) · TRIVIAL (cosmetic) · ADVISORY
(non-blocking follow-up). Overall verdict: APPROVE / REVISE / REJECT.
Agent(subagent_type="aops-core:james",
prompt="Reconcile these three reviews into one verdict. Do NOT spawn subagents — synthesise only. [artifact + rbg/pauli/marsha outputs]")
Reconciliation must not harden inference into fact. Unverifiable claims carry through as ADVISORY (needs primary-source confirmation) — the QA seal must not launder a guess into a confident negative. See § Epistemic humility.
4. Act on the verdict — only if asked
- No flag (default): return james's verdict and table to the caller. Change nothing.
comment: post james's synthesis to the artifact's natural review surface — a PR comment for
a PR, an inline note or PKB entry for a document. Scrub all personal info (names, private paths).fix: apply every FIX- and TRIVIAL-grade finding directly, without returning to the
author. If a fix is substantial, re-run the affected reviewer(s) and fold any new findings into
the table. REVISE/REJECT findings are reported, not silently reworked.- Both: comment and fix.
Whatever the flags, never silently exit: if a write-back action fails, report it and print the
full verdict to chat.
Epistemic humility — absence of evidence is not a negative result
Missing evidence licenses "not supported by the available evidence" — never "false / failed / did not happen." A negative verdict requires a held falsifier the reviewer actually holds; where ground truth is unobservable (intent, off-record events, room dynamics), downgrade to ADVISORY (needs primary-source confirmation). Silence in a record is not failure. Apply the same discount symmetrically to flattering and unflattering claims alike. (Source incident: #1891.)
--critic mode
Deploy pauli alone for a fast pre-hoc critique (premise test + the 10 cognitive moves). No
parallel roster, no james reconciliation. Return pauli's verdict directly to the caller. Use this
to pressure-test a plan or proposal before committing effort to it.
