/named-persona-adversarial-review

name: "named-persona-adversarial-review"
description: "Code review through the lens of real engineers' documented philosophies (Torvalds, Thompson, Carmack, Kent Beck, Jobs, Cagan). Complements abstract-role adversarial review with named, sourced perspectives. Use when automated review findings feel generic, when a PR has architectural or UX impact, or when the author wants pre-submit hardening beyond standard checks."

Named-Persona Adversarial Review

> **TL;DR:** Abstract roles find abstract problems. Named engineers with *documented, sourced* philosophies find problems you would actually fix — as long as you cite the real principle and never invent the quote.

**Triggers:** "review this PR with real engineers" | "named persona review" | "philosophy-grounded review"

Example Output

CRITICAL [Torvalds]: Special-case error handling at auth.ts:47 duplicates the
  happy path. Torvalds' documented "good taste" principle: restructure so the
  special case disappears rather than adding a branch. (confidence: high — TED 2016)
WARNING  [Thompson]: parseConfig() does three unrelated things; the Unix
  "do one thing well" principle argues to split it. (confidence: high)
NOTE     [Jobs]: Error "EACCES:13" leaks an errno at the user surface; "start
  from the customer experience" argues for a human message. (confidence: high — WWDC 1997)
Verdict: CONCERNS — fix CRITICAL before merge.

Problem

Abstract adversarial review ("act as a saboteur") produces generic findings — the model imagines what a reviewer *might* say. This skill grounds each lens in a **real, sourced engineering philosophy** documented in [`references/persona_principles.md`](references/persona_principles.md): what Ken Thompson actually argued about trust, what Linus actually demonstrated about good taste — not what an AI imagines.

**How it differs from `adversarial-reviewer`:** abstract roles → surface-level findings; named, sourced personas → findings anchored to a documented principle you can cite and defend.

**Cost:** 1 round ≈ 8-12 min. Comparable to waiting for CI.

Attribution discipline (read this first — it is the load-bearing rule)

This skill puts named, real people's *principles* to work. That power is also its failure mode: **language models hallucinate quotes.** To stay honest:

1. **Cite the principle, not a fabricated verbatim quote.** Prefer paraphrasing a documented position ("Thompson's *Reflections on Trusting Trust* argues you can't trust code you didn't fully create") over inventing quotation marks around words the person may never have said. 2. **Attach a confidence level to every attribution** — `high` (documented, in `references/persona_principles.md` with a source), `moderate` (widely attributed, source not pinned), `low`/`unknown` (you're inferring). Mirrors `productivity/andreessen`'s citation discipline. 3. **If you cannot ground a persona's lens in a real source, drop that persona.** A confidently-wrong quote attributed to a living engineer is worse than one fewer reviewer. Never fabricate a citation to hit the "≥1 finding" bar. 4. **The finding must stand on its own technical merit.** The persona is a *lens that directs attention*, not the authority that makes the finding true. A real bug found "through Carmack's lens" is real because it's a bug, not because Carmack said so.

Rules

• **Ground before role-play.** Anchor each persona in `references/persona_principles.md` (or a verifiable search) first. Ungrounded = invalid.
• **Findings stand on technical merit**, with the persona's principle as the lens — see the discipline above.
• **Product persona mandatory every round.** Engineers miss UX. Always include one.
• **Honesty over quantity.** Don't fabricate findings *or* citations. Clean dimensions get reported clean (with the zero-finding burden below).
• **Zero-finding burden.** "Looks fine" is only valid if you name 3+ principles the code demonstrably satisfies, and how. Non-findings are as expensive as findings.

Persona Pools

Each persona's documented principles + sources + confidence live in [`references/persona_principles.md`](references/persona_principles.md).

**Product** (pick 1 per round — mandatory):

| Persona | Documented principle | Best for | |---------|----------------------|----------| | Steve Jobs | Start from the customer experience, work back to the tech | UX, onboarding | | Marty Cagan | Fall in love with the problem, not the solution | PRDs, feature specs, scope creep | | Des Traynor (Intercom) | The first 30 seconds decide adoption | Docs, READMEs, quick starts |

**Engineers** (pick 2 per round):

| Persona | Documented principle | Best for | Blind spot | |---------|----------------------|----------|------------| | Ken Thompson | Trust boundaries; do one thing well | Architecture, supply chain, API | UX, docs | | Linus Torvalds | Eliminate the special case ("good taste"); never break userspace | Logic, data structures, compat | User empathy, DX | | John Carmack | Measure before you optimize; performance as craft | Algorithms, hot paths | Minimalism | | Kent Beck | Simple design; make it work → right → fast | Process, testability | Performance, security | | Fred Brooks | Essential vs. accidental complexity | System design, estimation | Low-level perf |

**Routing (which personas when):**

• Code correctness → Torvalds + Carmack + Jobs
• Architecture / design → Thompson + Brooks + Cagan
• Documentation / API → Thompson + Beck + Traynor
• Performance → Carmack + Torvalds + Jobs
• Security / supply chain → Thompson + Torvalds + Cagan
• 1st round on any PR → Torvalds + Thompson + Jobs (broadest coverage)

Severity Levels

| Level | Definition | Action | |-------|-----------|--------| | BLOCKER | 2+ personas concur on a CRITICAL, or security / data-loss risk | Fix before any further work | | CRITICAL | Wrong result, data loss, security hole, or violated core invariant | Fix before merge | | WARNING | Fragile, misleading, or likely to cause futur