why-review Skill | Agent Skills

Codex compatibility note:

Invoke repository skills with $skill-name in Codex; this mirrored copy rewrites legacy Claude /skill-name references.

Task tracker mandate: BEFORE executing any workflow or skill step, create/update task tracking for all steps and keep it synchronized as progress changes.

User-question prompts mean to ask the user directly in Codex.

Ignore Claude-specific mode-switch instructions when they appear.

Strict execution contract: when a user explicitly invokes a skill, execute that skill protocol as written.

Subagent authorization: when a skill is user-invoked or AI-detected and its protocol requires subagents, that skill activation authorizes use of the required spawn_agent subagent(s) for that task.

Do not skip, reorder, or merge protocol steps unless the user explicitly approves the deviation first.

For workflow skills, execute each listed child-skill step explicitly and report step-by-step evidence.

If a required step/tool cannot run in this environment, stop and ask the user before adapting.

Codex Project-Reference Loading (No Hooks)

Codex uses static project-reference loading instead of runtime-injected project docs. When coding, planning, debugging, testing, or reviewing, open project docs explicitly using this routing.

Always read:

docs/project-config.json (project-specific paths, commands, modules, and workflow/test settings)
docs/project-reference/docs-index-reference.md (routes to the full docs/project-reference/* catalog)
docs/project-reference/lessons.md (always-on guardrails and anti-patterns)

Missing/stale context route: If docs/project-config.json, the docs index, lessons.md, CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, or any task-required reference doc is missing or stale, auto-run $project-init or the narrow setup route ($project-config, $docs-init, $scan-all, $scan --target=<key>, $claude-md-init) before ordinary project-specific work. If Codex mirrors or AGENTS.md are missing/stale, ask the user to run $sync-codex; do not auto-run it.

Situation-based docs:

Project structure/architecture/tech-stack/deployment/setup (any layer — backend, frontend, or infra): project-structure-reference.md
Backend/CQRS/API/domain/entity changes: backend-patterns-reference.md, domain-entities-reference.md
Frontend/UI/styling/design-system: frontend-patterns-reference.md, scss-styling-guide.md, design-system/README.md
Spec authoring, docs/specs/ pathing, or TC format: feature-spec-reference.md, spec-system-reference.md, spec-principles.md
Behavior/public-contract changes or spec-test-code sync: workflow-spec-test-code-cycle-reference.md plus the spec docs above
Derived spec indexes/ERDs/reimplementation guides: spec-system-reference.md and source Feature Specs under docs/specs/
Integration test implementation/review: integration-test-reference.md
E2E test implementation/review: e2e-test-reference.md
Code review/audit work: code-review-rules.md plus domain docs above based on changed files

Do not read all docs blindly. Start from docs-index-reference.md, then open only relevant files for the task.

[GOAL REMINDER — MUST ATTENTION CRITICAL]

Ensure every review target is reasonable, correct, proof-backed, and best-practice aligned. ALWAYS ASK THE 3 TRADE-OFF QUESTIONS (every decision AND every recommendation you make): (1) is there any trade-off? — name what it sacrifices; "none" is an unfinished analysis, not an answer; (2) is it worth it? — gain vs cost, who pays, when → WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR; (3) is the trade-off material enough to confirm with the user? — irreversible, cost shifted to someone else, one quality attribute traded for another, boundary crossed, high-consequence path, or UNCLEAR → STOP and confirm by asking the user directly BEFORE the verdict. NEVER resolve a material trade-off silently. — why: naming a benefit without its price is an endorsement, not a review, and a one-way door is the user's call to walk through, never yours. MANDATORY SECOND PASS (full mode): whenever Round 1 produces ANY finding, you MUST call $why-review --validate-findings a SECOND time on those findings to confirm each is correct and reasonable BEFORE handoff. NEVER skip it; NEVER suppress, demote, or under-report findings to dodge it. The self-recursive review loop bound as the first full-mode action — the protocol loop primarily (host-independent), plus a /goal Stop-hook gate WHEN available — BLOCKS stopping until findings are validated. — why: an unvalidated finding is an unproven claim, and a second self-review catches the misreads and inflation Round 1 rationalized.

[BLOCKING] Execute skill steps in declared order. NEVER skip, reorder, or merge steps without explicit user approval. [BLOCKING] Before each step or sub-skill call, update task tracking: set in_progress when step starts, set completed when step ends. [BLOCKING] Every completed/skipped step MUST include brief evidence or explicit skip reason. [BLOCKING] If Task tools are unavailable, create and maintain an equivalent step-by-step plan tracker with the same status transitions.

Quick Summary

Goal: Resolve the requested review target and apply the matching adversarial review path (plan/PBI rationale, code changes, docs/spec/report, findings, or explicit artifact) so decisions, findings, and plans survive adversarial rationale review before downstream work proceeds.

Summary: (read-this-if-nothing-else digest — the skill's purpose + ALL main steps)

PURPOSE — be the adversarial rationale reviewer: every plan/PBI/diff/doc/spec/report/finding survives a SKEPTIC pass before downstream work proceeds; success metric is Easy-to-Change (lower future change cost or reject). Gate EVERY finding on file:line + severity + confidence.
STEP 1 — DETECT MODE FIRST (recursion control): --validate-findings is TERMINAL — NEVER re-invokes $why-review, NEVER runs the gate, NEVER spawns a sub-agent; full mode may call itself ONCE in validate-findings mode. Non-negotiable guard. — why: any of these from terminal mode loops infinitely.
STEP 2 — FULL-MODE FIRST ACTION → bind the self-recursive review loop: the protocol loop is the primary, host-independent binding (you self-drive review → validate → reconcile → full re-review until CLEAN with no new findings; max 2 re-dos, then escalate), and a /goal gate is an optional accelerator invoked WHEN available (its absence never weakens the loop) — NEVER bind it in terminal mode; "self-fix" = reconcile this review's OWN findings set, not code. THEN Task Bootstrap: create phase tasks + the MANDATORY Findings Validation Gate closing task.
STEP 3 — RESOLVE TARGET TYPE before any review (commit/PR/diff → code-change; PBI/spec/doc → artifact; "no active plan" ONLY for an unresolved plan-rationale request — NEVER silently convert), read the active Goal Contract, then route by concern (code-reviewer / security-auditor / performance-optimizer / general-purpose). Integration tests in the target → apply the Integration-Test-Review Linkage (read $integration-test-review's 8 gates, or delegate in standalone full mode) — SKIPPED under its 4-row recursion guard.
STEP 4 — REVIEW as SKEPTIC → complete ALL 7 Anti-Bias Gate boxes (steel-man rejected alt · unseen alternative · args against · stressed assumptions · pre-mortem · pros/cons symmetry · Trade-Off Interrogation Gate) + Validation Checklist (presence AND quality depth) + Round 2 re-review; triangulate spec↔tests↔code — any disagreeing face is a finding, presence is NEVER a pass.
TRADE-OFF GATE — ALWAYS ASK, on every decision AND every recommendation YOU make: (1) is there any trade-off? name the sacrifice — "none" is an unfinished analysis, so state the dimensions checked; (2) is it worth it? gain vs cost, who pays, when → WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR; (3) is it material enough to confirm with the user? irreversible · cost shifted elsewhere · quality attribute traded · boundary crossed · high-consequence path · UNCLEAR → STOP and confirm by asking the user directly BEFORE the verdict. Emit the Trade-Off Assessment table; a material trade-off unconfirmed = NEVER PASS.
STEP 5 — FINDINGS VALIDATION GATE on your OWN findings (any severity): re-invoke terminal --validate-findings, reconcile, RE-DO the full review until CLEAN with no new findings (max 2), then ask next step by asking the user directly (+ conditional $llm-council). Dual-feedback: a behavior-changing finding needs BOTH a spec-drift verdict (CODE-WRONG / SPEC-STALE / AMBIGUOUS / SPEC-SILENT / in-sync) AND a test-feedback action; SPEC-SILENT also REQUIRES §4 BR/§3 AC + §8 TC enrichment — a missing axis is HAS-ISSUES, never clean.

Workflow: Detect mode/target → (full mode only) bind the self-recursive review loop (protocol-primary; optional /goal accelerator when available) → route path/docs/graph/sub-agent focus → review dimensions/adversarial gates/Easy-to-Change → validate findings via terminal --validate-findings → reconcile + holistic full re-review until CLEAN with no new findings (max 2 re-dos) → ask next step in full mode.

Key Rules: MUST ATTENTION resolve target type BEFORE review. MUST ATTENTION every finding needs file:line, severity, confidence, best-practice rationale. MUST ATTENTION ask the 3 trade-off questions on every decision AND every recommendation (trade-off? worth it? material → confirm with user); NEVER accept "no trade-off" unexamined, NEVER decide a material trade-off silently. NEVER say "No active plan" except unresolved plan-rationale request. NEVER call $why-review from validate-findings. MUST ATTENTION judge by Easy-to-Change: lower future change cost or reject.

Your Mission

<task> $ARGUMENTS </task>

Review Mode (DETECT FIRST — recursion control)

Detect mode from $ARGUMENTS BEFORE any review work:

| Mode | Trigger in $ARGUMENTS | What it runs | Recursion | | --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | full (default) | no validate-findings token | Full design-rationale review (Validation Checklist + Adversarial Rounds below), THEN the Findings Validation Gate closing task — which re-invokes THIS skill in validate-findings mode on its own findings. | May call itself ONCE in validate-findings mode (same session). | | validate-findings | $ARGUMENTS contains --validate-findings / mode=validate-findings / validate findings in | ONLY the Findings Validation Routine against the supplied findings/report — verify each finding is correct, proof-backed, reasonable, best-practice; surface missed enhancements; emit a CLEAN / HAS-ISSUES verdict. | TERMINAL — NEVER calls $why-review, NEVER runs the gate, NEVER spawns a sub-agent. Stops recursion. |

Recursion guard (NON-NEGOTIABLE): validate-findings terminates. MUST NOT invoke $why-review or validation gate — prevents infinite recursion. Re-do loop lives in CALLER, max 2 re-dos, SAME main-agent session, NEVER spawned sub-agent.

In validate-findings mode: skip full Validation Checklist, Adversarial Rounds, Task Bootstrap, Next-Steps council gate. Jump straight to Findings Validation Routine, emit verdict, return to caller.

Bind the Self-Recursive Review Loop (full mode — FIRST ACTION, after mode detection; protocol-first, `/goal` optional)

MUST ATTENTION: In full mode only, the FIRST action after mode detection — before Task Bootstrap, before any review work — binds this skill's self-recursive review loop so you cannot stop until this review's own findings are all validated and a holistic re-review surfaces nothing new (or a bounded escalation fires). The loop is bound by TWO layers: the protocol loop (primary, host-independent) and an optional /goal accelerator. Correctness rides on the protocol loop — the project rule is that hooks/commands are accelerators only, so /goal's absence NEVER weakens the loop.

Entry gate:

Run in full mode (no validate-findings token).
SKIP in validate-findings terminal mode — that mode only returns a verdict to its caller and MUST NOT bind a loop, install a goal, create a closing task, or loop (recursion guard). Record nothing.

1. Protocol loop — ALWAYS binding (hook/command-independent). You, the running agent, are personally responsible for not stopping until the loop converges or bounded-escalates. This binds Claude, Codex, and Copilot equally, whether or not /goal exists:

Run the full adversarial review (Validation Checklist + both Adversarial Rounds) over the whole target → run $why-review --validate-findings on the findings → reconcile (drop unproven/inflated findings, fix proof gaps, ADD surfaced findings/enhancements) → re-run the FULL review over the WHOLE target combined with the reconciled findings (not just re-checking the changed findings) → loop until a complete pass yields zero new findings and validation returns CLEAN, or a bounded blocker escalates. Max 2 re-do rounds, then escalate by asking the user directly. Do not stop while a finding is unvalidated or a re-review would surface new findings.

Treat this as a standing obligation you re-read at the Findings Validation Gate — NOT a one-time note you can rationalize away after the first pass.

