code-review

name	code-review
description	Thorough code review using token-efficient context gathering. Analyzes PRs, diffs, or staged changes by checking blast radius, complexity, and dependencies before reviewing the actual code. Use when asked to review a PR, review changes, or do a code review.
compatibility	Requires tokenlean CLI tools (npm i -g tokenlean) and git

Code Review

Review code changes thoroughly while reading as little raw code as possible.

Workflow

Changes → Scope check → Context gathering → Deep review → Output

1. Determine scope

# For a PR or branch
tl-pr

# For uncommitted work
tl-diff

# For a specific commit range
tl-diff <ref>

If the diff is large (>20 files), focus on the highest-impact files first.

2. Gather context on changed files

For each changed file, run these in parallel:

tl-impact <file>      # What depends on this file — will anything break?
tl-symbols <file>     # Signatures overview — understand the file without reading it
tl-complexity <file>  # Cyclomatic complexity — flag functions that are getting too complex

For files with high impact (many dependents), also run:

tl-exports <file>     # Was the public API changed? Are exports still compatible?

3. Review the code

Now read the actual diff. You already know:

• What changed (from step 1)
• What depends on it (from tl-impact)
• The shape of the code (from tl-symbols)
• Complexity hotspots (from tl-complexity)

Use tl-snippet <function> <file> to read specific changed functions rather than full files.

4. Check for common issues

tl-guard              # Secrets, stale TODOs, unused exports, circular deps

5. Output format

Structure the review as:

## Summary
One-paragraph assessment: what this change does and overall quality.

## Issues
- **[severity]** file:line — description and suggestion

## Observations
- Non-blocking notes, style comments, questions for the author

## Verdict
APPROVE / REQUEST CHANGES / NEEDS DISCUSSION

Severity levels: critical (bugs, security), warning (potential problems), nit (style, minor).

Decision tree: how deep to go

File changed → How many dependents? (tl-impact)
  ├─ 0 dependents → Light review (just read the diff)
  ├─ 1-5 dependents → Standard review (symbols + diff)
  └─ 6+ dependents → Deep review (symbols + exports + snippet each changed function)

Tips

• Run context-gathering commands in parallel — they're independent
• For test files, skip tl-impact (nothing depends on tests)
• tl-symbols -j gives JSON output if you need structured data
• If a file is under 150 lines, just read it directly — tl-* overhead isn't worth it