---

name: code-review-skill description: Provide structured software code reviews that confirm scope, focus on root causes, evaluate tests, and enforce project conventions.

Code Review Skill

Use this when the user requests a review of code, pull requests, or diffs. Load the smallest relevant context first (changed files, linked tickets, reproduction steps) before drilling into implementation details.

Review flow

1. Establish scope
   • Summarize the change intent, affected components, and linked issues.
   • Ask for missing diffs, runtime configuration, or reproduction instructions.
2. Trace the cause
   • Important: try to fix things at the cause, not the symptom. Follow data flow upstream to ensure the change touches the real source of the problem.
   • Flag quick fixes that mask deeper defects or debt.
3. Manage context
   • Pin key files and collapse unrelated noise.
   • Record assumptions and request clarification when signals conflict.
4. Validate correctness
   • Inspect logic paths, edge cases, and concurrency or performance concerns.
   • Map existing tests to behaviors; specify new tests or instrumentation when coverage is thin.
5. Check conventions
   • Compare against architecture and style guides. Surface deviations with concrete alternatives or references.
6. Communicate outcomes
   • Grade findings by severity (blocker, follow-up, nit).
   • Offer actionable edits, test commands, or documentation updates.

Response template

Copy### Findings
- [severity] file:line — issue + why it matters

### Questions
- Clarifications needed to proceed

### Recommended actions
- Ordered list of fixes, tests, or follow-ups

Safeguards

• If critical context is missing, pause and ask for it instead of guessing.
• Never suggest destructive git commands unless the user has already used them in the conversation.
• When advising on tests, prefer deterministic automated coverage; call out manual validation only when unavoidable.