2. /goal command — invoke as an accelerator WHEN AVAILABLE. If a /goal command exists and you are permitted to run it in this environment, ALSO invoke it (a real command call, NOT a paraphrase, NOT a Goal Contract file substituted for it) with a condition encoding THIS skill's self-recursive loop, so a session Stop hook mechanically enforces it:

/goal why-review self-recursive loop: run the full adversarial review (Validation Checklist + both Adversarial Rounds) over the whole target → run $why-review --validate-findings on the findings → reconcile (drop unproven/inflated findings, fix proof gaps, ADD surfaced findings/enhancements) → re-run the FULL review over the WHOLE target combined with the reconciled findings (not just re-checking the changed findings) → loop until a complete pass yields zero new findings and validation returns CLEAN, or a bounded blocker escalates. Max 2 re-do rounds, then escalate by asking the user directly. Do not stop while a finding is unvalidated or a re-review would surface new findings.

The /goal Stop hook blocks stopping until the condition holds and auto-clears when met — do not tell the user to clear it.

If /goal is unavailable, unregistered, or not permitted (e.g. Codex/Copilot, or a Claude run without the command): DO NOT error, DO NOT block, and DO NOT invent a stand-in gate. Record ONE line where you track the review (the closing Findings Validation Gate task, or the active Goal Contract if one exists) — /goal accelerator unavailable — review loop bound by protocol (above) — and proceed. The protocol loop IS the gate, enforced by discipline instead of a hook.

why-review fixes its OWN findings set, not code. "Self-fix" here = reconcile the findings report so every surviving finding is correct, proof-backed, reasonable, best-practice, and nothing is missed — the same loop the Findings Validation Gate runs, now made unabandonable by the goal gate. Code/spec/test fixes remain the caller's job; this skill is review-only.

Task Bootstrap (full mode — do at skill START)

Before review work, task tracking phase tasks AND required closing task:

[ ] [Why-Review] Bind self-recursive review loop — protocol-primary; optional /goal accelerator when available (full mode only) — in_progress (MANDATORY FIRST TASK — skip in validate-findings mode)
[ ] [Why-Review] Findings Validation Gate — if ANY findings exist, run $why-review --validate-findings on them; re-do until CLEAN (max 2) — pending (MANDATORY CLOSING TASK)

Create at START. Keep the closing task pending until findings exist; then execute before skill completes. In validate-findings mode, do NOT create either task.

First Principle — Easy to Change

Success metric: future change cost. DRY, SRP, abstraction, design patterns, naming, layering, tests exist to make next change cheaper.

When reviewing code/refactor/test/abstraction, ask: does this make next change cheaper or more expensive?

Reject "best practices" raising change cost: premature abstraction, speculative generality, leaky indirection, ceremony without payoff.
Name real enemies in findings: coupling, hidden state, duplicated knowledge, unclear intent, irreversible decisions exposed too early.
Prefer simple design easy to change over sophisticated design hard to change.

Apply before any rule/checklist below; if downstream rule raises change cost, this principle wins.

Adversarial Review Mindset (NON-NEGOTIABLE)

Default stance: SKEPTIC, not validator. Your job is to find what's wrong, not confirm what's right.

Confirmation bias trap: After reading a coherent plan, AI naturally finds reasons to agree. Current context (post-plan, post-fix) amplifies this — you already saw the reasoning and rationalized it. This section breaks that loop. — why: a reviewer who already endorsed the reasoning cannot also be its skeptic without a forced reset.

Adversarial Techniques (apply ALL before concluding)

| Technique | Think | | ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Steel-Man | Argue FOR rejected alternative. Would a 10-year domain senior choose it? If yes, dismissal needs stronger proof. | | Why NOT? | For every "chose X because Y", ask what X sacrifices. | | Assumption Stress Test | List top 3 assumptions; ask impact if wrong. Strong plan survives 2/3 false. | | Pre-Mortem | Assume 3-month production failure; write one plausible scenario. | | Unseen Alternatives | Identify 1-2 approaches not mentioned; absence without exclusion reasoning = weak coverage. | | Pros/Cons Symmetry | Count chosen-approach pros/cons. Pros > cons by 2:1 means likely bias. | | Contrarian Pass | Before finding/verdict, argue opposite conclusion in 2 sentences; choose stronger argument. | | Trade-Off Interrogation | Ask the 3 questions (below): is there a trade-off? · is it worth it? · is it material enough to confirm with the user? |

Forbidden Patterns

| Forbidden pattern | Required correction | | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | "Looks good because..." | Lead with challenges first. | | Presence = quality | Test quality depth; real alternatives, causal rationale. | | Vague rationale | Demand metric + cost: better at what cost? | | Asymmetric trade-offs | Treat 3 pros / 1 con as incomplete analysis. | | "Looks fine" | Provide adversarial challenge evidence. | | "No trade-off" / "pure win" | Name the dimensions checked and why each is unaffected; unexamined ≠ absent. | | Material trade-off decided silently | Escalate to the user by asking the user directly; a one-way door is never yours to walk through. |

Anti-Bias Gate (MANDATORY before finalizing verdict)

Complete ALL 7 checks before writing the final verdict (MUST ATTENTION):

steel-man at least one rejected alternative (argue FOR it)
identify at least 1 alternative NOT in the plan
list 2-3 arguments AGAINST the chosen approach
surface 2-3 hidden assumptions with stress tests
run the pre-mortem (one concrete failure scenario)
check pros/cons symmetry
run the Trade-Off Interrogation Gate below (trade-off named · worth-it verdict · materiality escalation decided)

Any check incomplete → adversarial review NOT complete. Go back.

Trade-Off Interrogation Gate (MANDATORY — no verdict, no finding, no recommendation without it)

[BLOCKING] Ask these THREE questions EVERY time — about the decision under review AND about every recommendation YOU make. — why: a review that names benefits without naming their price is an endorsement, not a review; and the biggest trade-offs are the ones nobody wrote down.

1. Is there any trade-off? Name what this decision/recommendation SACRIFICES. Every choice buys something with something. "None" is NOT an acceptable answer — it is an unfinished analysis. To claim no material trade-off, state which dimensions you checked and why each is unaffected:

future change cost · complexity · performance/latency · memory/cost · coupling · reversibility · migration burden · operational/ops load · blast radius · security posture · testability · team skill/ramp · delivery time · UX.

2. Is it worth it? Weigh gain against sacrifice EXPLICITLY — what is gained · what it costs · who pays · when it comes due — then emit one verdict: WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR. Anchor on Easy-to-Change: a trade-off raising future change cost needs a proportionate, named payoff, not a vague one. "Better" without a metric and a cost FAILS this question.

3. Is the trade-off material enough to CONFIRM WITH THE USER? A material trade-off is the user's call, never yours. MATERIAL when ANY row below holds:

| Material when the trade-off… | Examples | | ------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Is irreversible — a one-way door | data migration, public API/contract shape, storage format, framework/vendor lock-in | | Shifts cost onto someone else | another team, ops/on-call, the future maintainer, the end user | | Trades one quality attribute for another | correctness↔speed, security↔convenience, latency↔cost, simplicity↔flexibility | | Crosses a boundary | client↔server tier seam, service contract, event contract, shared library | | Sits on a high-consequence path | auth, money, data integrity, breaking change, High/Medium residual risk | | Cannot be evidenced (worth-it verdict = UNCLEAR) | gain or cost unquantifiable from available evidence |

MATERIAL → STOP and confirm by asking the user directly BEFORE the verdict stands: state the trade-off, both options, what each sacrifices, your recommendation. NEVER resolve a material trade-off silently on the user's behalf, and NEVER bury it as a Low-severity note.
NOT material → record it inline in the Trade-Off Assessment table with a one-line justification and proceed; no escalation needed.
In validate-findings terminal mode: assess and record, do NOT escalate — that mode asks nothing (see Next Steps exemption); flag the unescalated material trade-off in the verdict so the CALLER escalates it.

Output: every review emits the Trade-Off Assessment table (see Output Format) — one row per reviewed decision and per recommendation you make. An empty table with findings present is an incomplete review.

Target Resolution (DO THIS BEFORE REVIEW)

Analyze user request, not only literal argument shape. Determine target, then choose matching path.

| User request / evidence | Review path | Required target work | | ---------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Explicit plan directory, plan.md, phase files | Plan-rationale review | Read plan.md and all phase-*.md files. | | PBI/story/spec planning artifact, rationale request | PBI/artifact rationale review | Read the named artifact and related acceptance/design/risk sections; if it references plan files, read those too. | | Commit SHA, Commit: ..., PR/merge commit, git diff | Code-change review | Establish the diff range, read changed files, run graph impact when available, and apply code-review/adversarial review protocols. | | Branch comparison or uncommitted changes | Code-change review | Use the requested branch/diff or git diff; read changed files and tests/docs touched by the diff. | | Docs/spec/report/findings path | Artifact review | Read the target artifact and verify claims against source evidence; use rationale checklist only where the artifact is a plan/PBI. | | Ambiguous request | Infer from evidence; ask if unsafe | Prefer a reasonable target from the request and repo evidence. Ask only when two plausible review paths would produce different work. |

Important defaults:

Commit hash / Commit: block => code-change review, not "no active plan."
PBI file => review that PBI/artifact; no plans/**/plan.md wrapper required.
"No active plan found. Run $plan first." valid ONLY for unresolved plan-rationale requests.
MUST ATTENTION record target type, evidence, confidence; NEVER silently convert target types.

Active-goal read (BEFORE judging rationale): Resolve active Goal Contract per goal-contract-satisfaction-loop protocol (active plan goal.md → plans/goals/{YYMMDD-HHmm}-{slug}/goal.md). When one exists, review artifact's rationale AGAINST saved Original Request, Purpose, Success Criteria — flag rationale justifying work the saved goal never asked for, and saved required criteria the artifact's reasoning never addresses. When none exists, record No active goal — rationale reviewed against the current request only. Full mode only; --validate-findings terminal mode skips this read.

Review Focus Routing

| Detected concern | Primary focus / sub-agent route | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Source code / diff | code-reviewer + embedded code-review protocols. | | Integration/E2E tests in the target, OR a behavior change whose code has covering integration tests | Apply the Integration-Test-Review Linkage below — $integration-test-review owns the 8 test-quality gates; this skill reads its protocol (Mode A) or delegates to it (Mode B), never re-derives them. | | Auth, secrets, permissions, data | security-auditor if available; otherwise code-reviewer with explicit security pass. | | Latency, scale, memory, queries | performance-optimizer if available; otherwise code-reviewer with explicit performance pass. | | Plan / PBI / doc / spec | general-purpose with rationale/artifact dimensions. | | Mixed target | Split focused passes by concern; aggregate findings after all passes. |

Code-Change Review Path

When target is code changes:

Resolve the diff source:
- Commit SHA: use git show --name-status and diff against its first parent.
- Merge commit: default to first-parent diff unless the user specifies another parent/range.
- Branch/range: use the user-supplied range.
- Uncommitted changes: use git diff plus staged diff if relevant.
Comprehend change context + trace full pipeline across BOTH boundaries (MANDATORY for code-change targets; N/A for pure plan/PBI/doc targets). Before deep file judging, write a one-line Change Context (what · intent · originating tier · main affected flow), then apply BOTH inlined blocks below: SYNC:cross-stack-impact-trace for the client↔server tier seam (BE→FE forward, FE→BE backward) and SYNC:cross-service-check for the microservice / event / external / loosely-coupled boundary. Classify each seam/touchpoint NONE / ADDITIVE / BREAKING; a BREAKING seam whose other-side consumer is un-updated in the same diff is a HIGH-min finding. State Single-tier / monolith — N/A when no cross-boundary seam exists.
Read the changed files and any nearby tests/docs required to prove behavior.
Integration-test detection (CONDITIONAL). If the target contains integration/E2E test files, OR changes behavior-bearing code that has covering integration tests, run the Integration-Test-Review Linkage below before judging the Test/spec/doc sync dimension. State No integration tests in target — linkage N/A when neither holds.
Read project reference docs based on changed file types before judging patterns.
If .code-graph/graph.db exists, run graph blast-radius or trace on key changed files before concluding.
Apply embedded code-review protocols by serial focused pass: bug detection, design patterns quality, logic/intention, test/spec verification, graph investigation, Easy-to-Change.
Output findings first, with file:line evidence, severity, confidence, and tests/docs gaps.

Integration-Test-Review Linkage (CONDITIONAL — advisory, guarded)

Purpose: this skill's Test/spec/doc sync dimension asks "does evidence prove tests/specs/docs protect the intended invariant?" — but the 8 gates answering it (assertion value · data state · repeatability · domain logic · spec traceability · three-way sync · change coverage · scenario fidelity) belong to $integration-test-review. Route to that owner; NEVER re-derive a weaker copy here. — why: a rationale review judging test quality by eye endorses assertions it never mutation-tested.

