Code Review Standards

Code Review Standards

Teaches the agent to discover and apply organization-specific coding standards stored in a .forge-review/ directory in the target repository. This skill provides configuration templates and standard rule files that teams can customize.

Overview

The .forge-review/ directory is a convention for storing code review configuration alongside the codebase. When present, the code-review skill automatically loads these standards and applies them during reviews.

This skill:

• Documents the .forge-review/ directory structure and file formats
• Provides templates for bootstrapping review standards in new repositories
• Teaches the agent how to discover and interpret standards files

Directory Structure

.forge-review/
├── config.yaml                  # Review configuration
├── .forge-review-ignore         # Files/patterns to skip during review
└── standards/                   # Coding standards (one file per topic)
    ├── general.md               # General coding rules
    ├── security.md              # Security rules
    ├── go.md                    # Go-specific rules
    ├── python.md                # Python-specific rules
    ├── typescript.md            # TypeScript rules
    └── testing.md               # Testing rules

Tool: review_standards_init

Initialize a .forge-review/ directory in the current repository with default templates.

This is a binary-backed tool that uses filesystem operations (mkdir, write) to scaffold the standards directory. The agent reads templates bundled with this skill and writes them to the target repository.

Input:

Output: List of created files and a summary of the initialized configuration.

Detection Heuristics

The agent selects this tool when it detects:

• Requests to "set up code review", "initialize review standards", "configure review"
• Questions about .forge-review/ directory structure
• Requests to create or customize coding standards

Tool: review_standards_check

Check whether the current repository has a .forge-review/ configuration and report its status.

Input:

Output: JSON object with configuration status, found files, and any validation issues.

Detection Heuristics

The agent selects this tool when it detects:

• Questions about whether review standards are configured
• Requests to validate review configuration
• Troubleshooting review behavior

Configuration Reference

config.yaml

# .forge-review/config.yaml
version: "1"

# Default review settings
review:
  # Focus areas to always include (bugs, security, style, performance, maintainability)
  default_focus:
    - bugs
    - security

  # Severity threshold: only report findings at or above this level
  # Options: nitpick, info, warning, error
  min_severity: info

  # Maximum findings to report per review
  max_findings: 50

# Language-specific settings
languages:
  go:
    standards_file: standards/go.md
    enabled: true
  python:
    standards_file: standards/python.md
    enabled: true
  typescript:
    standards_file: standards/typescript.md
    enabled: true

# File patterns to always skip (supplements .forge-review-ignore)
skip_patterns:
  - "vendor/**"
  - "node_modules/**"
  - "*.generated.go"
  - "*.min.js"
  - "**/*.pb.go"

.forge-review-ignore

Gitignore-style patterns for files that should be skipped during review:

# Dependencies
vendor/
node_modules/

# Generated code
*.generated.go
*.pb.go
*_gen.go

# Build artifacts
dist/
build/
*.min.js
*.min.css

# Test fixtures
testdata/
**/fixtures/**

# Documentation
*.md
LICENSE

Standards Files

Standards files are markdown documents with rules organized by category. Each rule should be clear and actionable. The code-review skill injects these into the LLM prompt during review.

Format:

# Category Name

## Rule Title

Description of the rule and why it matters.

**Good:**
\`\`\`go
// example of correct code
\`\`\`

**Bad:**
\`\`\`go
// example of incorrect code
\`\`\`

Templates

This skill bundles template files in the templates/ directory. Use review_standards_init to copy them into a target repository, or browse them directly for reference.

Available templates:

• templates/.forge-review/config.yaml — Default configuration
• templates/.forge-review/.forge-review-ignore — Default ignore patterns
• templates/.forge-review/standards/general.md — General coding standards
• templates/.forge-review/standards/security.md — Security review rules
• templates/.forge-review/standards/go.md — Go-specific standards
• templates/.forge-review/standards/python.md — Python-specific standards
• templates/.forge-review/standards/typescript.md — TypeScript standards
• templates/.forge-review/standards/testing.md — Testing standards

Safety Constraints

• This skill only reads and writes configuration files in .forge-review/
• It never modifies source code
• Standards files are only used as additional context for LLM-based review; they do not block merges or fail CI on their own
• Overwrite protection is on by default (overwrite: false)