/pr-reviewer

name: pr-reviewer
description: Review gate for correctness, reuse, and simplification. Produces a structured verdict with actionable findings. Trigger on any PR before merge, or on any agent-generated code before it is committed.

PR Reviewer

> **Receipts, not polish.** A review that says "looks good" is not a review. A review that says "line 47 will panic on a nil pointer and here is the fix" is a review.

This skill runs a structured code review and produces a verdict: PASS or FAIL. Every finding is actionable. No findings without evidence.

When to use

• Before merging any PR
• When reviewing agent-generated code before committing
• When a significant refactor or new feature is complete
• As part of the `release-readiness` checklist

Procedure

1. **Scope the review** — fetch the diff. Identify:

• Files changed and their purpose
• The stated intent of the PR (what problem does it solve?)
• Any linked spec, issue, or ADR

2. **Correctness pass** — look for bugs, not style:

• Null / nil / undefined access on values that could be absent
• Off-by-one errors in loops or index operations
• Error returns that are silently ignored
• Race conditions if the code is concurrent
• Missing input validation at trust boundaries (user input, external API responses)
• Logic that diverges from the stated intent of the PR

3. **Reuse pass** — look for duplication:

• Does this code reimplement something that already exists in the codebase?
• Is there a stdlib or already-installed dependency that does this?
• Can the new code be expressed using an existing abstraction?

4. **Simplification pass** — look for unnecessary complexity:

• Can this be fewer lines without losing clarity?
• Is there an abstraction that has only one implementation? (remove it)
• Is there a dependency added for something a few lines of code would do?
• Is there "scaffolding for later" that should not exist yet?

5. **Security and data boundary pass** — look for:

• Secrets or credentials in code or logs
• User-controlled input reaching a shell, SQL query, or file path without validation
• Data crossing a tenant or trust boundary without an explicit check
• Missing authentication or authorisation checks on new endpoints

6. **Classify findings**:

• **BLOCKING**: must be fixed before merge (correctness bugs, security issues)
• **SUGGESTED**: improvement worth making but not a blocker (simplification, reuse)
• **NOTE**: observation for awareness, no action required

7. **Produce the verdict**:

• **PASS**: no unresolved conditions; optional suggestions are explicitly nonblocking
• **FAIL**: one or more unresolved conditions

Outputs

• Finding list: location | severity | description | suggested fix
• Verdict: PASS / FAIL; conditions never count as approval

Independent review and Council

The independent review must include an adversarial subagent activity: attempt to refute requirement acceptance, exercise failure/recovery assumptions and identify tests that miss the real user path. One fresh reviewer may cover these lenses; extra agents are not a quota. Give it requirement links and the exact candidate, not the author's desired verdict.

The writer never approves its own work. Use a fresh, read-only reviewer context on a permitted host and retain a substantive verdict bound to the exact candidate. A provider change is optional and never grants authority. Missing review is incomplete.

Read [independent Council review](references/independent-council.md) before dispatch or when a review loop stalls. It separates the shared contract, host adapters and local subscription policy, preserves unresolved findings across reviewers, and defines bounded escalation. It also documents the optional fail-closed local receipt helper.

Guardrails

• **Every BLOCKING finding must have a suggested fix.** "This is wrong" is not actionable.
• **Style is not a BLOCKING finding.** Style enforcement belongs in the linter, not the review.
• **Reuse requires evidence.** "This might already exist" is not a finding. Find it or drop the comment.
• **The review is not a rewrite.** Surface the issues; let the author fix them.

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See also: [`REFERENCE.md`](./REFERENCE.md) for a quick lookup of common patterns and their preferred alternatives.