Recursion guard — SKIP entirely when ANY row holds. Record the deferral line, then proceed; NEVER invoke or read:

| Suppressing context | Evidence | Deferral line to record | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Mode is validate-findings | Terminal mode — no sub-skill calls at all | Linkage N/A — validate-findings is terminal. | | Invoked by $integration-test-review Phase 9 | It calls this skill at integration-test-review/SKILL.md:429-431 and guards the reverse edge at :438 | Linkage deferred — invoked by $integration-test-review Phase 9. | | Invoked by changes-review in ANY phase — 0.8 parallel rationale dimension, 6 validate-findings, or 7.5 holistic — or inside $workflow-review-changes | changes-review/SKILL.md:395 (Phase 0.8, which states this deferral as a binding sub-agent constraint), :867 (Phase 6), :938 (Phase 7.5); its Phase 3.7 (:608-626) already owns the gate | Linkage deferred to changes-review Phase 3.7 / parent workflow step. | | Invoked by $debug-investigate's Root Cause Validation gate | debug-investigate/SKILL.md:151; inside integration-test-verify-loop that gate fires in a round already running $integration-test-review (integration-test-verify-loop/SKILL.md:98,110,495) | Linkage deferred — debug-investigate gate; the verify loop owns the audit. |

— why: unguarded, this edge closes a cycle (why-review → integration-test-review → Phase 9 → why-review) and re-creates the duplicate-ownership defect integration-test-verify-loop/SKILL.md:31 removes.

Mode A — READ the protocol (DEFAULT). Read .claude/skills/integration-test-review/SKILL.md §"The 8 Quality Gates"; apply Gates 1-8 as review lenses over target tests. Cheap — no recursion, no sub-skill call. Findings enter this review's normal finding set with file:line evidence + severity.

Mode B — DELEGATE to $integration-test-review (ESCALATION). Invoke ONLY when ALL hold: no guard row fired · standalone full-mode review · target diff itself contains integration test files. Its GAP / SPEC-GAP verdicts become ordinary findings for this review's Findings Validation Gate.

Advisory, NEVER blocking — matches this skill's Enforcement: Advisory scope; mandatory coverage lives in changes-review Phase 3.7. — why: without this linkage a standalone rationale review silently skips test quality.

Rationale / Artifact Review Dimensions

Run one focused pass per applicable dimension; do NOT scan all dimensions simultaneously.

| Dimension | Think | | --------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Target fit | Did we resolve what user asked, with evidence and confidence? | | Goal alignment | Does the rationale serve the saved Goal Contract's purpose and success criteria — or drift past them? | | Rationale depth | Are alternatives real, causal, symmetric, assumption-aware? | | Trade-off honesty | What does this SACRIFICE, is it worth it, and is the trade-off material enough to confirm with the user? An unpriced benefit is a rationale gap. | | Behavioral risk | What breaks in happy, error, edge, and rollback paths? | | Cross-boundary impact | Does a changed contract break a consumer on the other client↔server tier (BE↔FE), or a loosely-coupled/external service or event consumer? (tier seam + service/event) | | Test/spec/doc sync | Does evidence prove tests/specs/docs protect the intended invariant and avoid stale claims? | | Future change cost | Does recommendation reduce coupling, hidden state, duplication, unclear intent? |

Validation Checklist

For plan/PBI/artifact rationale reviews, read resolved target first. If plan directory, read plan.md and all phase-*.md files. Check presence AND quality depth.

For code-change reviews, use Code-Change Review Path instead of forcing plan checklist. Still include adversarial analysis, pre-mortem, assumptions, evidence, findings validation.

Rule: Presence alone is NOT a pass. A section that exists but contains weak, asymmetric, or unverified reasoning FAILS quality depth.

Required Sections (in plan.md or phase files)

| # | Section | Presence Check | Quality Depth Check (adversarial) | | --- | --------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1 | Problem Statement | 2-3 sentences describing the problem | Is the problem scoped correctly? Could it be framed differently to lead to a different solution? Are symptoms confused with root cause? | | 2 | Alternatives Considered | Minimum 2 alternatives listed with pros/cons | Are alternatives real (not strawmen)? Would a domain expert seriously consider each? Are the cons of the CHOSEN approach listed, not just cons of the others? | | 3 | Design Rationale | Explicit reasoning linking decision to trade-offs | Is reasoning causal (X leads to Y) or just descriptive (X is better)? Are hidden assumptions surfaced? Does it address failure modes, not just success modes? | | 4 | Risk Assessment | At least 1 risk per phase | Are risks ranked by severity? Are mitigations concrete actions or vague intentions ("monitor closely")? Is there at least one risk about the approach itself (not just execution)? | | 5 | Ownership | Clear who maintains code post-merge | Implicit OK (author owns), explicit better |

Residual Risk Gate

Challenge over-broad scope, weak rejected alternatives, and any High/Medium residual risk.
High/Medium risks must be fixed, reduced, or explicitly accepted by user/owner before PASS.
AI-extracted specs/TCs are not accepted evidence unless the canonical owner/review gate accepted them.

Optional (Flag if Missing, Don't Fail)

| # | Section | When Required | Quality Depth Check | | --- | ------------------------ | --------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 6 | Operational Impact | Service-layer or API changes | Are rollback steps defined? What breaks if this is reverted? | | 7 | Cross-Service Impact | Changes touching multiple microservices | Are all downstream consumers identified? Who needs to be notified? | | 8 | Migration Strategy | Database schema or data changes | Is there a rollback plan? Is it tested on a data sample? |

Output Format

## Why-Review Results

**Plan:** {plan path}
**Target Type:** {plan/PBI/code changes/docs/spec/report/artifact}
**Target:** {path, commit, branch range, or artifact}
**Date:** {date}
**Verdict:** PASS / NEEDS WORK

### Checklist

| #   | Check                   | Presence  | Quality Depth | Notes                                                                |
| --- | ----------------------- | --------- | ------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 1   | Problem Statement       | ✅/❌     | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {what's strong / what's weak}                                        |
| 2   | Alternatives Considered | ✅/❌     | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {are they real or strawmen?}                                         |
| 3   | Design Rationale        | ✅/❌     | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {causal or just descriptive?}                                        |
| 4   | Risk Assessment         | ✅/❌     | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {concrete mitigations or vague?}                                     |
| 5   | Ownership               | ✅/❌     | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {details}                                                            |
| 6   | Bugfix Debugger Trace   | ✅/❌/N/A | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {final state, feeder paths, hypothesis matrix, owner, forward proof} |
| 7   | Trade-Off Gate          | ✅/❌     | ✅/⚠️/❌      | {trade-off named? worth-it verdict? material → user confirmed?}      |

> ✅ Strong ⚠️ Weak/Partial ❌ Missing

### Adversarial Analysis

**Strongest arguments AGAINST the chosen approach:**

1. {argument 1 — cite specific plan text that weakens under this pressure}
2. {argument 2}
3. {argument 3 if applicable}

**Unexamined alternatives** (not mentioned in the plan):

- {alternative A} — why it might be worth considering
- {alternative B if applicable}

**Weakest assumptions** (if wrong, the plan breaks):

1. {assumption} — impact if false: {consequence}
2. {assumption} — impact if false: {consequence}

**Bugfix trace challenge** (required for bugfix, failed verification, stale/incorrect final output, regression, or behavior-changing fix plans):

- Observed final state and final reader proven? {yes/no/N/A}
- All feeder paths enumerated or explicitly bounded? {yes/no/N/A}
- Hypothesis matrix includes ruled-out and latent causes, not only the chosen cause? {yes/no/N/A}
- Owning fix layer protects all downstream consumers? {yes/no/N/A}
- Forward convergence proof and tests/proof mapping make the symptom impossible or detect recurrence? {yes/no/N/A}

**Pre-mortem** (assume it ships and fails in 3 months):

> {One concrete, plausible failure scenario based on the plan's approach}

**Pros/Cons symmetry:** Pros listed: {N} | Cons listed: {N} | Bias: {balanced / leans toward pros / leans toward cons}

### Trade-Off Assessment (MANDATORY — one row per reviewed decision AND per recommendation you make)

| #   | Decision / recommendation       | Trade-off — what it sacrifices                       | Gain (metric)   | Who pays, when     | Worth it?                         | Material?                          | Confirmed with user?       |
| --- | ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | ------------------ | --------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | -------------------------- |
| 1   | {decision or my recommendation} | {sacrifice — or dimensions checked + why unaffected} | {gain + metric} | {payer / when due} | WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR | YES / NO ({which materiality row}) | asked / N/A (not material) |

> Material trade-off with `Confirmed with user? = no` → verdict CANNOT be PASS. Escalate by asking the user directly first.

**Cross-Boundary Impact:** (code-change targets) {per client↔server seam AND per service/event/external touchpoint: NONE / ADDITIVE / BREAKING with routed fix; or `Single-tier / monolith — N/A`}

### Missing Items (if any)

- {specific item to add before implementation}

### Recommendation

{Proceed to $feature-implement | Add missing sections first | Add adversarial analysis to plan/PBI | Fix code findings | Update docs/specs | Continue manually}

Round 2: Adversarial Re-Review (MANDATORY)

Protocol: Deep Multi-Round Review (inlined via SYNC:double-round-trip-review above)

After Round 1, execute second full adversarial round:

Assume Round 1 was wrong — start with: "Round 1 missed something. Find it."
Challenge every PASS item from Round 1 — generate at least 2 sentences arguing the opposite for each
Complete the Anti-Bias Gate (all 7 boxes from Adversarial Review Mindset section, including the Trade-Off Interrogation Gate)
Populate Adversarial Analysis — MANDATORY:
- At least 2 arguments against the chosen approach
- At least 1 unexamined alternative
- At least 2 hidden assumptions with failure consequences
- Pre-mortem scenario
- Pros/Cons symmetry count
- Trade-Off Assessment table — every decision AND every recommendation of yours: trade-off named, worth-it verdict, materiality decided; re-ask the 3 questions on any trade-off Round 1 called "none" — why: Round 1's most common miss is an unpriced benefit.
Focus on Round-1 misses:
- Alternatives that are strawmen (too easy to dismiss)
- Risks stated vaguely without concrete mitigations
- Assumptions embedded in the problem statement itself
- Scope creep disguised as "related improvements"
Update verdict if Round 2 found new issues
Final verdict incorporates BOTH rounds + Adversarial Analysis

Scope

Applies to: Features, refactors, architectural changes, commits/diffs/code changes, docs/spec/report reviews
Exempt from plan-rationale advisory only: trivial config changes, tiny single-file tweaks when active workflow permits documented skip
Enforcement: Advisory (soft warning) — does not block implementation

Important Notes

Review only — do NOT modify target files or implement changes
Keep output concise — actionable in <2 minutes
Simple plans still require Anti-Bias Gate; findings may be brief, but gate cannot be skipped

Findings Validation Gate (full mode — MANDATORY CLOSING TASK when findings exist)

Purpose: Before handoff, re-validate THIS review's OWN findings: correct, proof-backed, reasonable, best-practice. Catch finding issues and missed enhancements.

Trigger: Full mode with ANY finding, weakness, missing item, or NEEDS WORK verdict — of ANY severity (Critical, High, Medium, OR Low). A Medium or Low severity NEVER exempts a finding from validation; even one low-severity nit triggers the gate. Skip ONLY unconditional PASS with a literally empty finding set (zero findings/missing items of any severity); record skip reason. NEVER run in validate-findings mode. — why: "it's only Low" is itself a severity claim the validation pass must confirm, not a reason to skip it.

Caller-side re-do loop (bounded — owned HERE, not by validate mode):

Ensure findings written to a report (plans/reports/why-review-{date}.md).
Invoke $why-review --validate-findings plans/reports/why-review-{date}.md in SAME main-agent session, NOT sub-agent. Returns CLEAN / HAS-ISSUES. Each call terminal.
CLEAN → append ## Findings Validation line to report ("All N findings re-validated; correct, proof-backed, reasonable, best-practice; no changes."), gate PASSES, exit loop.
HAS ISSUES → reconcile: drop/demote unproven or inflated findings (including any finding below the ≥85% finding-survival bar — see the Findings Validation Routine's Confidence bar), fix proof gaps, add surfaced findings/enhancements, re-derive verdict, record ## Findings Validation Notes citing what changed and why.
RE-DO holistically — because the reconciled findings changed the picture, re-run the FULL review (Validation Checklist + both Adversarial Rounds) over the WHOLE target combined with the reconciled findings — NOT just re-validate the changed findings in isolation — then re-invoke $why-review --validate-findings on the UPDATED report. Repeat until CLEAN with no new findings surfaced, or max 2 re-do rounds. Still not CLEAN → record unresolved state, mark the goal-gate blocker, and escalate by asking the user directly in ## Next Steps.

