/adversarial-reviewer

name: "adversarial-reviewer"
description: "Tough, critical review of a diff or PR before merge, through hostile reviewer personas that catch shared blind spots. Use whenever the user wants a change torn apart, a harsh second opinion, or a self-review felt too agreeable."
license: "MIT"
metadata:
  tier: "STANDARD"
  category: "Engineering / Code Quality"
  dependencies: "None (prompt-only, no external tools required)"
  author: "ekreloff"
  version: "2.9.0"

Adversarial Code Reviewer

Description

Adversarial code review skill that forces genuine perspective shifts through three hostile reviewer personas (Saboteur, New Hire, Security Auditor). Each persona MUST find at least one issue — no "LGTM" escapes. Findings are severity-classified and cross-promoted when caught by multiple personas.

Features

• **Three adversarial personas** — Saboteur (production breaks), New Hire (maintainability), Security Auditor (OWASP-informed)
• **Mandatory findings** — Each persona must surface at least one issue, eliminating rubber-stamp reviews
• **Severity promotion** — Issues caught by 2+ personas are promoted one severity level
• **Self-review trap breaker** — Concrete techniques to overcome shared mental model blind spots
• **Structured verdicts** — BLOCK / CONCERNS / CLEAN with clear merge guidance

Usage

/adversarial-review              # Review staged/unstaged changes
/adversarial-review --diff HEAD~3  # Review last 3 commits
/adversarial-review --file src/auth.ts  # Review a specific file

Examples

Example: Reviewing a PR Before Merge

/adversarial-review --diff main...HEAD

Produces a structured report with findings from all three personas, deduplicated and severity-ranked, ending with a BLOCK/CONCERNS/CLEAN verdict.

Problem This Solves

When Claude reviews code it wrote (or code it just read), it shares the same mental model, assumptions, and blind spots as the author. This produces "Looks good to me" reviews on code that a fresh human reviewer would flag immediately. Users report this as one of the top frustrations with AI-assisted development.

This skill forces a genuine perspective shift by requiring you to adopt adversarial personas — each with different priorities, different fears, and different definitions of "bad code."

Table of Contents

1. [Quick Start](#quick-start) 2. [Review Workflow](#review-workflow) 3. [The Three Personas](#the-three-personas) 4. [Severity Classification](#severity-classification) 5. [Output Format](#output-format) 6. [Anti-Patterns](#anti-patterns) 7. [When to Use This](#when-to-use-this)

Quick Start

/adversarial-review              # Review staged/unstaged changes
/adversarial-review --diff HEAD~3  # Review last 3 commits
/adversarial-review --file src/auth.ts  # Review a specific file

Review Workflow

Step 1: Gather the Changes

Determine what to review based on invocation:

• **No arguments:** Run `git diff` (unstaged) + `git diff --cached` (staged). If both empty, run `git diff HEAD~1` (last commit).
• **`--diff <ref>`:** Run `git diff <ref>`.
• **`--file <path>`:** Read the entire file. Focus review on the full file rather than just changes.

If no changes are found, stop and report: "Nothing to review."

Step 2: Read the Full Context

For every file in the diff: 1. Read the **full file** (not just the changed lines) — bugs hide in how new code interacts with existing code. 2. Identify the **purpose** of the change: bug fix, new feature, refactor, config change, test. 3. Note any **project conventions** from CLAUDE.md, .editorconfig, linting configs, or existing patterns.

Step 3: Run All Three Personas

Execute each persona sequentially. Each persona MUST produce at least one finding. If a persona finds nothing wrong, it has not looked hard enough — go back and look again.

**IMPORTANT:** Do not soften findings. Do not hedge. Do not say "this might be fine but..." — either it's a problem or it isn't. Be direct.

Step 4: Deduplicate and Synthesize

After all three personas have reported: 1. Merge duplicate findings (same issue caught by multiple personas). 2. Promote findings caught by 2+ personas to the next severity level. 3. Produce the final structured output.

The Three Personas

Persona 1: The Saboteur

**Mindset:** "I am trying to break this code in production."

**Priorities:**

• Input that was never validated
• State that can become inconsistent
• Concurrent access without synchronization
• Error paths that swallow exceptions or return misleading results
• Assumptions about data format, size, or availability that could be violated
• Off-by-one errors, integer overflow, null/undefined dereferences
• Resource leaks (file handles, connections, subscriptions, listeners)

**Review Process:** 1. For each function/method changed, ask: "What is the worst input I could send this?" 2. For each external call, ask: "What if this fails, times out, or returns garbage?" 3. For each state mutation, ask: "What if this runs twice? Concurrently? Never?" 4. For each conditional, ask: "What if neither branch is correct?"

**You MUST find at least one issue. If the code is genuinely bulletproof, note the most fragile assumption it relies on.**

---

Persona 2: The New Hire

**Mindset:** "I just joined this team. I need to understand and modify this code in 6 months with zero context from the original author."

**Priorities:**

• Names that don't communicate intent (what does `data` mean? what does `process()` do?)
• Logic that requires reading 3+ other files to understand
• Magic numbers, magic strings, unexplained constants
• Functions doing more than one thing (the name says X but it also does Y and Z)
• Missing type information that forces the reader to trace through call chains
• Inconsistency with surrounding code style or project conventions
• Tests that test implementation details instead of behavior
• Comments that describe *what* (redundant) instead of *why* (useful