Code Review Plan Execute

Execute a Code-Review Meta-Plan

Second punch-in command. Orchestrates the full review pipeline: pre-flight → seed → review-loop → synthesize → notify.

Core principle: Defensive and idempotent. Re-running this skill against the same meta-plan should never duplicate work, never lose findings, and always make forward progress. Status field + kanban directories together encode where every slice is.

When to Use

• After code-review-plan-create produced a meta-plan and you're ready to start the review.
• To resume a partially-completed run (slices in in-progress/, reviewed/, or completed/).
• To re-attempt failed slices after fixing the underlying issue (e.g., reviewer timeout was an env problem; restart the slice).

Process

Step 1: Find the Meta-Plan

Search order:

# 1. Adversarially-reviewed meta-plans
ls planning/needs-review/completed/*.md
# filter to those with frontmatter type: code-review-plan

# 2. Self-reviewed meta-plans
find planning/ -name "*.md" -not -path "*/needs-review/*"
# filter to those with frontmatter type: code-review-plan

Match logic:

• Exactly one in completed/: before settling on it, check Source-vs-Audit (below). Otherwise confirm with user "Execute on <title> from <path>?".
• Multiple in completed/: list them, ask user to pick. Then run Source-vs-Audit on the chosen one.
• Zero in completed/, exactly one in planning/: "No adversarially-reviewed meta-plan found. Found <path> in planning/ (not adversarially reviewed). Execute anyway? [y/N]".
• Zero in completed/, multiple in planning/: list, ask user to pick (with same not-adversarially-reviewed warning).
• Zero anywhere: bail with "No type: code-review-plan document found. Run code-review-plan-create first."

Source-vs-Audit resolution

When a candidate is in completed/, also check whether a same-slug, same-type: code-review-plan file exists at the source location (planning/<filename>). If yes, diff them:

• Identical: use the completed/ copy. Normal case.
• Different: the source has post-review revisions (per plan-receive-review's "audit copy stays untouched; revisions go to source" rule). Prefer the source, surface a one-line diff summary to the user (e.g. "Source has 6 changes vs audit copy: Slice 05 path corrected, design intents added to slices 03/04/06, dependency table, ..."), and confirm:

  "Use revised source <path>? Audit copy is unchanged at <completed/path>. [y/N]"

This keeps plan-receive-review's audit-trail discipline intact while letting execute run against the actionable post-revision version.

Step 2: Pre-Flight

For the chosen meta-plan, validate:

1. Frontmatter sanity: type: code-review-plan, branch, base_sha, head_sha, slug, slice_count all present.
2. Slice table parseable: matches the meta-plan's declared slice_count.
3. SHAs verify:

   git rev-parse <base_sha>
   git rev-parse <head_sha>
   # for each slice row:
   git rev-parse <slice.base_sha>
   git rev-parse <slice.head_sha>
   

   Any failure = the branch moved destructively (force-push, rebase, etc.); abort with clear message.
4. Branch state: working tree clean, not mid-rebase, not detached. Warn but proceed if working tree has untracked-only changes (uncommitted modifications = abort).
5. Plan docs referenced exist on disk for every slice row.
6. Collision check (per-slice): for each slice number in the meta-plan, scan planning/code-reviews/needs-review/{,in-progress/,reviewed/,completed/} for an existing slice spec. Allowed cases:
   • No file exists: OK, will be seeded.
   • File exists with parent_plan matching this meta-plan: OK, resume mode (skip seeding for this slice; existing status determines what happens next).
   • File exists with parent_plan matching a different meta-plan, or no parent_plan: ABORT — collision is unresolvable without user direction.

Print the pre-flight summary and ask user "Proceed? [y/N]".

Step 3: Seed Slices (skipping resume cases)

Invoke code-review-seed-slices on the meta-plan. The seed skill writes one slice spec per row to planning/code-reviews/needs-review/ with status: queued (skipping any that already exist from resume cases).

Stream chat output:

• "Seeded N slices in needs-review/ (M skipped — already present from prior run)."

