Code Review

Code Review — Standards and Spec

Review the changes since a fixed point (commit, branch, tag, or merge-base) along two axes: Standards (does the code follow this repo's documented coding standards?) and Spec (does the code match what the originating issue/spec asked for?). Runs both reviews in parallel sub-agents and reports them side by side. Use when the user wants to review a branch, a PR, work-in-progress changes, or asks to "review since X".

This skill is imported from mattpocock/skills (MIT) and is model-invoked upstream.

When to use this skill

• Review the changes since a fixed point (commit, branch, tag, or merge-base) along two axes: Standards (does the code follow this repo's documented coding standards?) and Spec (does the code match what the originating issue/spec asked for?).
• Runs both reviews in parallel sub-agents and reports them side by side.
• Use when the user wants to review a branch, a PR, work-in-progress changes, or asks to "review since X".

Instructions

Two-axis review of the diff between HEAD and a fixed point the user supplies:

• Standards: does the code conform to this repo's documented coding standards?
• Spec: does the code faithfully implement the originating issue / spec?

Both axes run as parallel sub-agents so they don't pollute each other's context, then this skill aggregates their findings.

The issue tracker should have been provided to you. If docs/agents/issue-tracker.md is missing, tell the user to run /setup-matt-pocock-skills.

Process

1. Pin the fixed point

Whatever the user said is the fixed point (a commit SHA, branch name, tag, main, HEAD~5, etc.). If they didn't specify one, ask for it.

Capture the diff command once: git diff <fixed-point>...HEAD (three-dot, so the comparison is against the merge-base). Also note the list of commits via git log <fixed-point>..HEAD --oneline.

Before going further, confirm the fixed point resolves (git rev-parse <fixed-point>) and the diff is non-empty. A bad ref or empty diff should fail here, not inside two parallel sub-agents.

2. Identify the spec source

Look for the originating spec, in this order:

1. Issue references in the commit messages (#123, Closes #45, GitLab !67, etc.), fetched via the workflow in docs/agents/issue-tracker.md.
2. A path the user passed as an argument.
3. A spec file under docs/, specs/, or .scratch/ matching the branch name or feature.
4. If nothing is found, ask the user where the spec is. If they say there isn't one, the Spec sub-agent will skip and report "no spec available".

3. Identify the standards sources

Anything in the repo that documents how code should be written, such as CODING_STANDARDS.md or CONTRIBUTING.md.

On top of whatever the repo documents, the Standards axis always carries the smell baseline below: a fixed set of Fowler code smells (Refactoring, ch.3) that applies even when a repo documents nothing. Two rules bind it:

• The repo overrides. A documented repo standard always wins; where it endorses something the baseline would flag, suppress the smell.
• Always a judgement call. Each smell is a labelled heuristic ("possible Feature Envy"), never a hard violation. Like any standard here, skip anything tooling already enforces.

Each smell reads what it is → how to fix; match it against the diff:

• Mysterious Name: a function, variable, or type whose name doesn't reveal what it does or holds. → rename it; if no honest name comes, the design's murky.
• Duplicated Code: the same logic shape appears in more than one hunk or file in the change. → extract the shared shape, call it from both.
• Feature Envy: a method that reaches into another object's data more than its own. → move the method onto the data it envies.
• Data Clumps: the same few fields or params keep travelling together (a type wanting to be born). → bundle them into one type, pass that.
• Primitive Obsession: a primitive or string standing in for a domain concept that deserves its own type. → give the concept its own small type.
• Repeated Switches: the same switch/if-cascade on the same type recurs across the change. → replace with polymorphism, or one map both sites share.
• Shotgun Surgery: one logical change forces scattered edits across many files in the diff. → gather what changes together into one module.
• Divergent Change: one file or module is edited for several unrelated reasons. → split so each module changes for one reason.
• Speculative Generality: abstraction, parameters, or hooks added for needs the spec doesn't have. → delete it; inline back until a real need shows.
• Message Chains: long a.b().c().d() navigation the caller shouldn't depend on. → hide the walk behind one method on the first object.
• Middle Man: a class or function that mostly just delegates onward. → cut it, call the real target direct.
• Refused Bequest: a subclass or implementer that ignores or overrides most of what it inherits. → drop the inheritance, use composition.

4. Spawn both sub-agents in parallel

Standards sub-agent prompt should include:

• The full diff command and commit list.
• The list of standards-source files you found in step 3, plus the smell baseline from step 3 pasted in full (the sub-agent has no other access to it).
• The brief: "Report, per file/hunk where relevant, (a) every place the diff violates a documented standard: cite the standard (file + the rule); and (b) any baseline smell you spot: name it and quote the hunk. Distinguish hard violations from judgement calls: documented-standard breaches can be hard, but baseline smells are always judgement calls, and a documented repo standard overrides the baseline. Skip anything tooling enforces. Under 400 words."

Spec sub-agent prompt should include:

• The diff command and commit list.
• The path or fetched contents of the spec.
• The brief: "Report: (a) requirements the spec asked for that are missing or partial; (b) behaviour in the diff that wasn't asked for (scope creep); (c) requirements that look implemented but where the implementation looks wrong. Quote the spec line for each finding. Under 400 words."

If the spec is missing, skip the Spec sub-agent and note this in the final report.

5. Aggregate

Present the two reports under ## Standards and ## Spec headings, verbatim or lightly cleaned. Do not merge or rerank findings, because the two axes are deliberately separate (see Why two axes).

End with a one-line summary: total findings per axis, and the worst issue within each axis (if any). Don't pick a single winner across axes: that's the reranking the separation exists to prevent.

Why two axes

A change can pass one axis and fail the other:

• Code that follows every standard but implements the wrong thing → Standards pass, Spec fail.
• Code that does exactly what the issue asked but breaks the project's conventions → Spec pass, Standards fail.

Reporting them separately stops one axis from masking the other.

Local routing kept from the previous jeo-skills revision

The repository-agnostic review-routing brief (severity ladder, missing-proof checks, and route-outs to debugging, testing-strategies, and code-refactoring) now lives in references/jeo-review-routing.md. Read it when the request is "how should we review this" rather than "run the review now".

Examples

• Apply this skill to one narrow scope first, confirm the output matches the shape described above, then widen to the full task.
• When a step needs a fact from the repository or the environment, look it up instead of asking the user for it.

Best practices

• Keep the upstream procedure intact; record deviations explicitly instead of silently improvising.
• Stop and hand control back to the user at every decision point this skill marks as theirs.
• Prefer small reversible changes, and state assumptions rather than burying them.

References

• Upstream skill: mattpocock/skills skills/engineering/code-review/SKILL.md (commit 3cca18b, MIT)
• Project standards: .agent-skills/skill-standardization/SKILL.md
• Validator script: .agent-skills/skill-standardization/scripts/validate_skill.sh