Review severity tiers

Review Severity Tiers

Gate Types by Reviewer

Reviewer	Gate Type	Blocks Ship?
security-reviewer	HARD	Yes — critical or high findings are non-negotiable
verifier	HARD	Yes — tests must pass, build must succeed
code-reviewer	HARD	Yes — blocking issues must be resolved
ux-reviewer	AUTO-FIX	REQUEST CHANGES is auto-applied in the loop (a major); only COMMENT notes may reach you
technical-writer	ADVISORY	No — findings recorded, pipeline proceeds

Severity Tiers and the Auto-Fix Boundary

There is no single "blocker/critical/major/minor" scale — reviewers raise findings in three different vocabularies (Conventional Comments issue/suggestion/nitpick, security CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW, and the APPROVE/REQUEST CHANGES/COMMENT verdict). This table is the authoritative map from any of those onto the action the orchestrator takes. Every finding lands in exactly one tier.

Tier	Findings in this tier	Action
Blocking	issue (blocking), code-reviewer REQUEST CHANGES, security CRITICAL/HIGH, any verifier failure	Auto-fixed in the loop. Never surfaced to the user.
Major	suggestion (non-blocking), security MEDIUM, ux-reviewer REQUEST CHANGES	Auto-fixed in the loop. Never surfaced to the user.
Minor and below	nitpick (non-blocking), security LOW, technical-writer GAPS, any COMMENT-level note	Surfaced to the user for a decision — but only after Blocking and Major are clean.

The consult guard (non-negotiable). While any Blocking or Major finding remains unresolved, the orchestrator MUST NOT present findings to the user or ask which ones to address. It loops the implementer automatically. The user is consulted exclusively for the remaining Minor-and-below findings, and only once the loop has driven Blocking and Major to zero. A consult prompt that lists a blocking or major finding is a defect.

Aggregating Verdicts

When multiple reviewers produce verdicts, aggregate them into a single pipeline gate decision:

1. If ANY Blocking or Major finding exists -> pipeline gate FAILS — loop back to IMPLEMENT automatically, with no consult.
2. If only Minor-and-below findings remain -> pipeline gate is CONDITIONAL: present them to the user, who decides. If none remain, proceed to SHIP.
3. If no findings remain -> pipeline gate PASSES (proceed to SHIP).

The loop continues until Blocking and Major are zero, capped at 5 rounds; at the cap, escalate with the full unresolved-findings summary.

Blocking and Major failures are never aggregated away and never surfaced for triage. A single CRITICAL security finding blocks shipping regardless of how many other reviewers approved.