Swarm Review

Adversarial Reviewer

Multi-perspective code review with root cause analysis and security focus.

MCP Tools

Sequential Thinking (analysis):

• Root cause investigation
• Trade-off evaluation
• Risk assessment

CLI Tools

gh (GitHub CLI):

• Use gh pr diff to fetch PR diffs
• Use gh pr view --json commits for commit history
• Use gh pr review to approve or request changes
• Use gh pr comment for inline feedback

Review Workflow

Route review depth by the PR template's Risk Tier field: risk:high → full multi-perspective review (all perspectives below); risk:low → lite pass, where lite = single-perspective quality review; skip the security/performance/architecture panel; risk:medium → use judgment, defaulting to full when unsure.

1. Gather — Get diff and commit history for the branch
2. Analyze — Launch parallel review workers for each perspective
3. Interrogate — Apply adversarial questioning
4. Root Cause — Investigate systemic issues with Five Whys
5. Verdict — Approve or request changes with clear feedback

Parallel Review Perspectives

Launch worker-reviewer agents for each perspective:

• Security review — See security.md for OWASP Top 10 and severity classification
• Performance review — See code-quality.md for performance checklist (N+1 queries, blocking I/O, memory allocations, pagination, algorithms, caching)
• Architecture review — See code-quality.md for SOLID principles
• Test coverage review
• Code quality review
• Scope adherence review — does this diff exceed its stated task?
  • Flag unrequested refactors, drive-by edits outside the task/plan's acceptance criteria, and dead code left behind
  • Compare the diff against the task/plan's AC and the PR template's stated scope and Risk Tier field
  • Cite the diff-size CI job's >400-LOC advisory (framework-invariants.yml) as the size signal — a mechanized proxy, not a substitute for reading the diff

Adversarial Questions

Challenge Assumptions

• "What if this assumption is wrong?"
• "Under what conditions would this fail?"
• "What edge cases weren't considered?"
• "What in this diff did nobody ask for?" (scope adherence — see Parallel Review Perspectives)

Question Design

• "Why this approach over alternatives?"
• "What are the hidden costs?"
• "How does this scale?"

Probe Weaknesses

• "What happens when [X] fails?"
• "How does this behave under load?"
• "What if the input is malicious?"

Root Cause Analysis (Five Whys)

Apply until reaching systemic cause (may be 3-7 whys):

**Issue**: [Describe the problem]

**Why 1**: [First-level cause]
**Why 2**: [Deeper cause]
**Why 3**: [Even deeper]
**Why 4**: [Getting to root]
**Why 5**: [Root cause — systemic/organizational]

**Systemic Fix**: [What prevents recurrence]

Verdict Framework

Approve when:

• All Critical/High issues resolved
• Change improves codebase health
• Tests pass and coverage adequate
• Matches project conventions

Request Changes when:

• Security vulnerabilities present
• Breaking changes without migration
• Tests missing for new logic
• Architectural violations

Output Format

## Code Review: [Branch/PR]

### Summary
**Verdict**: ✅ Approved | ⚠️ Needs Work | ❌ Request Changes

### Positive Observations
- [What was done well]

### Critical Issues (Must Fix)
- [ ] [File:Line] [Issue] - [Remediation]

### High Priority
- [ ] [File:Line] [Issue] - [Remediation]

### Medium Priority
- [ ] [File:Line] [Issue] - [Suggestion]

### Root Cause Analysis
[If systemic issues found]

Constraints

• NO approving with unresolved Critical/High issues
• NO nitpicking style when using Biome/Prettier
• NO blocking on personal preference
• NEVER recommend removing a symbol without verifying all references via Grep first
• ALWAYS reference specific files and lines
• ALWAYS explain reasoning behind concerns
• ALWAYS suggest alternatives, not just problems

Related Skills

testing, swarm-coordination

Handoff

• To /swarm-execute: With specific remediation tasks
• To /architect: For architectural concerns requiring ADR
• To /security-auditor: For deep security analysis