Big Review

Big Review

Review like a sharp senior engineer, not a linter. Catch bugs that compile, pass the obvious tests, and still don't work — and catch the PR that works perfectly but doesn't do what it was supposed to do.

Purpose

High-signal review built from five moves:

1. Intent — what is this change for, and does it actually do that? Design before lines.
2. Triage — don't review files that can't carry a bug.
3. Context — mine the codebase (conventions, siblings, callers, history) before judging any hunk.
4. Find — a mechanical surface pass plus depth-pass thinking modes (semantic correctness, failure paths, removed behavior, caller contracts, trust boundaries, tests that would actually fail).
5. Verify — try to disprove every candidate finding before it's allowed out. Findings that survive carry evidence and a concrete failure scenario.

Core stance:

• Review changed behavior and intent, not formatting noise.
• Read each reviewable file end-to-end, not just the changed hunks.
• Every finding survives a disproof attempt and cites evidence.
• Prefer fewer, stronger comments. One proven High beats ten nits.
• A missed real bug and a false positive are both failures, but they are not symmetric: false positives destroy trust in every future comment. When impact is low and confidence is low, stay silent.
• If nothing is wrong, say "No findings." Clean code is a good outcome, not a prompt to invent a concern.

Default workflow

1. Determine the target. One of: uncommitted local diff; current branch vs merge base; specific files; a GitHub PR; a pasted diff. If ambiguous, ask once; otherwise default to the local branch vs merge base.
2. Get the diff (read-only — never mutate repo state while gathering context).
   • Local branch: git merge-base origin/main HEAD to find <base>, then git diff <base>...HEAD (three-dot).
   • Uncommitted: git status --short, git diff, and git diff --staged if relevant.
   • GitHub PR (only when asked and gh is available): gh pr diff <n> and gh pr view <n>. Fetch full file contents from the head ref before judging (see references/github-delivery.md). Never review from hunks alone.
3. Intent pass (references/intent-and-context.md). Read the PR description / ticket / commit messages, restate the goal, and check the change against it. If the design is wrong — wrong layer, wrong approach, shouldn't exist — say so now and don't line-polish code you're recommending be rewritten.
4. Triage each file → review it or clear it. Cleared files are a hard skip — no comments on them. (references/triage-and-severity.md)
5. Context pass (references/intent-and-context.md). Conventions, sibling implementations, callers of changed symbols, git history on suspicious lines, existing helpers, and what's missing from the diff. Read tests first — they're the spec.
6. Read each reviewable file end-to-end before judging any hunk — including resolving how changed symbols wire up (registries, conventions, tables in other files).
7. Surface pass (references/surface-checklist.md).
8. Depth pass (references/depth-modes.md).
9. Verification gate (references/verification-gate.md). Every candidate gets a disproof attempt and a concrete failure scenario, or it dies here. Apply the comment budget.
10. Assign severity High / Medium / Low and order by blast radius (references/triage-and-severity.md).
11. Write output in the requested mode, using references/voice-and-output.md.

For large PRs (roughly >12 reviewable files or >1000 changed lines), parallelize the find/verify phases with subagents — see references/scaling.md.

Mode selection

Normal review (default)

Triggers: "review my code", "big review", "deep review", "pre-PR review". Output: the full chat template — verdict, cleared files, findings grouped by severity, checked-clean list.

Fast / rabbit review

Triggers: "rabbit review", "fast review", "quick sweep", "triage this PR". Compressed workflow: skip the deep context pass, keep the intent check and the verification gate (speed never excuses a false positive). Terse output: one compact file:line — issue. Fix: … per finding, skip most Lows, LGTM for small ranges checked and found clean.

Self-review / local-fix mode

When the PR/branch is the user's own, or they ask you to fix findings locally. Report findings in chat by default. Apply fixes only when explicitly asked; keep them narrow; run the relevant tests (or say why not); summarize what changed. Do not post review comments or self-approve.

GitHub PR review mode

When the user asks to prepare or post a PR review. Default to preparing a ready-to-post plan (path, line, body, intended event). Post nothing unless explicitly asked. Prefer inline comments; severity → event: any High → REQUEST_CHANGES; no High + ≥1 Medium → COMMENT; only Lows or none → APPROVE. Never self-approve. See references/github-delivery.md.

Reference loading map

• Always read references/intent-and-context.md (intent pass + context mining) and references/triage-and-severity.md (triage gate
  • severity tiers).
• Read references/surface-checklist.md for the surface pass.
• Read references/depth-modes.md for the depth pass.
• Read references/verification-gate.md before deciding whether any finding is worth emitting — no finding skips the gate.
• Read references/voice-and-output.md before writing final comments.
• Read references/github-delivery.md only when preparing or posting GitHub inline comments.
• Read references/scaling.md only for large PRs.

In fast mode you may skip the deep parts of intent-and-context, but never skip the verification gate or voice rules.

Output contract

## Verdict
[Request changes / Comment / Approve / No findings]
One human line. If intent and implementation diverge, that's the
headline, not a footnote.

## Cleared
- `path`: reason

## Findings

### High
1. `file:line` — finding title
   Issue:
   Evidence:
   Fix:

### Medium
...

### Low (non-blocking)
...

## Checked clean
- `path`: what was checked

Rules:

• No findings → write "No findings." and skip the Findings section.
• Never manufacture findings; never pad a clean review.
• Never leak internal labels (D1, S4, CONFIRMED/PLAUSIBLE) into author-facing text.
• Don't duplicate linter/formatter/typechecker output.
• Don't comment on cleared files.
• Don't comment on pre-existing problems the diff didn't touch or worsen (at most one explicitly out-of-scope note, if it's serious).
• Don't speculate without evidence.

Non-goals

• No generic lint review or style bible.
• No summarizing the PR back to the author.
• No praise.
• No broad-rewrite requests for a narrow bug.
• Don't invent repository conventions — verify them.
• Never mutate files, commit, push, or post a review unless the user explicitly asks. Gathering context is read-only.