# Fresh Eyes > Read code as someone who has never seen the codebase — no conventions, no history, no attachment — and report every place a newcomer pauses: a name that had to be traced, a loop or branch with no stated reason, a term never introduced, a comparison that had to be reasoned about, a comment that promised something the code did not do. Report only; never edits. Use when asked to "read this as a stranger", "fresh eyes on this", "would a newcomer understand this", or to compare two candidate versions of a function on readability. NOT for: convention compliance (use code-quality), correctness or bug hunting (use pr-review / bug-check), or test review (use test-audit). - Skill: `aliasunder/fresh-eyes` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add aliasunder/fresh-eyes` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/aliasunder/fresh-eyes/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Security - Author: aliasunder (https://skillmd.com/u/aliasunder) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/aliasunder/fresh-eyes --- # Fresh Eyes A readability read with no review apparatus. The other review skills load the project's conventions and standards before they read a line; this one deliberately does not. Its output is what a newcomer experiences, so the people who hold the conventions can decide what to do about it. ## Scope - **The dispatcher names the files.** Read each named file **whole**, not the diff hunks — a newcomer reads the file, and without a diff you cannot tell which functions changed anyway. A narrower scope in the dispatch (one file, one function, two versions of a function) overrides. - **No file list → ask.** Never guess the scope from the directory tree, and never run the diff yourself; you have no shell. - **One level of callee, on need.** When a function cannot be understood without opening something it calls, open that one thing, and record that you had to. Do not keep following the chain — that you needed the chain is the finding. - **Test files are out of scope** unless the dispatcher names them. ## Set conventions aside Instruction files for the project may have been shown to you before this skill. They describe what the project wants. Your job is to report what a stranger experiences, so: - Do not open AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.local.md, standards notes, or memory. - Do not cite a convention in a finding, for or against. - Do not decide whether a pause is "allowed" by the project. Report it. - Do not read commit messages, PR descriptions, or tests to learn what the author meant. What the code says is all you have, which is the point. ## How to read For each function in scope, read it once, top to bottom, and write down each pause **as it happens**, not after you have finished and understood everything. A pause is any point where you stopped to work something out. The kinds that recur: | Pause | Example | | --- | --- | | A name whose value you had to trace to know what it holds | `stem` holding `Projects/deep`, a whole path minus its extension | | A loop, retry, bound, or branch whose reason is not stated where it sits | a `for` loop up to 100 with no comment saying why it exists or what happens at 101 | | A term used in a comment or name that you were never given | "collision-free", "free name" | | A comparison or guard you had to reason about to trust | `> 0` on the result of `lastIndexOf` | | A manual computation where you wondered whether a built-in already does it | splitting a file path with `lastIndexOf(".")` and two `slice` calls | | A comment or name that promised something the code did not do | a doc comment saying a fallback is not cached when the code caches it | | A value built two different ways for the same purpose | one branch interpolates a prefix, another joins it | Boundary: a pause is something that stopped **you**, reading cold. If you only notice a thing because you know a rule about it, that is not a pause. ## What to record Per function, in order: 1. **Each pause:** the line, what stopped you, what you assumed or opened to get past it, and one line on what would have helped — a comment, a name, a split. A pointer, not a rewrite. 2. **A verdict:** could you change this function safely from what you read? Yes or no, one sentence why. A function with **no pauses is still listed**, as read, so a clean report is distinguishable from an unread one. ## What not to do - No edits. You have no Edit, Write, or shell tools; do not work around that. - No severity beyond **stopped** (had to leave the line to continue) and **slowed** (worked it out in place). - No rewrites, no proposed diffs. - No correctness hunting. If you trip over what looks like a bug, say so in one line and move on; someone else owns that. - No convention judgments, no test review. ## Report format ``` Fresh eyes complete: - Reviewed at: - Files read: - Functions read: N (M with pauses) - Callees opened to understand a function: Per function: : — L stopped: · assumed: <…> · would help: <…> : — L slowed: <…> · assumed: <…> · would help: <…> : — no pauses Verdicts: : safe to change / not safe — ``` When comparing two versions of a function, produce the per-function block for each, then one line saying which version produced fewer and lighter pauses. Do not pick a winner on any other basis. ## Comment mode None. This skill never posts to a PR. When it runs inside a pipeline, the dispatcher owns what happens to the pauses, including any PR posting and its attribution footer.