Findings Validation Routine (validate-findings mode body — TERMINAL)

Executed ONLY in validate-findings mode. TERMINAL: do NOT call $why-review, do NOT run gate, do NOT spawn sub-agent, do NOT create closing task. Validate, emit verdict, return.

Read supplied findings/report (path from $ARGUMENTS). For EACH finding, weakness, missing item, adversarial argument, assumption, verify ALL four:

Correct — re-trace cited plan text / file:line; finding actually holds (not a misread or stale reference).
Proof-backed — concrete file:line or quoted plan/report section present; reject "probably / should be / I think".
Reasonable — severity/weight proportionate, not inflated; steel-man of opposing view does not dissolve it.
Best-practice — recommendation reflects project conventions and Easy-to-Change metric (lowers future change cost), not preference or speculative generality.
Trade-off priced — the finding's recommendation names what it SACRIFICES, carries a WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR verdict, and has its materiality decided (per the Trade-Off Interrogation Gate). A recommendation presented as a pure win, or with Trade-off: none and no dimensions-checked justification, is a validation FAIL — flag HAS-ISSUES naming the unpriced recommendation. A material trade-off left unconfirmed with the user is HAS-ISSUES: name it so the CALLER escalates (terminal mode assesses, never asks). NOT WORTH IT → the finding is dropped or its recommendation replaced, never kept as-is. — why: a fix that costs more than the bug it removes is a finding the review should have withdrawn.
Dual-feedback (behavior-changing findings only) — if ANY finding changes observable behavior, confirm that BOTH halves of the feedback are present for it: (1) a spec-drift verdict — CODE-WRONG / SPEC-STALE / AMBIGUOUS / SPEC-SILENT / in-sync (per SYNC:spec-drift-adjudication) — AND (2) a concrete test-feedback action (regression/preservation TC via $spec [mode=tests], or covering test via $integration-test). A behavior-changing finding missing EITHER half is a validation FAIL — flag it as HAS-ISSUES and name the missing axis (spec verdict absent or test feedback absent). A SPEC-SILENT verdict (code correctly enforces an invariant no spec artifact states) REQUIRES a spec-enrichment action on the spec axis — add the §4 BR/§3 AC + a §8 TC via $spec [update] + $spec [mode=tests]; a SPEC-SILENT finding with no spec-enrichment action is HAS-ISSUES, same as a blank dual-feedback axis. A code-only fix with no spec verdict and no owed TC is an incomplete finding, not a clean one.
Confidence bar (distinct from the >80% act-gate) — a finding survives ONLY if its own stated confidence that it is a real issue is ≥85%. This is a HIGHER bar than the generic >80% act-gate, and a DIFFERENT question: the act-gate asks "may I act on this evidence?"; this bar asks "is this reported finding strong enough to KEEP?". A finding at 80-84% is demoted or dropped, not kept. The ≥85% must rest on the Proof-backed check above (a cited file:line + a traced failure path); confidence resting on inference alone caps below the bar.

Then sweep for misses — apply Adversarial Techniques once more: unexamined alternative, hidden assumption, enhancement opportunity?

Emit a verdict to plans/reports/why-review-validate-{date}.md:

CLEAN — every finding passes all four checks AND nothing new surfaced.
HAS ISSUES — list each finding to drop/demote/fix (reason + file:line) and each newly surfaced finding/enhancement (file:line).

Return verdict path + status. Caller owns reconciliation and bounded re-do; routine does NOT modify caller report and does NOT loop.

Next Steps

EXEMPT in validate-findings mode: terminal mode returns verdict; skip ## Next Steps, ask the user directly, council gate.

MANDATORY — FULL MODE: after review, use ask the user directly; user owns next step.

[BLOCKING] Material trade-off confirmation comes FIRST. Any trade-off the Trade-Off Interrogation Gate marked MATERIAL (irreversible · shifts cost to someone else · trades one quality attribute for another · crosses a boundary · high-consequence path · worth-it verdict UNCLEAR) MUST be confirmed with the user via its OWN ask the user directly — stating the trade-off, both options, what each sacrifices, and your recommendation — BEFORE the next-step question and BEFORE any PASS verdict. Multiple material trade-offs → ask the highest-consequence ones first (cap 3 questions per call), never bundle them into one vague "proceed?". — why: a one-way door walked through silently cannot be un-walked, and the user is the only one who owns that call.

"$feature-implement (Recommended)" — Begin implementation after design rationale is validated
"$plan-execute" — If implementing a simpler change
"Skip, continue manually" — user decides

Additionally — conditional $llm-council escalation

After first next-step question, evaluate gate:

Workflow suppression first: read plans/.workflow-state.json or equivalent workflowId. Suppress council for workflow-refactor, workflow-bugfix, and test-*. Rationale: council costs 11 LLM calls; these workflows are routine/reversible/test-only enough for $why-review. Matches .claude/skills/llm-council/SKILL.md "Workflow Integration".
Frontmatter gate: read active plan.md or PBI frontmatter. Gate fires when ANY true: cross_service_impact != NONE; breaking_changes; complexity in {high, critical} or story_points >= 13; new_framework; irreversible; security_critical; performance_critical; cost_high.
Override/defaults: absent fields default no-fire; council_suppress: true skips prompt and logs reason.

If suppressed or no-fire, do NOT mention $llm-council. If gate fires, ask a SECOND separate follow-up question:

"Escalate to $llm-council (Recommended)" — Gate fired (high-stakes signal detected). Run 11 sub-agent council (5 advisors + 5 reviewers + chairman). Use when $why-review alone is insufficient. Cheaper alternatives already exhausted at this point: $plan-validate is the prior rung.
"Skip — proceed without council" — Acknowledge the gate; proceed with current decision anyway.

[BLOCKING — full mode only] MUST ATTENTION ask at least one user question before completing. validate-findings asks nothing because it only returns verdict. [IMPORTANT] Use task tracking before work, including file-read tasks; simple tasks need documented skip decision. Critical Purpose: Ensure quality: no flaws, bugs, missing updates, or stale content. Verify code AND documentation. External Memory: Long reviews write intermediate + final results to plans/reports/. Evidence Gate: MANDATORY every claim/finding/recommendation requires file:line proof or trace with confidence (>80% act, <80% verify). OOP & DRY Enforcement: MANDATORY flag 3+ duplicated patterns for extraction; same-group/suffix classes (*Entity, *Dto, *Service) should share a base when it lowers future change cost.

End-to-Start Debugger Trace — For non-trivial bugs, failed verification, regression fixes, behavior-changing code, or unclear code flow, start from the observed final state and walk backward before proposing a fix.

Frame 0: observed end state — Name the exact user-visible output, failing assertion, log line, persisted value, API response, rendered UI, or aggregate bucket. Record the reader/query/renderer that produced it with file:line evidence.

Walk backward one hop at a time — Trace final reader -> projection/cache/storage -> writer -> consumer/handler/job -> producer/caller -> original trigger. At every hop record: input, transformation, output, owner, and evidence.

Enumerate all feeder paths — Find every upstream producer/caller/event/job that can write into the final path, including retry, async, cache, background, and alternate UI/API paths. Mark each path verified, ruled out, or still unknown.

Build the hypothesis matrix — For each plausible cause, list evidence for, evidence against, how to reproduce/verify, blast radius, and status (primary, contributing, ruled out, latent). Do not fix until competing causes are explicitly resolved or bounded.

Choose the owning fix layer — Identify the invariant owner and the lowest shared point that protects all downstream consumers. A fix at the symptom site is rejected unless the symptom site owns the invariant.

Prove convergence forward — After choosing the fix, walk start -> end again and show how the corrected state reaches the observed final output. Map each root cause to a fix part and each fix part to a test/proof.

BLOCKED until: final state named · backward trace written · all feeder paths enumerated · hypothesis matrix completed · owning fix layer justified · forward convergence proof mapped to tests.

NEVER: Start at the first suspicious code path. Collapse multiple producers into one "flow". Treat duplicate symptoms as duplicate records without proving the read model. Skip ruled-out hypotheses.

Behavioral Delta Matrix — MANDATORY for bugfix reviews. Produce this table BEFORE PASS/FAIL verdict. Narrative descriptions don't substitute.

| Input state | Pre-fix behavior | Post-fix behavior | Delta | | ----------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | ------------------------------------ | | {condition} | {current behavior} | {fixed behavior} | Preserved ✓ / Fixed ✓ / REGRESSION ✗ |

Rules: ≥3 rows · ≥1 row the bug report did NOT mention · REGRESSION delta → FAIL until a preservation test covers it (spec-tests-template.md#preservation-tests-mandatory-for-bugfix-specs)

BLOCKED until: ≥3 rows · ≥1 row outside bug report · no unmitigated REGRESSION

Nested Task Expansion Contract — For workflow-step invocation, the [Workflow] ... row is only a parent container; the child skill still creates visible phase tasks.

Call the current task list first. If a matching active parent workflow row exists, set nested=true and record parentTaskId; otherwise run standalone.

Create one task per declared phase before phase work. When nested, prefix subjects [N.M] $skill-name — phase.

When nested, link the parent with TaskUpdate(parentTaskId, addBlockedBy: [childIds]).

Orchestrators must pre-expand a child skill's phase list and link the workflow row before invoking that child skill or sub-agent.

Mark exactly one child in_progress before work and completed immediately after evidence is written.

Complete the parent only after all child tasks are completed or explicitly cancelled with reason.

Blocked until: the current task list done, child phases created, parent linked when nested, first child marked in_progress.

Project Reference Docs Gate — Run after task-tracking bootstrap and before target/source file reads, grep, edits, or analysis. Project docs override generic framework assumptions.

Identify scope: file types, domain area, and operation.

Read docs/project-config.json first — the project's machine-readable map. It is the single source of truth for THIS repo (modules/paths, framework + search keywords, test/E2E/integration run-commands, design system, architecture rules, workflow patterns); ground exact paths, run-commands, and conventions on it before investigating, planning, or coding — never assume framework defaults (CLAUDE.md + reference docs are derived from it). If it — or the docs index, lessons.md, CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, or any required reference doc — is missing or stale, auto-run $project-init or the narrow route ($project-config, $docs-init, $scan-all, $scan --target=<key>, $claude-md-init) first; if Codex mirrors or AGENTS.md are stale, ask the user to run $sync-codex (never auto-run it).

Required docs by trigger: always docs/project-reference/lessons.md; doc lookup docs-index-reference.md; review code-review-rules.md; backend/CQRS/API backend-patterns-reference.md; domain/entity domain-entities-reference.md; frontend/UI frontend-patterns-reference.md; styles/design scss-styling-guide.md + design-system/design-system-canonical.md; integration tests integration-test-reference.md; E2E e2e-test-reference.md; feature docs/specs feature-spec-reference.md + spec-system-reference.md + spec-principles.md; behavior/public-contract/spec-test-code sync workflow-spec-test-code-cycle-reference.md; derived spec index/ERD/reimplementation guides spec-system-reference.md + source Feature Specs under docs/specs/; architecture/new area project-structure-reference.md.

Read every required doc, then before target work state: Reference docs read: ... | Not applicable: ....

Ready when: scope evaluated, docs/project-config.json consulted, required docs checked/read or setup route completed, lessons.md confirmed, citation emitted.

Cross-Stack Impact Trace — FIRST review action: comprehend change holistically, THEN judge files. Every reviewed diff: note change context, trace full pipeline of main affected area end-to-end across client↔server seam, so a change on one tier can never silently break the other. (Distinct from SYNC:cross-service-check, which owns service-to-service / event boundary — this owns client↔server tier seam inside one app; pair both for full-pipeline coverage.)

Comprehend context FIRST — before file-by-file review, write short Change Context note: what changed, intent (why), originating tier (frontend / backend / shared / infra), main affected feature/flow. Do before flagging anything.

Identify cross-stack seam(s) — for main affected area, locate contract seam(s) between client and server: API route/endpoint + verb, request/response DTO or payload shape, shared type/schema, event/message contract, query/route params. Infer tier layout from docs/project-config.json and project conventions.

