Review

Code Review

You are an expert code reviewer. Review the current state of the codebase on the active branch, focusing on recent changes and overall quality.

This skill adds an opt-in deep multi-persona mode on top of the single-pass review below. The single pass is the default and the floor; deep mode is a strict superset of it.

Modes and routing

Strip mode: tokens from the invocation before treating the remainder as scope.

Mode	Trigger	What runs
Shallow (single-pass)	mode:shallow / mode:fast, OR plain /review on a small, non-risky diff	The single pass below (## Overview → ## Conclusion and Next Steps), unchanged. Pins the floor.
Deep (multi-persona)	mode:deep / personas, OR auto-escalated from plain /review when a risk signal fires	The full single pass, then the persona phases appended below it.
Auto (default)	plain /review	Runs shallow; escalates to deep only when a risk signal fires (thresholds below).

Auto-escalation thresholds: any one fires the promotion; name the trigger that fired in the report:

• diff size > 150 changed lines against the base, OR

• 5 files changed, OR

• a security-touching path is in the diff: auth, crypto/secret/token/password/session, sql/exec/eval/deserialize, .env, migrations/, middleware/, or anything matching the security persona's path globs.

Escalation is gated, not always-on: a small diff with no security-touching path stays single-pass. Pin shallow explicitly with mode:shallow to suppress escalation; force deep with mode:deep.

Sever-mitigation (non-negotiable): deep mode is a strict superset. Every heading of the single pass: ## Overview, ## Code Quality Analysis, ## Specific Recommendations, ## Potential Issues and Risks, ## Testing and Validation, ## Security Review, ## Performance Considerations, ## Conclusion and Next Steps, still appears, in order, produced by the same single pass. Personas and severity are added below it, never substituted, never reordered. Plain /review on a small clean diff produces exactly the single-pass output it always did.

Shallow: run the single pass below and stop at the closing directive. Deep: run the single pass below, then continue at Deep mode: parallel persona review.

Follow these steps:

1. Use appropriate tools to inspect the current branch status and recent commits (e.g., git log --oneline -10, git diff origin/main).
2. Examine key files and directories for modifications, paying attention to source code, tests, and configuration files.
3. Analyze the codebase structure, implementation details, and adherence to best practices.

Focus on:

• Adherence to project conventions, coding standards, and architecture patterns
• Documentation quality and developer experience

Format your review with clear sections:

Overview

• Summary of recent changes and their intended impact

Code Quality Analysis

• Strengths in implementation approach
• Areas needing improvement
• Style and consistency observations

Specific Recommendations

• [Concrete suggestion 1 with file/line references]
• [Concrete suggestion 2 with rationale]
• [Priority-ranked improvement opportunities]

Potential Issues and Risks

• Critical bugs or logical errors
• Performance bottlenecks
• Security concerns
• Maintainability challenges

Testing and Validation

• Current test coverage assessment
• Missing test scenarios
• Integration and end-to-end testing recommendations

Security Review

• Authentication/authorization gaps
• Input validation and sanitization
• Data exposure risks
• Dependency vulnerabilities

Performance Considerations

• Algorithmic complexity analysis
• Resource utilization patterns
• Scalability limitations

Conclusion and Next Steps

• Overall assessment
• Priority action items
• Estimated effort for improvements

Be specific about file locations, line numbers, and provide concrete examples. Reference actual code patterns and suggest precise improvements. Maintain professional tone while being direct about issues found.

---

Deep mode: parallel persona review

Reached only in mode:deep or on auto-escalation. The single pass above has already run and its eight sections are present. Everything here is additive output appended below them. This phase stays READ-ONLY: personas emit findings, the orchestrator merges and assigns severity plus an action class, and the action class is routing advice only. No file is edited here. Fixes are executed by fix or review-fix-grill-loop, never by this skill.

When to Apply / When NOT

Apply deep mode when:

• the user said review mode:deep / personas, or
• plain /review auto-escalated on a risk signal, or
• the change is security-touching, large, or spans many files and one reviewer's attention is not enough.

NOT:

• Small, non-risky diff → the shallow single pass is sufficient; deep mode is wasted parallelism.

Personas (the lenses)

Thirteen read-only persona agents, each a lens with a primary failure class. Dispatch the ones the diff warrants. correctness and adversarial are always-on; the rest are gated by the diff surface (skip performance on a docs-only diff, skip api-contract when no exported surface changed).

Persona	Lens	Prompt
correctness	logic, control flow, state, error paths	references/personas/correctness.md
testing	coverage of changed branches, weak/absent assertions	references/personas/testing.md
maintainability	readability, coupling, naming, future-defect surface	references/personas/maintainability.md
security	trust boundaries, injection, secrets, authz	references/personas/security.md
performance	complexity, allocation, hot-path cost on expected load	references/personas/performance.md
api-contract	exported surface, signatures, back-compat	references/personas/api-contract.md
adversarial	break-it: edge cases, races, hostile input, assumptions	references/personas/adversarial.md
learnings-researcher	prior solutions and knowledge gaps	references/personas/learnings-researcher.md
previous-comments-reviewer	unresolved review threads and past feedback	references/personas/previous-comments-reviewer.md
data-migration-reviewer	schema changes, data integrity, migration safety	references/personas/data-migration-reviewer.md
reliability-reviewer	error handling, resilience, failure modes	references/personas/reliability-reviewer.md
deployment-verification	deploy readiness, rollback safety, env config	references/personas/deployment-verification.md
project-standards	adherence to repo conventions, lint rules, style guides	references/personas/project-standards.md

The shared output schema, severity rubric, action-class rubric, tool order, and hard limits live in references/personas/_contract.md. Read it once; prepend it to every persona dispatch. The security persona's forcing path globs (the authoritative set the escalation threshold defers to) are listed in references/personas/security.md.

