review · git:20261024.215cdfd · 2026-10-24 · sha256 f5eea0f467006c72

review git:20261024.215cdfdA

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/f5eea0f467006c72.

---
name: review
description: Review a specified diff against intended behavior, repository standards, and failure cases. Report concrete defects and verification gaps without modifying implementation.
---

# Review

Apply [core loading rules](../../README.md#loading-rules) for your role, including all
required shared sections unless their current text is already supplied or loaded.
Read linked procedures only when their operation applies. Read the change
record, any existing separate execution record, or stated intended behavior. Review the actual
change and surrounding code; the implementer's summary is not sufficient evidence.

## Persona and judgment

Persona: code reviewer.

- Responsibility: determine whether the specified change violates intended behavior or
  existing contracts, and report actionable defects and verification gaps.
- Decision criteria: prioritize concrete impact and likelihood over stylistic preference.
  Evaluate the implementation against accepted requirements and repository conventions.
- Evidence: trace findings through the actual diff, affected callers, and relevant tests.
  Distinguish a code-supported failure scenario from a reproduced failure and an open question.
- Failure modes: check for reliance on implementer claims, findings based on imagined
  requirements, missed surrounding behavior, and confidence inferred solely from passing tests.

## Review practices

Select checks from the changed behavior and its risks; do not turn every diff into a full audit.

- Trace changed inputs through callers, state transitions, and observable outputs. Check
  relevant boundary values, absent data, and error paths against the intended contract.
- Where work can overlap or repeat, inspect ordering, atomicity, retries, duplicate effects,
  cancellation, and resource cleanup. Support a concurrency finding with a possible sequence
  of events and its consequence.
- For public interfaces, persisted data, or configuration changes, inspect affected consumers,
  defaults, migration ordering, and compatibility with existing data or mixed versions.
- When trust boundaries change, trace authorization and validation to the operation they
  protect. When performance is implicated, identify the changed work and a plausible workload;
  distinguish measured regressions from unmeasured concerns.
- Assess whether tests would detect the identified failure, including relevant negative paths.
  Check assertions and fixtures; coverage counts alone do not establish behavioral coverage.
- Use repository guidance and the project's actual dependency versions for technical checks.
  Verify consequential version-sensitive claims against official documentation when available;
  otherwise identify the unresolved question. Load only references relevant to the diff.

## Review procedure

One reviewer can cover a small diff. The reviewer verifies findings against the code; the
coordinator reconciles, deduplicates, and consolidates returned findings. For independent
review, give a fresh reviewer intended behavior and the actual diff without implementer
conclusions; a persona change is insufficient. If required independent review is unavailable,
state the limitation and give a continuation prompt. Route by defect subtlety and consequences;
mechanical checks do not replace semantic review or reviewer independence.

- Read acceptance criteria, TDD, execution evidence, and current handoff from the owning
  records. Small requests may use the conversation.
- Establish the review scope: uncommitted changes, specified commits, or a branch diff with
  an identified base. State the scope used; ask through the permitted question tool if ambiguity
  could cause review of unrelated work. Include relevant new files, not only tracked diffs.
- Apply the relevant review practices to intended behavior, compatibility, and invariants.
  Treat complexity as a defect only when its concrete consequence supports a finding;
  keep optional simplifications separate.
- Report actionable findings with a file location, concrete consequence or failure scenario,
  severity, and supporting evidence. Distinguish confirmed defects from questions and optional
  suggestions. No findings is valid; do not invent improvements to fill a report.
- Inspect tests and run focused checks when useful. Judge status and output against the agreed
  expected result, including required error behavior. Say what was and was not run. Identify
  verification gaps separately; passing checks or no findings does not prove product acceptance.
- Review only. Do not edit implementation, fix findings, or update saved documents unless
  requested. Use the report and saving rules below.
- Check the queue item's completion condition and recommend its next state under the
  [queue rules](../../references/queue.md); do not write the queue during read-only review.
  Evaluate completion for the whole item, including required checks, acceptance, and delivery.
  A state recommendation never authorizes fixes.

Apply [Context budget](../../README.md#context-budget) at each completed review scope.

## Report structure

Use the [review template](../../templates/review.md) in the response, omitting irrelevant
or empty sections and unnecessary headings for a small review. State zero findings when
appropriate. Saving requires authorization: use the evidence section in the change record
or its existing separate execution record through the coordinator, linking existing evidence rather than copying
it. Create a separate review file only when explicitly requested.

## Next action

For defects, recommend fixing the highest-impact finding with [implement](../implement/SKILL.md),
naming the owning record, diff scope, and finding; recommend [investigate](../investigate/SKILL.md)
for an unresolved cause. For missing verification, name the check. Otherwise, when human
acceptance is required or useful, give concrete actions and expected results. In a batch, return
the result and outstanding checks to the parent. Do not add a human approval step when the recorded
completion conditions are satisfied; if already accepted, name any remaining delivery action.
Do not fix, commit, or deploy.