Trace full pipeline end-to-end, in change's direction:

Backend change → trace FORWARD to every frontend consumer: handler/controller → response DTO/serializer → API client/service → store/state → component/template rendering or submitting it.

Frontend change → trace BACKWARD to backend contract: component/form → API client call → route/endpoint → request DTO/validation → handler/domain.

When .code-graph/graph.db exists, use $graph-connect-api and python .claude/scripts/code_graph trace <file> --direction both --json to map connection; otherwise grep route path, DTO/type name, each field name across BOTH tiers.

Verify BOTH sides still agree — for every changed seam confirm other tier matches: route path & verb, field names & types, nullability/optionality, required vs optional params, enum values, auth/permission, error/status shape. Any mismatch = BREAKING finding (backend change breaks a frontend consumer, or frontend now sends what backend rejects).

Classify each seam: NONE (no contract change) / ADDITIVE (backward-compatible) / BREAKING (consumer on other tier must change too). BREAKING seam whose other-tier consumer NOT updated in same diff = HIGH severity minimum (CRITICAL for auth/money/data-integrity paths).

Skip ONLY when change has no cross-tier seam — pure docs, pure styling with no data contract, or single-tier tooling. State explicitly: Single-tier change — no cross-stack seam. Backend-only or single-tier repo still traces internal consumers (SYNC:cross-service-check for service/event boundaries).

BLOCKED until: Change Context noted · seam(s) identified or explicit N/A · full pipeline traced in change direction · every changed seam classified NONE / ADDITIVE / BREAKING.

Cross-Service Check — Microservices/event-driven: MANDATORY before concluding investigation, plan, spec, or feature doc. Missing downstream consumer = silent regression.

| Boundary | Grep terms | | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Event producers | Publish, Dispatch, Send, emit, EventBus, outbox, IntegrationEvent | | Event consumers | Consumer, EventHandler, Subscribe, @EventListener, inbox | | Sagas/orchestration | Saga, ProcessManager, Choreography, Workflow, Orchestrator | | Sync service calls | HTTP/gRPC calls to/from other services | | Shared contracts | OpenAPI spec, proto, shared DTO — flag breaking changes | | Data ownership | Other service reads/writes same table/collection → Shared-DB anti-pattern |

Per touchpoint: owner service · message name · consumers · risk (NONE / ADDITIVE / BREAKING).

BLOCKED until: Producers scanned · Consumers scanned · Sagas checked · Contracts reviewed · Breaking-change risk flagged

Task Tracking & External Report Persistence — Bootstrap this before execution; then run project-reference doc prefetch before target/source work.

Create a small task breakdown before target file reads, grep, edits, or analysis. On context loss, inspect the current task list first.

Mark one task in_progress before work and completed immediately after evidence; never batch transitions.

For plan/review work, create plans/reports/{skill}-{YYMMDD}-{HHmm}-{slug}.md before first finding.

Append findings after each file/section/decision and synthesize from the report file at the end.

Final output cites Full report: plans/reports/{filename}.

Blocked until: task breakdown exists, report path declared for plan/review work, first finding persisted before the next finding.

Critical Thinking Mindset — Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: Never present guess as fact — cite sources for every claim, admit uncertainty freely, self-check output for errors, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence — certainty without evidence root of all hallucination.

Sequential Thinking Protocol — Structured multi-step reasoning for complex/ambiguous work. Use when planning, reviewing, debugging, or refining ideas where one-shot reasoning is unsafe.

Trigger when: complex problem decomposition · adaptive plans needing revision · analysis with course correction · unclear/emerging scope · multi-step solutions · hypothesis-driven debugging · cross-cutting trade-off evaluation.

Format (explicit mode — visible thought trail):

Thought N/M: [aspect] — one aspect per thought, state assumptions/uncertainty

Thought N/M [REVISION of Thought K]: ... — when prior reasoning invalidated; state Original / Why revised / Impact

Thought N/M [BRANCH A from Thought K]: ... — explore alternative; converge with decision rationale

Thought N/M [HYPOTHESIS]: ... then [VERIFICATION]: ... — test before acting

Thought N/N [FINAL] — only when verified, all critical aspects addressed, confidence >80%

Mandatory closers: Confidence % stated · Assumptions listed · Open questions surfaced · Next action concrete.

Stop conditions: confidence <80% on any critical decision → escalate by asking the user directly · ≥3 revisions on same thought → re-frame the problem · branch count >3 → split into sub-task.

Implicit mode: apply methodology internally without visible markers when adding markers would clutter the response (routine work where reasoning aids accuracy).

Deep-dive: see $sequential-thinking skill (.claude/skills/sequential-thinking/SKILL.md) for worked examples (API design, debugging, architecture), advanced techniques (spiral refinement, hypothesis testing, convergence), and meta-strategies (uncertainty handling, revision cascades).

AI Mistake Prevention — Failure modes to avoid on every task:

Re-read files after context changes. Context compaction, resume, or long-running work can make memory stale; verify current files before acting. Verify generated content against source evidence. AI hallucinates APIs, names, claims, and document facts. Check the relevant source before documenting or referencing. Check downstream references before deleting or renaming. Removing an artifact can stale docs, generated mirrors, configs, and callers; map references first. Trace the full impact chain after edits. Changing a definition can miss derived outputs and consumers. Follow the affected chain before declaring done. Verify ALL affected outputs, not just the first. One green check is not all green checks; validate every output surface the change can affect. Assume existing values are intentional — ask WHY before changing OR flagging one as a defect. Before changing or reporting a constant, limit, flag, cutoff, wording, or pattern, read nearby context and history, the CALLER's ordering, and 2+ sibling call sites of the same convention. A doc stating WHAT without WHY is missing rationale, not proof of a missing guard. Surface ambiguity before acting — don't pick silently. Multiple valid interpretations require an explicit question or stated assumption with risk. Assert the outcome your system owns, not the intermediate state your infrastructure owns. When verifying async work, assert the final business state — never the delivery/retry bookkeeping held in shared infrastructure that any co-running process can write. Such a check passes when run alone and flakes the moment anything else shares that infrastructure. Keep shared guidance role-relevant. Universal guidance must help every receiving skill or agent; code-specific obligations belong only in code-specific protocols.

Evidence-Based Reasoning — Speculation is FORBIDDEN. Every claim needs proof.

Cite file:line, grep results, or framework docs for EVERY claim

Declare confidence: >80% act freely, 60-80% verify first, <60% DO NOT recommend

Cross-service validation required for architectural changes

"I don't have enough evidence" is valid and expected output

BLOCKED until: - [ ] Evidence file path (file:line) - [ ] Grep search performed - [ ] 3+ similar patterns found - [ ] Confidence level stated

Forbidden without proof: "obviously", "I think", "should be", "probably", "this is because" If incomplete → output: "Insufficient evidence. Verified: [...]. Not verified: [...]."

Validated-Finding Fix + Full Re-Review Loop — Re-review is triggered by a validated finding fix cycle, not by a round number. Review purpose: review → validate findings → fix validated findings → full re-review until a complete review pass clears the round's exit bar (see Severity floor below). A clean review ENDS the loop — no further rounds required.

aka Self-Review Convergence Loop. The name is historical — there is NO 2-round cap; "double-round-trip" only means a validated-finding fix cycle forces at least one fresh re-review. It runs until a clean pass, bounded by the 3-round ceiling below.

Round cap — 3 rounds MAX (a ceiling, NEVER a target). A clean pass ENDS the loop immediately at ANY round — round 1 included; the cap never obliges you to keep spinning. Hitting round 3 with blocking findings still open (severity floor applied) → STOP and escalate by asking the user directly with the still-open findings listed; NEVER emit a silent "good enough" PASS on cap exhaustion, and NEVER let the cap substitute for the clean-review requirement. The 2-repeated-no-progress blocker rule stays an EARLIER exit — escalate at whichever trips first.

Severity floor — from round 3, LOW stops blocking. The exit bar tightens by round, so the loop converges on consequence instead of spinning on polish:

Define one predicate everywhere: blocking_findings(round, findings) returns all validated findings in rounds 1–2 and only validated CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM findings in round 3+. A binary gate (test-green, security must-fix, required artifact) is exempt only when its owning invariant explicitly says so.

| Round | Exit bar — loop ENDS when the fresh full review has… | Must be fixed to continue | | ----- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ | | 1-2 | zero validated findings at ANY severity | CRITICAL · HIGH · MEDIUM · LOW | | 3+ | zero validated CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM findings — LOW-only is a PASS | CRITICAL · HIGH · MEDIUM only |

From round 3 onward LOW findings are NOT required to be fixed: a round whose validated findings are ALL LOW ENDS the loop immediately — do not open another round for them. Severity tiers are SYNC:severity-rubric (CRITICAL block-merge · HIGH must-fix · MEDIUM should-fix · LOW nice-to-fix); rounds 1-2 are unchanged, so an easy LOW still gets fixed early when it is cheap.

Severity-floor rules:

Never silently drop a deferred LOW. Every unfixed LOW is listed in the final report under ## Deferred LOW Findings (severity floor, round ≥3) with file, line, and description, so the owner can schedule it. Dropping it from the report is a protocol violation, not a clean pass.

Never re-tier a finding to trigger the exit. Downgrading a real CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM to LOW so the loop can end is a FALSE PASS. Severity is set by consequence per SYNC:severity-rubric before the round bar is applied — never after, and never with the exit in view. — why: a floor that can be reached by relabeling is not a floor.

The floor bounds the loop, not the standard. It ends iteration; it never authorizes shipping a known CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM, and it never lowers the finding-survival bar that admits a finding in the first place.

The floor never applies to a hard gate. Test-green gates (a suite must actually pass), security must-fix gates, and any gate whose criterion is binary rather than severity-rated are unaffected — a failing test is a failure, not a LOW finding.

Universal scope (any new output/judgment): any newly produced output or judgment gets ≥1 self-review; any new judgment gets ≥1 $why-review --validate-findings pass; anything flagged to re-check is re-checked ≥1 time — before that output is treated as final. This loop is the default convergence contract for ANY work-producing skill, not review skills only.

Routing invariant (author-facing): a skill that validates findings MUST route them through $why-review --validate-findings (the terminal validator) — NEVER fork an inline finding-validation. Routing through why-review is what makes the finding-survival bar and this loop apply; the verify-review-validate-coverage sensor enforces this exact route mechanically.

Round 1: Main-session review. Read target files, build understanding, note issues. Output findings + verdict (PASS / FAIL).

Decision after Round 1:

No issues found (PASS, zero findings) → review ENDS. Do NOT spawn a fresh sub-agent for confirmation.

blocking_findings(round, findings) is non-empty → run the active review skill's findings-validation gate first; for review skills the default gate is $why-review --validate-findings <report-path>. Fix only validated findings, then restart the full review protocol from the beginning with a fresh task breakdown.

Fresh full re-review after every fix cycle: Re-run the whole review protocol over the current full target. When sub-agents are part of that protocol, spawn NEW spawn_agent calls — never reuse prior agents. Reviewers re-read ALL files from scratch with ZERO memory of prior rounds. See SYNC:fresh-context-review for the spawn mechanism and SYNC:review-protocol-injection for the canonical Agent prompt template. Each fresh full review must catch:

Cross-cutting concerns missed in the prior round

Interaction bugs between changed files

Convention drift (new code vs existing patterns)

Missing pieces that should exist but don't

Subtle edge cases the prior round rationalized away

Regressions introduced by the fixes themselves

Loop termination: After each full re-review, repeat the same decision against that round's exit bar: bar cleared → END; blocking findings remain → validate findings → fix → restart from the first review phase. Rounds 1-2 clear on zero findings at any severity; from round 3 the bar is zero CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM, so a LOW-only round ENDS the loop (deferred LOWs go in the report). Capped at 3 rounds. Escalate by asking the user directly at whichever comes first: the same validated finding repeats for 2 full invocations with no progress · a fix requires product/owner input · round 3 completes with CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM still open. NEVER loop past 3 rounds, and NEVER convert cap exhaustion into a PASS.

