self-review

name	self-review
description	Self-review the diff for code quality before formal verification. Covers naming, readability, unnecessary changes, typos, null safety, debug code, secrets, exception handling, security, and maintainability. Invoke automatically after /work completes or when significant code changes are staged.

Perform a self-review of the current diff and write a report to docs/reports/.

Review scope — diff quality only

Focus exclusively on the diff itself. Do NOT evaluate spec compliance, test coverage, or documentation drift — those belong to /verify and /test. Do NOT run tests, static analysis, formatters, linters, type checks, spec-compliance verification, documentation drift checks, or broad unrelated repo audits. Use git diff and targeted file reads only.

Evaluate the diff for:

1. Unnecessary changes — unrelated modifications, formatting-only diffs, accidental includes
2. Naming — clarity, consistency with surrounding code, grep-ability
3. Readability — function length, nesting depth, comment quality
4. Typos and copy-paste errors
5. Null safety and defensive checks — missing guards at boundaries
6. Debug code — leftover console.log, print, TODO markers, commented-out code
7. Secrets and credentials — hardcoded keys, tokens, passwords
8. Exception handling — swallowed errors, generic catches, missing error paths
9. Security — injection risks, XSS, CSRF, unsafe deserialization, path traversal
10. Maintainability — tight coupling, hidden side effects, magic numbers

Review method

1. Inspect the active plan and changed files via git diff.
2. Prefer evidence from the diff and repository contracts over intuition.
3. Record findings in a report using template.md.
4. Separate blocking issues from follow-up suggestions.
5. If any finding represents deferred work, known shortcuts, or accumulated complexity, append it to docs/tech-debt/README.md or create a dedicated file in docs/tech-debt/.
6. If there are no findings, say what was checked and what evidence supports that conclusion.

Output

• docs/reports/self-review-<date>-<slug>.md
• severity-tagged findings
• merge or no-merge recommendation
• tech-debt entries in docs/tech-debt/ if deferred work was identified

Insight event (best-effort)

After writing the report, append one insight event (errors are non-fatal):

./scripts/insights-append.sh --slug <slug> --flow standard --phase self_review \
  --verdict pass --critical <N> --high <N> --medium <N> --low <N> --source skill || true

Use --verdict fail if CRITICAL findings block the review; set counts from the report.

CLI execution modes

This skill runs under both Claude Code and Codex. The execution mode follows the conventions in AGENTS.md and .codex/AGENTS.override.md.

Aspect	Claude Code	Codex
Skill invocation	/skill-name slash command	$skill-name mention or the /skills menu (avoid the /skill-name form — it collides with built-ins)
Skill body path	.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md	.agents/skills/<name>/SKILL.md
Subagent mechanism	Task(subagent_type=...) when a policy delegates	.codex/agents/ custom agents when a policy delegates
Structured prompts	AskUserQuestion	Numbered options printed to stdout, awaiting a digit reply
Artifacts	docs/reports/, docs/plans/, docs/specs/ (shared)	Same (CLI-agnostic)

The drift check (./scripts/check-skill-sync.sh) cross-checks both bodies and invocation metadata — editing only one side will fail CI.