Ops Review

Ops Review → silent-failure findings

Functional tests and code review verify that the code does what was intended. This skill hunts the opposite class: properties whose absence produces incidents with no errors in the logs — the server just stops responding. It reviews what the change lacks, not what it does.

This is not a replacement for load testing. It catches the statically visible precursors of what load would expose: the missing timeout=, the connection that is never returned to the pool, the query without a limit.

Hard boundaries

Forbidden:

• modifying code, tests, configs, schemas, dependencies;
• applying fixes — output is findings only;
• creating artifact files — the report goes to the chat;
• expanding into a full-repository audit: the scope is the change and its blast radius;
• demanding infrastructure (metrics platforms, load-test suites) as findings — missing observability may be noted once as INFO, never as BLOCKING;
• declaring a check passed without file:line evidence.

Launch contract

1. Determine the review scope:
   • an explicit git ref/range or path from the arguments;
   • otherwise the working tree + branch diff against the merge-base with the integration branch;
   • if the scope is empty or ambiguous — ask, status OPS_REVIEW_BLOCKED.
2. Read the diff, then the surroundings. The defect is usually the absent line, and the diff alone cannot show it. Mandatory surroundings: call sites of every touched function; the construction/config of every client, pool, or session the change uses; resource acquisition and release paths.
3. Build the I/O inventory: every network, database, file, subprocess, queue, cache, or lock interaction that the change adds or modifies.

Core mechanic: trace, don't glance

For each I/O inventory row, trace to evidence in code or config:

• Time: which setting bounds how long this call can wait? Name the file:line or record UNKNOWN. "The library probably has a default" is UNKNOWN, not a pass.
• Resources: where the connection/session/handle is created; where it is released on the success path, the error path, and the cancellation path; pool size versus expected concurrency.
• Boundedness: what limits the result-set size, queue length, cache growth, accepted body size.
• Repeat: retry policy and backoff; whether the operation is idempotent under retry.
• Degradation: the behavior when a dependency is slow-but-alive — the worst incident class, because nothing errors while every worker blocks.

Full checklists per category: silent-failure-taxonomy.md.

Assumption ledger check

If the conversation or task artifacts contain a scope contract with an assumption ledger ("Допущения"): verify each entry — CONFIRMED with evidence, or UNVERIFIED with the concrete check that would confirm it. An assumption discovered during review but absent from the ledger is itself a finding.

Output format

Two blocks in the chat, no files:

1. Block 1. For the human — 3–6 sentences: the worst finding, the overall verdict, what to do first.
2. Block 2. Findings:

• Severity: BLOCKING (can produce the silent-outage class), WARN, INFO.
• Kind: FACT, INFERENCE, UNKNOWN.
• Then the assumption ledger statuses, if a ledger exists.
• Then the I/O inventory rows that traced clean (one line each) — so "clean" is visibly earned, not assumed.

Language

Write the report in the user's language — the language of the user's request and conversation, not the language of these instructions. Do not translate file names, symbols, commands, statuses, or APIs.

Completion criteria

The review is done only if:

• the I/O inventory is built and every row is traced or explicitly UNKNOWN;
• every finding carries file:line evidence or the UNKNOWN kind;
• the assumption ledger was checked when one exists;
• no code, config, or test was modified;
• the final status is exactly one of: OPS_REVIEW_CLEAN, OPS_REVIEW_FINDINGS, OPS_REVIEW_BLOCKED.