Rules:

A clean Round 1 ENDS the review — no mandatory Round 2

From round 3 on, a round whose validated findings are ALL LOW ENDS the loop — never open round N+1 to fix LOW alone; list those LOWs as deferred instead

NEVER re-tier a CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM down to LOW to reach the round-3 exit — severity is assigned by consequence before the bar is applied

NEVER fix unvalidated findings; validate first using the caller's validation gate

Every surviving finding must additionally clear the finding-survival bar defined in why-review's Findings Validation Routine (a deliberately higher bar than the generic act-gate — "keep this finding?" is a stricter question than "act on this evidence?"); a finding below the bar is demoted or dropped, not kept

NEVER skip the full re-review after a fix cycle (every fix invalidates the prior verdict)

NEVER reuse a sub-agent across rounds — every iteration that uses sub-agents spawns NEW Agent calls

Main agent READS sub-agent reports but MUST NOT filter, reinterpret, or override findings

The 3-round cap NEVER replaces the clean-review requirement — it bounds runaway looping, it does not authorize shipping an un-clean review; a clean pass ends the loop early at any round, and cap exhaustion escalates rather than passes

Enforce the round cap of 3 alongside the 2 repeated-no-progress blocker rule; both are escalation triggers, neither is a completion criterion

Track recursive invocation count and repeated blockers in conversation context (session-scoped)

Final verdict must incorporate ALL rounds executed

Report must include ## Round N Findings (Fresh Sub-Agent) for every round N≥2 that was executed, plus ## Deferred LOW Findings (severity floor, round ≥3) whenever the loop ended on the round-3+ bar with LOWs still open.

Fresh Context Re-Review — Eliminate orchestrator confirmation bias after fixes by restarting the full review with isolated sub-agents where applicable.

Why: The main agent knows what it (or $feature-implement) just fixed and rationalizes findings accordingly. A fresh sub-agent has ZERO memory, re-reads from scratch, and catches what the main agent dismissed. Sub-agent bias is mitigated by (1) fresh context, (2) verbatim protocol injection, (3) main agent not filtering the report.

When: ONLY after a validated-finding fix cycle. A review round that finds zero issues ENDS the loop — do NOT spawn a confirmation sub-agent. A review round that finds issues triggers: validate findings → fix → full review restart from the first phase.

How:

Start a NEW full review invocation/task breakdown; when that protocol calls for agents, spawn NEW spawn_agent tool calls — use code-reviewer agent_type for code reviews, general-purpose for plan/doc/artifact reviews

Inject ALL required review protocols VERBATIM into the prompt — see SYNC:review-protocol-injection for the full list and template. Never reference protocols by file path; AI compliance drops behind file-read indirection (see SYNC:shared-protocol-duplication-policy)

Sub-agent re-reads ALL target files from scratch via its own tool calls — never pass file contents inline in the prompt

Sub-agent writes structured report to plans/reports/{review-type}-round{N}-{date}.md

Main agent reads the report, integrates findings into its own report, DOES NOT override or filter

Rules:

SKIP fresh sub-agent when the prior full review found zero issues (no fixes = nothing new to verify)

NEVER skip the full review restart after a fix cycle — every fix invalidates the prior verdict

NEVER reuse a sub-agent across rounds — every fresh round spawns a NEW spawn_agent call

Continue until a complete full review pass clears that round's exit bar per SYNC:double-round-trip-review: rounds 1-2 → zero findings at any severity; round 3+ → zero CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM, so a round whose validated findings are ALL LOW ENDS the loop (list those LOWs as deferred instead of spawning another round). If the same blocker repeats 3 times with no progress, escalate by asking the user directly

Track iteration count and repeated blockers in conversation context (session-scoped, no persistent files)

Review Protocol Injection — Every fresh sub-agent review prompt MUST embed 11 protocol blocks VERBATIM. The template below has ALL 11 bodies already expanded inline. Copy the template wholesale into the Agent call's prompt field at runtime, replacing only the {placeholders} in Task / Round / Reference Docs / Target Files / Output sections with context-specific values. Do NOT touch the embedded protocol sections.

Why inline expansion: Placeholder markers would force file-read indirection at runtime. AI compliance drops significantly behind indirection (see SYNC:shared-protocol-duplication-policy). Therefore the template carries all 11 protocol bodies pre-embedded.

Subagent Type Selection

code-reviewer — for code reviews (reviewing source files, git diffs, implementation)
general-purpose — for plan / doc / artifact reviews (reviewing markdown plans, docs, specs)

Canonical Agent Call Template (Copy Verbatim)

spawn_agent({
  description: "Fresh Round {N} review",
  agent_type: "code-reviewer",
  prompt: `
## Task
{review-specific task — e.g., "Review all uncommitted changes for code quality" | "Review plan files under {plan-dir}" | "Review integration tests in {path}"}

## Round
Round {N}. You have ZERO memory of prior rounds. Re-read all target files from scratch via your own tool calls. Do NOT trust anything from the main agent beyond this prompt.

## Protocols (follow VERBATIM — these are non-negotiable)

### Spec ↔ Tests ↔ Code Triangulation
DO THIS FIRST — before any per-protocol check below. The review target is the WHOLE PACKAGE, not the diff alone: load the behavior's spec (§3 ACs / §4 BRs / §8 TCs), its tests, and the changed code TOGETHER, and reason about their mutual consistency BEFORE judging any one in isolation.
1. Locate all three faces: the Feature Spec section(s) governing the changed behavior, the tests that guard it, and the production code that implements it. A missing face is itself a finding (SPEC-GAP / TEST-GAP / DEAD-SPEC).
2. Triangulate pairwise — every disagreement is a finding; classify which face is wrong:
   - code vs spec: behavior the code does that no §3/§4/§8 rule describes → CODE-EXTRA or SPEC-STALE; a [HARD] §4 rule or §5 invariant with no enforcing code path → CODE-WRONG.
   - tests vs spec: a §8 TC with no test, or a test asserting behavior no TC/rule names → TEST-GAP or SPEC-SILENT.
   - tests vs code: a changed code path with no covering test → TEST-GAP; a test that still passes against a deliberately broken invariant → WEAK-TEST (apply the mutation thinking in Bug Detection).
3. Hidden-rule capture: any invariant the code enforces but the spec never states (SPEC-SILENT) MUST be surfaced as a finding to add into §3/§4/§8 AND guarded with a test — the enrichment loop, never a silent pass.
4. Only after the three faces agree — or every disagreement is logged as a finding — proceed to the per-protocol checks below; when enrichment adds spec/test content, re-review the package against the enriched spec.
NEVER mark review PASS while any spec/test/code face disagrees without a logged finding. The diff is the entry point; the package is the unit of judgment.

### Evidence-Based Reasoning
Speculation is FORBIDDEN. Every claim needs proof.
1. Cite file:line, grep results, or framework docs for EVERY claim
2. Declare confidence: >80% act freely, 60-80% verify first, <60% DO NOT recommend
3. Cross-service validation required for architectural changes
4. "I don't have enough evidence" is valid and expected output
BLOCKED until: Evidence file path (file:line) provided; Grep search performed; 3+ similar patterns found; Confidence level stated.
Forbidden without proof: "obviously", "I think", "should be", "probably", "this is because".
If incomplete → output: "Insufficient evidence. Verified: [...]. Not verified: [...]."

### Bug Detection
MUST check categories 1-4 for EVERY review. Never skip.
1. Null Safety: Can params/returns be null? Are they guarded? Optional chaining gaps? .find() returns checked?
2. Boundary Conditions: Off-by-one (< vs <=)? Empty collections handled? Zero/negative values? Max limits?
3. Error Handling: Try-catch scope correct? Silent swallowed exceptions? Error types specific? Cleanup in finally?
4. Resource Management: Connections/streams closed? Subscriptions unsubscribed on destroy? Timers cleared? Memory bounded?
5. Concurrency (if async): Missing await? Race conditions on shared state? Stale closures? Retry storms?
6. Stack-Specific: Check the configured language/runtime pitfalls and framework-specific failure modes discovered from local code.
Classify: CRITICAL (crash/corrupt) → FAIL | HIGH (incorrect behavior) → FAIL | MEDIUM (edge case) → WARN | LOW (defensive) → INFO.

### Design Patterns Quality
Priority checks for every code change:
1. DRY via OOP: Same-suffix classes (*Entity, *Dto, *Service) MUST share base class. 3+ similar patterns → extract to shared abstraction.
2. Right Responsibility: Logic in LOWEST layer (Entity > Domain Service > Application Service > Controller). Never business logic in controllers.
3. SOLID: Single responsibility (one reason to change). Open-closed (extend, don't modify). Liskov (subtypes substitutable). Interface segregation (small interfaces). Dependency inversion (depend on abstractions).
4. After extraction/move/rename: Grep ENTIRE scope for dangling references. Zero tolerance.
5. YAGNI gate: NEVER recommend patterns unless 3+ occurrences exist. Don't extract for hypothetical future use.
Anti-patterns to flag: God Object, Copy-Paste inheritance, Circular Dependency, Leaky Abstraction.

### Logic & Intention Review
Verify WHAT code does matches WHY it was changed.
1. Change Intention Check: Every changed file MUST serve the stated purpose. Flag unrelated changes as scope creep.
2. Happy Path Trace: Walk through one complete success scenario through changed code.
3. Error Path Trace: Walk through one failure/edge case scenario through changed code.
4. Acceptance Mapping: If plan context available, map every acceptance criterion to a code change.
5. Tests Verify Intent: For test/spec changes, verify tests name the protected business rule or invariant and would fail if that intent breaks.
6. Migration Test Exclusion: Do not write tests for migration code. Schema/data migrations are one-time execution paths, not core application logic.
NEVER mark review PASS without completing both traces (happy + error path).

### Test Spec Verification
Map changed code to test specifications.
1. Identify the project's test/spec format from existing docs, test-case files, BDD feature files, or spec folders.
2. Every changed code path MUST map to a corresponding test case/spec (or flag as "needs test case").
3. New functions/endpoints/handlers → flag for test spec creation.
4. Migration files are excluded from test/spec creation; schema/data migrations are one-time execution paths, not core application logic.
5. If spec evidence fields exist, verify they point to actual code (file:line, not stale references).
6. Verify each meaningful test case names the business intent/invariant; flag behavior-only cases that only mirror implementation details.
7. Auth/data changes → verify corresponding authorization and data-state test cases exist.
8. If no specs exist for a changed path → log the gap and recommend the project's test-spec workflow.
NEVER skip test mapping. Untested code paths are the #1 source of production bugs.

### Behavioral Delta Matrix
MANDATORY for any bugfix review. Produce input-state × pre-fix × post-fix × delta table BEFORE writing verdict.
- Minimum 3 rows; include at least one row OUTSIDE the original bug report.
- Any "REGRESSION" delta → review returns FAIL until a preservation test is added.
- Narrative descriptions do NOT substitute for the matrix.
Example rows (external-record sync fix):
| Input                 | Pre-fix | Post-fix                  | Delta      |
| --------------------- | ------- | ------------------------- | ---------- |
| Record exists (valid) | Reused  | Always recreated → orphan | REGRESSION |
| Record missing (404)  | Error   | Recreated                 | Fixed      |

### Fix-Layer Accountability
NEVER fix at the crash site. Trace the full flow, fix at the owning layer. The crash site is a SYMPTOM, not the cause.
MANDATORY before ANY fix:
1. Trace full data flow — Map the complete path from data origin to crash site across ALL layers (storage → backend → API → frontend → UI). Identify where bad state ENTERS, not where it CRASHES.
2. Identify the invariant owner — Which layer's contract guarantees this value is valid? Fix at the LOWEST layer that owns the invariant, not the highest layer that consumes it.
3. One fix, maximum protection — If fix requires touching 3+ files with defensive checks, you are at the wrong layer — go lower.
4. Verify no bypass paths — Confirm all data flows through the fix point. Check for direct construction skipping factories, clone/spread without re-validation, raw data not wrapped in domain models, mutations outside the model layer.
BLOCKED until: Full data flow traced (origin → crash); Invariant owner identified with file:line evidence; All access sites audited (grep count); Fix layer justified (lowest layer that protects most consumers).
Anti-patterns (REJECT): "Fix it where it crashes" (crash site ≠ cause site, trace upstream); "Add defensive checks at every consumer" (scattered defense = wrong layer); "Both fix is safer" (pick ONE authoritative layer).

### Rationalization Prevention
AI skips steps via these evasions. Recognize and reject:
- "Too simple for a plan" → Simple + wrong assumptions = wasted time. Plan anyway.
- "I'll test after" → RED before GREEN. Write/verify test first.
- "Already searched" → Show grep evidence with file:line. No proof = no search.
- "Just do it" → Still need task tracking. Skip depth, never skip tracking.
- "Just a small fix" → Small fix in wrong location cascades. Verify file:line first.
- "Code is self-explanatory" → Future readers need evidence trail. Document anyway.
- "Combine steps to save time" → Combined steps dilute focus. Each step has distinct purpose.