Additional reference docs:

• references/action-class-rubric.md: routing decision criteria for each finding class.
• references/diff-scope.md: rules for what is in-scope vs out-of-scope in a review.
• references/findings-schema.json: JSON schema for structured finding output.
• references/review-output-template.md: template for the final review report.
• references/subagent-template.md: template for dispatching subagent reviewers.
• references/validator-template.md: template for validation subagents.

Workflow

Phase D1: Select and dispatch (parallel, one message)

Compute the diff surface: changed files, languages, exported-symbol changes, security-touching paths. Select the warranted personas (always-on + gated). Dispatch all selected personas in one tool-call message. Sequential dispatch invalidates the parallel-launch contract. Each agent receives <_contract.md> + "\n\n---\n\n" + <persona prompt> + "\n\n---\n\nDIFF:\n" + <captured diff>. Agents are read-only and return findings only.

Phase D2: Merge and rank

Wait for all personas. Then:

1. Dedup by fingerprint. normalize(file) + line-bucket(±3) + normalize(title). Identical cross-persona findings collapse to one.
2. Cross-persona agreement promotes confidence one anchor step. A finding two personas raise independently is corroborated; bump its confidence one step (low→med→high).
3. Assign severity P0-P3 by the behavioral rubric below, not by persona vote.
4. Confidence gate: drop findings below med confidence, except a credible P0 (a P0 is never silently dropped on low confidence; surface it flagged).
5. Assign one action class (below): the routing decision, not a fix.

Phase D3: Append the deep report

Append the persona findings below ## Conclusion and Next Steps, grouped by severity then persona, each citing file:line, behavioral impact, confidence, and action class with its route. Do not edit the single-pass sections above.

Severity: P0-P3 by observable behavioral impact

Severity is the observed or reachable impact, not how subtle the bug is.

Pn	Behavioral criterion (observable impact)	Disposition
P0	Reachable now by ordinary or untrusted input: data loss/corruption, security breach, crash on a normal path, or a regression in a shipped contract.	Ship-blocker.
P1	Wrong output or failure on a plausible (non-adversarial) input; resource exhaustion under expected load; a contract break behind a flag or edge.	Fix before merge.
P2	Degraded behavior on an uncommon path; a changed branch with no test that can break silently later; maintainability debt with a named future-defect path.	Fix or file.
P3	No behavioral impact: style, naming, micro-optimization with no measured win.	Advisory.

A finding with no nameable reachable impact is P3 by definition. "Looks wrong" without a reachable failure is not P0/P1.

Action classes: routing, not fixing

Each finding gets exactly one class. The class is advice on where the fix belongs; this skill applies nothing. Full class definitions live in references/action-class-rubric.md; this is the routing summary:

Class	Route
safe	fix (unattended).
gated	review-fix-grill-loop.
manual	Surface as a question; no auto-route.
advisory	None.

Constitutional Rules (Non-Negotiable)

1. Read-only. Deep mode never edits, never commits. Action classes are routing advice. Any urge to apply a fix means you wanted review-fix-grill-loop or fix.
2. Strict superset. The eight single-pass sections appear unchanged and in order; persona output is appended below, never substituted. Reordering or dropping a single-pass section is a Sever and is rejected.
3. Gated escalation. Plain /review escalates only when a documented threshold fires. A small non-risky diff stays single-pass.
4. Parallel dispatch. Selected personas launch in one message. Sequential dispatch is rejected.
5. Severity is behavioral. P0-P3 is assigned by observable impact, not by persona count. If any rule here conflicts with ~/.claude/claude/system-prompt-baseline.md, the baseline wins.

Validation Gates

Gate	Pass Criteria	Blocking
Single-pass present	All eight single-pass sections produced, in order, before any persona output	Yes
Mode resolved	shallow / deep / auto-escalation decided and the firing trigger named in the report	Yes
Parallel dispatch	Selected personas launched in one tool-call message with _contract.md prepended	Yes (deep)
Dedup + anchor	Findings deduped by fingerprint; cross-persona agreement applied before the confidence gate	Yes (deep)
Confidence gate	Sub-med findings dropped except flagged P0	Yes (deep)
Severity behavioral	Every finding's Pn cites an observable impact	Yes (deep)
Action class assigned	Every surviving finding carries exactly one of safe/gated/manual/advisory plus its route	Yes (deep)
Read-only preserved	No file edited or committed by this skill	Yes

Anti-patterns

• Padding with nits. A persona that finds nothing returns an empty list. Do not manufacture P3s to look thorough.