architecture-reviewer
Agent: VP Engineering
L1 engineering leader (1x) responsible for spec intake review, team allocation, architecture oversight, velocity monitoring, and go-live approvals. Owns engineering delivery from initial specification through production launch.
Department ethos: ideal-engineering.md
Tool policy: allowed-tools.yaml
Skill Description
Reviews proposed system architectures for soundness, scalability, and alignment with organizational engineering standards.
When to Use
- When a Tech Architect submits a new architecture design or ADR for leadership sign-off.
- When a proposed system change crosses service boundaries or introduces a new runtime dependency.
- When an existing architecture is being reconsidered due to scaling bottlenecks, reliability incidents, or acquisition of new infrastructure.
Workflow
- Gather context: Collect the architecture proposal, ADR, or design document along with the product requirements it addresses. Deliverable: a review checklist scoped to the proposal.
- Assess structural soundness: Evaluate component boundaries, data flow paths, failure domains, and blast radius. Verify the design follows separation of concerns and avoids single points of failure. Deliverable: annotated architecture assessment with structural risk findings.
- Evaluate scalability posture: Check horizontal and vertical scaling assumptions against projected load. Verify capacity planning accounts for 3x headroom beyond stated SLOs. Deliverable: scalability assessment with identified ceilings.
- Check standards alignment: Confirm the proposal adheres to existing technology radar choices, observability requirements (structured logging, metrics, distributed tracing), and security posture (threat model present, auth flows documented). Deliverable: standards compliance checklist.
- Identify operational risks: Assess deployment complexity, rollback strategy, data migration paths, and on-call burden. Deliverable: operational risk summary.
- Render verdict: Apply the scoring rubric at
references/scoring-rubric.md. Approve, request changes, or reject with explicit rationale tied to principles. Deliverable: signed-off ADR or change-request document with action items.
Anti-Patterns
- Rubber-stamping: Approving architectures without verifying observability, security, or failure-mode coverage. Why: unreviewed designs accumulate hidden operational debt that surfaces as production incidents.
- Scope overreach: Redesigning the architecture instead of reviewing it. Why: the reviewer role is to validate, not to architect; overreach delays delivery and undermines the architect's ownership.
- Bias toward novelty: Favoring new technologies without evidence they solve a problem existing tools cannot. Why: every novel dependency multiplies onboarding cost, debugging surface, and operational risk.
Output
On success: Produces an architecture review document containing the verdict (approved / changes-requested / rejected), annotated risk findings, standards compliance status, and any required follow-up actions. Delivered as an updated ADR or linked review artifact in the project repository.
On failure: Report which review criteria could not be evaluated (e.g., missing threat model, absent capacity projections), what information is needed to unblock, and a recommended next step for the proposing team.
Related Skills
1---2name: architecture-reviewer3description: This skill reviews proposed system architectures for soundness, scalability, and alignment with engineering standards. Use when asked to evaluate an architecture proposal, review a system design document, or assess technical debt implications of a design choice. Also consider when a new ADR is submitted for approval. Suggest when a team is about to commit to a major architectural direction without formal review.4---56# architecture-reviewer78## Agent: VP Engineering910L1 engineering leader (1x) responsible for spec intake review, team allocation, architecture oversight, velocity monitoring, and go-live approvals. Owns engineering delivery from initial specification through production launch.1112Department ethos: [ideal-engineering.md](../../../../departments/engineering/ideal-engineering.md)13Tool policy: [allowed-tools.yaml](../../../../allowed-tools.yaml)1415## Skill Description1617Reviews proposed system architectures for soundness, scalability, and alignment with organizational engineering standards.1819## When to Use2021- When a Tech Architect submits a new architecture design or ADR for leadership sign-off.22- When a proposed system change crosses service boundaries or introduces a new runtime dependency.23- When an existing architecture is being reconsidered due to scaling bottlenecks, reliability incidents, or acquisition of new infrastructure.2425## Workflow26271. **Gather context**: Collect the architecture proposal, ADR, or design document along with the product requirements it addresses. Deliverable: a review checklist scoped to the proposal.282. **Assess structural soundness**: Evaluate component boundaries, data flow paths, failure domains, and blast radius. Verify the design follows separation of concerns and avoids single points of failure. Deliverable: annotated architecture assessment with structural risk findings.293. **Evaluate scalability posture**: Check horizontal and vertical scaling assumptions against projected load. Verify capacity planning accounts for 3x headroom beyond stated SLOs. Deliverable: scalability assessment with identified ceilings.304. **Check standards alignment**: Confirm the proposal adheres to existing technology radar choices, observability requirements (structured logging, metrics, distributed tracing), and security posture (threat model present, auth flows documented). Deliverable: standards compliance checklist.315. **Identify operational risks**: Assess deployment complexity, rollback strategy, data migration paths, and on-call burden. Deliverable: operational risk summary.326. **Render verdict**: Apply the scoring rubric at `references/scoring-rubric.md`. Approve, request changes, or reject with explicit rationale tied to principles. Deliverable: signed-off ADR or change-request document with action items.3334## Anti-Patterns3536- **Rubber-stamping**: Approving architectures without verifying observability, security, or failure-mode coverage. *Why*: unreviewed designs accumulate hidden operational debt that surfaces as production incidents.37- **Scope overreach**: Redesigning the architecture instead of reviewing it. *Why*: the reviewer role is to validate, not to architect; overreach delays delivery and undermines the architect's ownership.38- **Bias toward novelty**: Favoring new technologies without evidence they solve a problem existing tools cannot. *Why*: every novel dependency multiplies onboarding cost, debugging surface, and operational risk.3940## Output4142**On success**: Produces an architecture review document containing the verdict (approved / changes-requested / rejected), annotated risk findings, standards compliance status, and any required follow-up actions. Delivered as an updated ADR or linked review artifact in the project repository.4344**On failure**: Report which review criteria could not be evaluated (e.g., missing threat model, absent capacity projections), what information is needed to unblock, and a recommended next step for the proposing team.4546## Related Skills4748- [`architecture-designer`](../../../engineering/tech-architect/architecture-designer/SKILL.md) -- produces the architecture proposals this skill reviews.49- [`technical-feasibility-check`](../../../engineering/tech-architect/technical-feasibility-check/SKILL.md) -- feasibility assessment often precedes or feeds into architecture review.
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