github-pr-review

name	github-pr-review
description	Comprehensive PR review workflow for verifying code quality, metadata accuracy, and merge readiness. You MUST load this skill when reviewing, auditing, or verifying a GitHub Pull Request.
license	MIT

GitHub PR Review

Elite autonomous PR review workflow for ensuring structural integrity, metadata accuracy, and zero-defect deployments.

WHEN TO USE

• Triggered when asked to review, audit, or verify a GitHub Pull Request.
• Loaded automatically during the final verification phase of a PR lifecycle.

WHEN NOT TO USE

• When fixing a localized, single-file typo where a full architectural review is overkill.
• When the PR is in a Draft state and explicitly marked as "Do Not Review".
• For evaluating purely aesthetic UI/UX changes that require manual visual inspection.

Common Pitfalls

• Ignoring Base Branch Drift: Reviewing code without realizing the PR branch is severely outdated compared to main, leading to false positive approvals on code that will cause merge conflicts.
• Rubber-Stamping CI Failures: Assuming a red CI check is "just a flaky test" without actually verifying the failure logs.
• Nitpicking Over Architecture: Focusing exclusively on variable names and formatting while ignoring massive architectural flaws or security vulnerabilities.

Core Review Checkpoints

Execute these checks systematically using gh and git tools:

• Discovery & Scope Alignment:
  • Intent & Purpose: Verify the PR clearly articulates the WHY (goals/user value), WHAT (scope/deliverables), and HOW (implementation strategy).
  • Branch State: Verify if the PR branch is up-to-date with the base branch.
  • Comments Resolution: Check for any existing unresolved comments or threads on the PR to ensure previous feedback has been integrated.
  • Metadata Accuracy: Ensure PR Title follows Conventional Commits and Description accurately reflects all changes.
• Deep Code Inspection:
  • Inspection Framework: Apply the code-review skill's cognitive framework to evaluate code quality dimensions.
  • Atomic File Analysis: Step through the diff file-by-file or component-by-component.
  • Hygiene & Style: Check for trailing whitespace, indentation issues, debugger statements, and other hygiene issues.
  • Content & Documentation:
    • Comment Accuracy: Identify incorrect, misleading, or outdated comments.
    • Language & Readability: Scan for ungrammatical sentences and propose rephrasing for better readability.
    • Structural Integrity: Check for incorrectly numbered lists or broken formatting in documentation and comments.
  • Scope Control: Ensure the PR does strictly what it claims. Flag any drive-by changes or unrelated refactoring.
  • Overengineering Check: Aggressively apply YAGNI. Question "nice to have" features, premature optimizations, and abstractions that exceed core requirements.
  • Integration Check: Verify that new code correctly integrates with existing patterns and dependencies.
• Verification & Merge Readiness:
  • Build & CI Status: Verify that all CI/CD checks (status checks) are passing.
  • Test-Driven Audit: Validate that adequate unit and integration tests accompany the changed vectors. Flag untested edge cases that were overlooked.
  • Mergeability: Check mergeability status for conflicts.

Workflow Execution

1. Context Gathering

# Get PR metadata and mergeability
gh pr view <pr-number> --json title,body,mergeable,state,baseRefName,headRefName

# List all files changed
gh pr view <pr-number> --json files --jq '.files[].path'

# Get status checks
gh pr checks <pr-number>

2. Deep Inspection

Refer to the code-review skill for the deep inspection framework and hygiene check patterns.

# List comments to ensure resolution
gh api repos/:owner/:repo/pulls/<pr-number>/comments

# Check for trailing whitespace and conflict markers in the diff
git diff <base-branch>...HEAD --check

3. Agent Delegation

For a comprehensive PR review, delegate specialized reviews to relevant project agents using the task tool to ensure thorough coverage:

• Architectural Alignment: Delegate to cogni-ai-plan-reviewer to validate structural changes against project patterns.
• Code Quality: Delegate to cogni-ai-code-reviewer for exhaustive idiomatic inspection and quality enforcement.
• Security Review: Delegate to cogni-ai-security-auditor for focused PR security analysis.
• Verification: Delegate to cogni-ai-tester to execute tests and verify edge-case behavior.

4. Verification

• Run local tests if applicable.
• Perform a "Design-It-Twice" comparison if the PR implements a complex architectural change.
• Synthesize results from delegated agents (if any) into the final review summary.

What to Avoid

• Blanket Approvals: Never approve without verifying EVERY checkpoint.
• Ignoring Checks: Never skip checking the status of CI/CD pipelines.
• Missing Context: Always read the PR description and linked issues before reviewing code.

Related Skills

• critical-thinking: You MUST load this skill when applying deep analytical reasoning to complex changes.
• testing: You MUST load this skill when designing or suggesting new tests to cover identified gaps.
• code-review: You MUST load this skill when performing deep inspection of code changes.
• gh-pr: You MUST load this skill when working with the gh pr command.
• subagent-task: You MUST load this skill when delegating specialized review tasks to other agents.