Code Review Excellence

Code Review Excellence

Use this skill to make reviews sharper, clearer, and more useful.

Execution

• Operate locally.
• Use the available workspace tools directly.
• Keep the review focused and self-contained.

Use It For

• Reviewing pull requests
• Defining review standards
• Mentoring through review feedback
• Creating review checklists

Principles

• Prioritize correctness, security, contracts, performance risks, and tests.
• Skip formatting and lint noise that tools should catch.
• Comment on the code, not the person.
• Be specific, actionable, and evidence-based.
• Separate blocking issues from suggestions.

Review Flow

1. Get context: goal, scope, PR size, CI status.
2. Do a high-level pass for design, scope fit, and test strategy.
3. Do a file pass for logic, edge cases, security, performance, and maintainability.
4. Return a clear decision and short summary.

Severity Labels

• blocking - must fix before merge
• important - should fix or discuss
• nit - small non-blocking improvement
• suggestion - alternative worth considering
• learning - explanation only

Quick Checklists

Security:

• Input validation
• Auth and authorization
• Secret handling
• Injection or XSS risk

Performance:

• N+1 queries
• Unnecessary loops or repeated work
• Blocking work in hot paths
• Missing pagination or caching where expected

Testing:

• Happy path
• Edge cases
• Error cases
• Deterministic assertions

Feedback Style

• Prefer questions or suggestions over commands when the issue is non-blocking.
• Make blocking feedback direct and specific.
• Avoid vague comments such as "this is wrong".

Output

Return only the artifact that matches the request:

• Review feedback: findings ordered by severity, each with problem, risk, and requested change
• Review standard: short checklist, severity labels, and team rules
• Mentoring aid: before/after comment examples plus key advice