| name | code-review-and-quality |
| description | Conducts multi-axis code review. Use before merging any change. Use when reviewing code written by yourself, another agent, or a human. Use when you need to assess code quality across multiple dimensions before it enters the main branch. |
Code Review and Quality
Checkpoint skill for evaluating a reviewable change set before or during Implementation Review.
The Approval Standard: Approve a change when it is a definite improvement, even if it isn't perfect. Do not block a change for stylistic preferences if it follows project conventions. The goal is continuous improvement, not perfection.
When to Use
- Before merging any change.
- After completing a feature implementation.
- When evaluating code produced by another agent or human.
- After fixing a bug to review both the fix and the regression test.
Load / Do Not Load
- Load this skill at the implementation review checkpoint or for explicit review tasks.
- Do not preload it during entry, planning, or general implementation.
Core Workflow
- Understand the Context: Review the task, spec, and intended behavior before reading the diff.
- Review Tests First: Use the tests to confirm intended behavior, regression coverage, and edge-case handling.
- Challenge Hidden Assumptions and Overreach: Look for ambiguous requests that were resolved silently, premature abstraction, speculative flexibility, and drive-by refactors outside the task. Confirm any Phase 3.5 refactor has a ledger, or that a skipped checkpoint has a one-line rationale; treat unrelated cleanup as overreach.
- Review Across Five Axes: Correctness, readability and simplicity, architecture, security, and performance.
- Check Freshness and Challenge Assumptions: Look for stale docs, incomplete release notes, and any failure mode that the happy path review missed.
- Categorize Findings Clearly: Use
Critical, Important, or Nitpick so required changes are obvious.
- Verify the Verification Story: Confirm what was tested, what built successfully, and what still carries residual risk.
- Route Implementation Review: Add specialist reviewers when the change crosses architecture, security, test, or UX boundaries.
Ask / Escalate
- Ask before deleting ambiguous dead code or when a change should be split into smaller reviewable slices.
- Escalate to specialist reviewers for auth, secrets, filesystem, shell, network, public contracts, or user-facing UX risk.
References
- Behavioral overlay:
../../references/behavioral-guidelines.md
- Detailed guidance:
references/guidance.md
- Process and etiquette:
references/process-and-etiquette.md
- Review checklist:
references/review-checklist.md
- Security checklist:
references/security-checklist.md
- Performance checklist:
references/performance-checklist.md