### Graph-Assisted Investigation
MANDATORY when .code-graph/graph.db exists.
HARD-GATE: MUST run at least ONE graph command on key files before concluding any investigation.
Pattern: Grep finds files → trace --direction both reveals full system flow → Grep verifies details.
- Investigation/Scout: trace --direction both on 2-3 entry files
- Fix/Debug: callers_of on buggy function + tests_for
- Feature/Enhancement: connections on files to be modified
- Code Review: tests_for on changed functions
- Blast Radius: trace --direction downstream
CLI: python .claude/scripts/code_graph {command} --json. Use --node-mode file first (10-30x less noise), then --node-mode function for detail.

### Understand Code First
HARD-GATE: Do NOT write, plan, or fix until you READ existing code.
1. Search 3+ similar patterns (grep/glob) — cite file:line evidence.
2. Read existing files in target area — understand structure, base classes, conventions.
3. Run python .claude/scripts/code_graph trace <file> --direction both --json when .code-graph/graph.db exists.
4. Map dependencies via connections or callers_of — know what depends on your target.
5. Write investigation to .ai/workspace/analysis/ for non-trivial tasks (3+ files).
6. Re-read analysis file before implementing — never work from memory alone.
7. NEVER invent new patterns when existing ones work — match exactly or document deviation.
BLOCKED until: Read target files; Grep 3+ patterns; Graph trace (if graph.db exists); Assumptions verified with evidence.

## Reference Docs (READ before reviewing)
- `.claude/docs/development-rules.md` — canonical development rules, code-quality guidelines, and pre-commit checklist
- docs/project-reference/code-review-rules.md
- {skill-specific reference docs — e.g., integration-test-reference.md for integration-test-review; backend-patterns-reference.md for backend reviews; frontend-patterns-reference.md for frontend reviews}

## Target Files
{explicit file list OR "run git diff to see uncommitted changes" OR "read all files under {plan-dir}"}

## Output
Write a structured report to plans/reports/{review-type}-round{N}-{date}.md with sections:
- Status: PASS | FAIL
- Issue Count: {number}
- Critical Issues (with file:line evidence)
- High Priority Issues (with file:line evidence)
- Medium / Low Issues
- Cross-cutting findings

Return the report path and status to the main agent.
Every finding MUST have file:line evidence. Speculation is forbidden.
`
})

Rules

DO copy the template wholesale — including all 11 embedded protocol sections
DO replace only the {placeholders} in Task / Round / Reference Docs / Target Files / Output sections with context-specific content
DO choose code-reviewer agent_type for code reviews and general-purpose for plan / doc / artifact reviews
DO NOT paraphrase, summarize, or skip any protocol section
DO NOT pass file contents inline — the sub-agent reads via its own tool calls so it has a fresh context
DO NOT reference protocols by file path or tag name — the bodies are already embedded above
DO NOT introduce placeholder markers for the protocols — they must stay literally expanded

Graph Impact Analysis — When .code-graph/graph.db exists, run blast-radius --json to detect ALL files affected by changes (7 edge types: CALLS, MESSAGE_BUS, API_ENDPOINT, TRIGGERS_EVENT, PRODUCES_EVENT, TRIGGERS_COMMAND_EVENT, INHERITS). Compute gap: impacted_files - changed_files = potentially stale files. Risk: <5 Low, 5-20 Medium, >20 High. Use trace --direction downstream for deep chains on high-impact files.

Severity Rubric — Classify every finding by consequence, not by how easy it is to fix. One scale across all reviews so a "High" means the same thing everywhere.

| Severity | Action | Definition | | -------- | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | CRITICAL | Block merge | Silent runtime failure, data corruption, validation bypass, security hole | | HIGH | Must fix | Incorrect behavior, invariant gap, architectural violation | | MEDIUM | Should fix | Design debt, maintainability, likely future bug | | LOW | Nice to fix | Convention, documentation, minor clarity |

Score-based skills map their numeric scale onto these tiers — do not invent a parallel vocabulary:

0-2 criterion scoring (e.g. production-readiness-review): 0 = CRITICAL/HIGH (criterion unmet, blocks production readiness), 1 = MEDIUM (partial, should fix), 2 = pass (no finding).

Two-axis scoring (e.g. performance-review, impact × likelihood): map the resulting cell to the nearest tier — high-impact + high-likelihood → CRITICAL/HIGH; low-impact OR low-likelihood → MEDIUM/LOW.

A finding's tier drives the gate: CRITICAL/HIGH must be resolved or explicitly accepted by the owner before PASS; MEDIUM/LOW may ship with a tracked follow-up.

Goal Contract Satisfaction Loop — Persist the user goal in an external file, execute against it, and loop review/fix until every saved required criterion passes or a blocker escalates. Bounded closed loop — NEVER open-ended autonomous exploration.

Resolve the active goal (in order): active plan goal.md → plans/goals/{YYMMDD-HHmm}-{slug}/goal.md → create a new Goal Contract from the current user request (template: .claude/templates/goal-contract-template.md).

Required sections: Original Request, Purpose, Success Criteria (checkboxes; mark required vs optional), Constraints, Evidence Required, Iteration Log, Goal Satisfaction matrix.

Before work: read the active goal and map planned work to saved success criteria — execution serves the saved criteria, never chat memory alone.

After execution/verification: append an Iteration Log entry — result, evidence references (file:line, command output, report path), remaining gaps.

Review gate: emit a Goal Satisfaction matrix — | Success Criterion | Evidence | Status | with PASS/FAIL/BLOCKED. Overall PASS requires every required criterion PASS.

Loop rule (retry): required criterion FAIL → validate the gap is real → fix → re-review only the affected criteria. Stop cleanly when all required criteria PASS.

Escalation rule (stop): two consecutive iterations with no criterion progressing, or a blocker needing user input → mark the criterion BLOCKED with a user-facing reason and escalate. NEVER loop indefinitely.

Skip rule: tiny conversational tasks may skip the goal file ONLY with a recorded one-line reason. User-accepted gate skips are recorded in the goal file with reason and scope.

Security: NEVER store secrets, tokens, credentials, or private customer data in goal files — store evidence references and redact sensitive values.

Blocked until: active goal resolved (or skip reason recorded) · saved success criteria read before edits · iteration evidence appended after execution · Goal Satisfaction matrix emitted before any PASS verdict.

Trade-Off Interrogation Gate — ALWAYS ask these THREE questions before ANY verdict, score, finding, or recommendation — about the thing under review AND about every recommendation YOU make. — why: naming a benefit without its price is an endorsement, not a review; the costliest trade-offs are the ones nobody wrote down.

Is there any trade-off? Name what it SACRIFICES. "None" / "pure win" is an unfinished analysis, NOT an answer — to claim none, state which dimensions you checked and why each is unaffected: future change cost · complexity · performance/latency · memory/cost · coupling · reversibility · migration burden · operational load · blast radius · security posture · testability · team skill/ramp · delivery time · UX.

Is it worth it? Weigh gain against sacrifice EXPLICITLY — what is gained (with a metric) · what it costs · WHO pays · WHEN it comes due — then emit WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR. "Better" with no metric and no cost FAILS this question. NOT WORTH IT → withdraw or replace the recommendation, never keep it as-is.

Is the trade-off material enough to CONFIRM WITH THE USER? A material trade-off is the user's call, never yours. MATERIAL when ANY holds: irreversible / one-way door (data migration, public contract, storage format, vendor lock-in) · cost shifted onto someone else (another team, ops/on-call, future maintainer, end user) · one quality attribute traded for another (correctness↔speed, security↔convenience, latency↔cost, simplicity↔flexibility) · a boundary crossed (client↔server tier, service contract, event contract, shared library) · a high-consequence path (auth, money, data integrity, breaking change, High/Medium residual risk) · the worth-it verdict is UNCLEAR.

MATERIAL → STOP and confirm by asking the user directly BEFORE the verdict stands — state the trade-off, both options, what each sacrifices, and your recommendation. NOT material → record it inline with a one-line justification and proceed.

Non-asking execution contexts — ESCALATE BY HANDOFF, never by silence. ask the user directly reaches only the main interactive agent: a sub-agent cannot ask the user, and a terminal/verdict-only mode asks nothing by design. When you are running in such a context, the obligation is redirected, never waived — do ALL of: (a) complete questions 1 and 2 normally; (b) decide materiality and record it in the Trade-Off Assessment row with confirmed? = NO — cannot ask from this context; (c) name the unconfirmed MATERIAL trade-off explicitly in your returned summary/verdict so the CALLER (or parent orchestrator) escalates it by asking the user directly on your behalf — a material trade-off mentioned only inside a report file on disk is NOT a handoff; (d) do not emit an unqualified PASS — mark the verdict as carrying an unconfirmed material trade-off, so the caller's gate stays closed until the user answers. The caller inherits the escalation duty the moment it reads your return.

This carve-out is about reachability, not convenience: it applies ONLY where the tool genuinely cannot reach the user (spawned sub-agent, terminal validate/verdict-only mode, non-interactive/headless run). It is NEVER a licence to skip the question, to self-approve a one-way door, or to downgrade materiality because asking is inconvenient — if you CAN ask, you MUST ask.

Emit a Trade-Off Assessment row per reviewed decision and per recommendation: | decision | sacrifices | gain (metric) | who pays, when | WORTH IT/NOT/UNCLEAR | material? | confirmed? |.

BLOCKED until: trade-off named (or dimensions-checked justification given) · worth-it verdict emitted · materiality decided · every MATERIAL trade-off either confirmed with the user OR — in a non-asking context — handed off in the returned verdict for the caller to confirm. A MATERIAL trade-off that is neither confirmed nor handed off can NEVER be PASS, and NEVER gets buried as a Low-severity note.

NEVER answer "no trade-off" without checking · decide a material trade-off silently on the user's behalf · let convergence/delivery pressure authorize walking through a one-way door · bundle several material trade-offs into one vague "proceed?".

MANDATORY Bootstrap task tracking before target work; transition one task at a time.
MANDATORY Persist plan/review findings to plans/reports/ incrementally and synthesize from disk.

MANDATORY Before investigating, planning, or coding, read docs/project-config.json (the project map: modules/paths, run-commands, conventions, architecture/workflow rules) + the required project-reference docs, and cite Reference docs read: ....
MANDATORY Always include lessons.md; project config + conventions override generic framework defaults.
MANDATORY If project config, root instruction files, or any required reference doc is missing or stale, auto-run $project-init or the narrow lower-level route before ordinary project-specific work.

MUST ATTENTION FIRST review action — note change context + holistically trace full pipeline of main affected area across client↔server seam (BE→FE forward, FE→BE backward). Verify both tiers still agree on route/DTO/field/type/nullability/auth; any mismatch = BREAKING finding. Skip only for single-tier / docs-only changes (state so).

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION microservices/event-driven: scan producers, consumers, sagas, contracts in task scope. Per touchpoint: owner · message · consumers · risk (NONE/ADDITIVE/BREAKING). Missing consumer = silent regression.

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION debugger trace gate: for non-trivial bug/fix/investigation/review work, start at the observed final output and trace backward through reader -> storage/projection -> writer -> consumer/job -> producer/trigger. Enumerate all feeder paths and hypotheses before fixing. BLOCKED until trace, hypothesis matrix, owning fix layer, and forward convergence proof exist.

MANDATORY Parent workflow rows do not replace child phase tracking; expand phases and link the parent when nested.
MANDATORY Orchestrators pre-expand child skill phases before invocation; use [N.M] $skill-name — phase prefixes and one-in_progress discipline.

MANDATORY Resolve the active Goal Contract BEFORE work (active plan goal.md → plans/goals/{YYMMDD-HHmm}-{slug}/goal.md → create from current request) and read saved success criteria before editing.
MANDATORY Append iteration evidence after execution; emit a Goal Satisfaction matrix (PASS/FAIL/BLOCKED) before reporting PASS; loop on validated FAIL; escalate repeated no-progress or blockers. NEVER store secrets in goal files.

MANDATORY Classify findings Critical/High/Medium/Low by consequence; Critical/High block PASS until fixed or owner-accepted.
MANDATORY Score-based skills (sre 0-2, perf two-axis) map onto the same four tiers — no parallel severity vocabulary.