Step 4: Review Loop

Read all slice specs across needs-review/, in-progress/, reviewed/, completed/ matching the meta-plan's slug. Process each by status:

For each slice in (numerical order from meta-plan):

  switch status:
    case completed:    skip silently
    case triaging:     skip silently (apply skill owns this)
    case reviewed:     skip silently (already done)
    case failed:       collect for end-of-run summary; do NOT auto-retry
    case reviewing:
      check status_updated age:
        > 30 minutes  → ask user: resume / reset / skip?
                        - resume: assume reviewer is still running elsewhere; skip
                        - reset:  set status: queued, status_note: "reset by execute"; treat as queued below
                        - skip:   leave alone, surface in summary
        ≤ 30 minutes  → assume sibling executor; skip silently
    case queued:
      → process this slice (Step 4a)

Step 4a: Process a Queued Slice

1. Move file to in-progress/:
   mv planning/code-reviews/needs-review/<file> planning/code-reviews/needs-review/in-progress/<file>

2. Update frontmatter:
   status: reviewing
   status_updated: <ISO 8601 now>
   status_note: ""

3. Dispatch the reviewer by invoking code-intake-review's logic for this single
   file (the intake skill handles subagent dispatch + finding append + status
   transition to reviewed | failed).

4. After code-intake-review returns:
   - On success:  file is in reviewed/ with status: reviewed
                  → continue to next slice
   - On failure:  file is in in-progress/ with status: failed
                  → collect for summary, continue to next slice

Stream chat updates per slice:

• Slice <NN>/<total> — <name> — reviewing...
• Slice <NN>/<total> — <name> — reviewed (C/I/M: a/b/c) — <verdict>
• Slice <NN>/<total> — <name> — FAILED: <reason> — continuing

Step 5: Synthesis Checkpoint

After the review loop completes, summarize:

Review loop complete:
- Reviewed:  <N> slice(s)
- Failed:    <M> slice(s) — see in-progress/ with status: failed
- Skipped:   <K> slice(s) — already completed/triaging/reviewed before this run

Findings totals (from reviewed slices):
  Critical:   <c>
  Important:  <i>
  Minor:      <m>

Run synthesis now? [y/N/skip]

• y: invoke code-synthesize-reviews → produces planning/code-reviews/SYNTHESIS.md. Report path + open-finding totals.
• N or skip: stop here, leave a chat note: "Synthesis skipped. Run code-synthesize-reviews later when you're ready."

The checkpoint is mandatory — never auto-synthesize without user confirmation. This is the user's chance to spot a degenerate run (e.g., 8/8 slices failed) before generating a misleading SYNTHESIS.md.

Step 6: Notify

Final chat-only summary:

Code review run complete for <meta-plan slug>.
- Slices reviewed:  <N>
- Slices failed:    <M>
- Open findings:    <C/I/M>
- SYNTHESIS.md:     <path or "skipped">

Next step: run `code-review-apply` to triage findings.

If any slice failed, surface the per-slice reasons in the summary — the user needs to know what to fix before re-running execute.

Idempotency Guarantees

• Re-running on a clean run: all slices in completed/ → no work done, just status report.
• Re-running on a partial run: completed/triaging/reviewed slices skipped; queued slices processed; failed slices left alone (user must reset to retry).
• Re-running after resetting a failed slice: the reset slice is processed exactly once; other completed slices untouched.
• Re-running with a moved branch: SHA pre-flight catches it and aborts before any state changes.

What Execute Does NOT Do

• Apply findings. That's code-review-apply's job.
• Decide whether a finding is valid. That's the developer's call during apply.
• Auto-retry failed slices. Failure indicates a problem the user should look at before re-running.
• Modify the meta-plan. The meta-plan is read-only here.
• Run on its own loop. This is a foreground command; user invokes when they're ready to drive a review pass.

Do Not

• Skip the synthesis checkpoint.
• Auto-retry failed slices without user direction.
• Re-seed a slice that already has parent_plan matching this meta-plan (that's a duplication bug).
• Bail mid-loop on a single slice failure — continue and surface in summary.
• Touch the meta-plan file (read-only).

Red Flags