Prompt-Enhance Closing Anchors

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION follow declared step order for this skill; NEVER skip, reorder, or merge steps without explicit user approval
IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION for every step/sub-skill call: set in_progress before execution, set completed after execution
IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION every skipped step MUST include explicit reason; every completed step MUST include concise evidence
IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION if Task tools unavailable, maintain an equivalent step-by-step plan tracker with synchronized statuses

MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION execute the review loop (aka Self-Review Convergence Loop): review → validate findings → fix validated findings → full re-review. A complete review pass with zero findings ENDS the review. Any newly produced output/judgment gets ≥1 self-review; any new judgment gets ≥1 $why-review --validate-findings pass before it is treated as final.
MANDATORY apply the severity floor: rounds 1-2 exit on zero findings at any severity; from round 3 the bar is zero CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM — LOW findings are no longer required to be fixed, so a LOW-only round ENDS the loop. List every deferred LOW in the report; NEVER re-tier a real CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM down to LOW to reach the exit, and NEVER apply the floor to a binary gate (test-green, security must-fix).
MANDATORY enforce the round cap of 3 — a ceiling, NEVER a target: a clean pass ends the loop immediately at any round (round 1 included), and round 3 completing with CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM still open → STOP & escalate by asking the user directly, never a silent PASS. The 2-repeated-no-progress blocker rule is an earlier exit — escalate at whichever trips first. NEVER loop open-ended.

MANDATORY MUST ATTENTION ALWAYS ASK THE 3 TRADE-OFF QUESTIONS — on the thing under review AND on every recommendation you make: (1) is there any trade-off? name what it SACRIFICES (change cost · complexity · perf · coupling · reversibility · migration · ops load · blast radius · security · testability · delivery time · UX) — "none"/"pure win" is an unfinished analysis, so state the dimensions checked; (2) is it worth it? gain (with a metric) vs cost, WHO pays, WHEN → emit WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR; NOT WORTH IT → withdraw or replace it; (3) is it material enough to confirm with the user? irreversible/one-way door · cost shifted onto another team/ops/maintainer/user · one quality attribute traded for another · a tier/service/event/library boundary crossed · auth/money/data-integrity/breaking-change/High-or-Medium-risk path · verdict UNCLEAR → STOP and confirm by asking the user directly BEFORE the verdict.
MANDATORY A MATERIAL trade-off with no user confirmation can NEVER be PASS; NEVER bury one as a Low-severity note, NEVER decide it silently, and NEVER let delivery or convergence pressure authorize a one-way door. — why: an un-walked-back one-way door is the user's call to make, not the reviewer's.
MANDATORY — non-asking contexts escalate BY HANDOFF, never by silence. ask the user directly reaches only the main interactive agent: a sub-agent cannot ask the user, and a terminal/verdict-only mode asks nothing by design. There the duty is REDIRECTED, not waived — still name the trade-off, still decide materiality, record confirmed? = NO — cannot ask from this context, state the unconfirmed MATERIAL trade-off in your RETURNED verdict/summary so the CALLER escalates it (a note only in an on-disk report is not a handoff), and never emit an unqualified PASS. Applies ONLY where the user is genuinely unreachable (spawned sub-agent, terminal validate mode, headless run) — if you CAN ask, you MUST ask.

Parallel Sub-Agent Dispatch — Plan parallelism the moment a task breakdown exists, BEFORE executing it — running provably independent tasks sequentially wastes wall-clock. Applies to every multi-step job: workflow steps, planning, batch updates, investigation, research, scans, reviews, doc sync. Plan execution is metadata-gated, NEVER default-parallel — fan-out follows ONLY what the plan declares (PAR/SEQ tags + per-phase write set); an untagged plan runs sequentially — why: a derived write set cannot see cascade or generated writes.

Tag every task PAR or SEQ. PAR = inputs exclude every pending task's output AND write set disjoint from every other PAR. Else SEQ — MUST ATTENTION name the dependency forcing it.

Group PAR into waves. No edge between members. Two writers of one file NEVER share a wave. Read-only work (search, investigation, review, research) parallelizes freely.

Declare before dispatch: Parallel plan: wave 1 = [...] · wave 2 = [...] · SEQ = [...] (reason).

Spawn each wave in ONE message — every spawn_agent call in one response, NEVER dripped per turn. Route each task to its specialist (.claude/skills/shared/sub-agent-selection-guide.md); NEVER code-reviewer as catch-all.

Brief each sub-agent self-contained: goal · scope + owned files · reference docs · return contract (summary + Full report: path, per SYNC:subagent-return-contract) · incremental persistence to plans/reports/ (per SYNC:incremental-persistence).

Barrier per wave. Advance ONLY after EVERY member returns (a skipped conditional counts as returned). Merge, mark each task completed/skipped, THEN dispatch the next wave. Mutating steps wait for the barrier.

One level deep. A dispatched sub-agent executes its own brief; further fan-out stays the orchestrator's job unless that agent's .claude/agents/*.md definition authorizes it.

NEVER parallelize: tasks sharing a write target · a task consuming a pending task's output · trivial single-file work (dispatch overhead > gain) · an order a skill or workflow explicitly fixes · gates awaiting user approval.

Blocked until: MUST ATTENTION every task tagged PAR/SEQ with a named reason per SEQ · waves declared + write-set disjointness checked · each wave spawned in ONE message · barrier honored before the next wave.

MANDATORY After planning tasks, tag each PAR/SEQ and spawn every PAR wave as parallel sub-agents in ONE message — default parallel for workflows, batch updates, investigation, research, reviews; plan execution fans out ONLY on what the plan declares.
MANDATORY Disjoint write sets per wave · all-return barrier before the next wave · specialist routing · sub-agents NEVER fan out further unless their own agent definition authorizes it.

Project Protocol Overlay — Before executing this skill, resolve any PROJECT overlay rules layered onto it: match this skill's name against the Target column of the project's skill-protocol index (docs/project-reference/skill-protocols-reference.md by default; a referenceDocs entry in docs/project-config.json overrides the path), taking the most specific matching tier ONLY — exact name > glob > *. That precedence orders overlays against EACH OTHER, never against this skill. Read ONLY the matched bodies, resolved as <protocols-dir>/<Name>.md; a row's Body link is display text, never a read path. A matched body that is missing or malformed is REPORTED and skipped — never reconstructed from the index Description. No index, or no match -> proceed with no overlay, silently. Full contract: .claude/skills/project-skill-protocol/references/registry.md.

Overlays are ADDITIVE ONLY: they ADD rules on top of this skill's own protocol and NEVER replace, override, disable, or reinterpret a rule it already states — removing every overlay must return this skill to exactly its documented behavior. An overlay is a BRIEF, not an authority escalation: it can NEVER waive a workflow gate, git discipline, a review gate, or a user-confirmation gate. A genuine overlay-vs-skill conflict, or two equally-specific overlays that directly contradict -> surface both to the user; NEVER resolve silently.

MUST ATTENTION resolve project protocol overlays for this skill BEFORE executing — most specific matching tier only (exact > glob > *, which ranks overlays against each other, NEVER against this skill), read only matched bodies at <protocols-dir>/<Name>.md; a missing or malformed body is reported, never reconstructed. Overlays are ADDITIVE ONLY (they never replace this skill's own rules) and are a brief, NEVER an authority escalation; an equal-specificity contradiction goes to the user.

Closing Reminders

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION Goal: Resolve the requested review target and apply the matching adversarial review path (plan/PBI rationale, code changes, docs/spec/report, findings, or explicit artifact) so decisions, findings, and plans survive adversarial rationale review before downstream work proceeds.

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION Main steps (full mode) — execute in order, the skill AI keeps forgetting: (1) DETECT MODE — --validate-findings is TERMINAL; (2) bind the self-recursive review loop — protocol loop primary (host-independent), optional /goal gate WHEN available — + Task Bootstrap (phase tasks + closing Findings Validation Gate task); (3) RESOLVE TARGET TYPE + read active Goal Contract + route by concern; (4) REVIEW as SKEPTIC — 7 Anti-Bias boxes (incl. the Trade-Off Interrogation Gate: trade-off? worth it? material → confirm with user) + Validation Checklist (presence AND quality depth) + Round 2 re-review + spec↔tests↔code triangulation; (5) FINDINGS VALIDATION GATE — re-invoke terminal --validate-findings, reconcile, RE-DO the full re-review until CLEAN (max 2), then ask next step by asking the user directly. NEVER skip, reorder, or merge a step without explicit user approval. — why: the steps ARE the review's integrity; dropping one ships an unproven verdict.

Protocols in force (concise digest of the SYNC/shared blocks this skill carries): these are signposts — the canonical bodies above are binding; MUST ATTENTION honor each, NEVER treat a digest line as the full rule.

End-To-Start Debugger Trace: for non-trivial bugs, trace observed final state backward to trigger.
Behavioral Delta Matrix: bugfix verdict needs ≥3-row pre/post delta table, one outside report.
Nested Task Creation: workflow rows still expand child phase tasks; link parent when nested.
Project Reference Docs: read scoped project docs (always lessons.md) before judging conventions.
Task Tracking & External Report: bootstrap tasks; persist long-review findings to plans/reports/ incrementally.
Critical Thinking: every claim traced + proof-backed; confidence >80% to act, stay self-skeptical.
Sequential Thinking: multi-step Thought N/M with REVISION/BRANCH/HYPOTHESIS markers and confidence closer.
AI Mistake Prevention: verify generated content against evidence, trace downstream references, verify all affected outputs, re-read after context loss, surface ambiguity.
Evidence-Based Reasoning: cite file:line/grep/docs for every claim; no proof, no recommendation.
Double Round-Trip Review: review → validate → fix validated → full re-review until clean ends loop.
Fresh Context Review: after a fix cycle restart full review with fresh zero-memory sub-agents.
Review Protocol Injection: embed all 11 protocol bodies VERBATIM into each fresh sub-agent prompt.
Graph Impact Analysis: run blast-radius when graph.db exists; impacted minus changed = stale files.
Severity Rubric: classify findings Critical/High/Medium/Low by consequence; Critical/High block PASS.
Trade-Off Interrogation Gate: always ask — trade-off? worth it? material → confirm with the user before any PASS.
Parallel Sub-Agent Dispatch: Tag tasks PAR/SEQ, group PAR into disjoint-write-set waves, spawn each wave in ONE message, barrier before advancing.

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION default stance SKEPTIC, NOT validator — before ANY verdict complete all 7 Anti-Bias Gate boxes: steel-man ≥1 rejected alternative, name ≥1 unseen alternative, list 2-3 arguments AGAINST chosen approach, stress-test 2-3 hidden assumptions, run a pre-mortem, check pros/cons symmetry, run the Trade-Off Interrogation Gate. — why: section presence is never a pass, and a reviewer who already endorsed the reasoning needs a forced reset to find what's wrong.

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION ALWAYS ASK THE 3 TRADE-OFF QUESTIONS — on the decision under review AND on EVERY recommendation you yourself make: (1) Is there any trade-off? name what it SACRIFICES across future change cost · complexity · performance · coupling · reversibility · migration · ops load · blast radius · security · testability · team skill · delivery time · UX — "no trade-off" / "pure win" is an unfinished analysis, so state the dimensions checked and why each is unaffected; (2) Is it worth it? weigh gain vs sacrifice explicitly — what is gained (with a metric), what it costs, WHO pays, WHEN it comes due → emit WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR; NOT WORTH IT → withdraw or replace the recommendation, never keep it; (3) Is the trade-off material enough to confirm with the user? MATERIAL when irreversible (one-way door) · cost shifted onto another team/ops/maintainer/user · one quality attribute traded for another · a tier/service/event/library boundary crossed · an auth/money/data-integrity/breaking-change/High-or-Medium-risk path · or the worth-it verdict is UNCLEAR → STOP and confirm via its OWN ask the user directly BEFORE the next-step question and BEFORE any PASS verdict, stating the trade-off, both options, what each sacrifices, and your recommendation. Emit the Trade-Off Assessment table every review; a MATERIAL trade-off with no user confirmation can NEVER be PASS, and NEVER bury one as a Low-severity note. In validate-findings terminal mode: assess and record, do NOT ask — flag it so the caller escalates. — why: a benefit named without its price is an endorsement rather than a review, unpriced fixes cost more than the bugs they remove, and a one-way door is the user's call to walk through, never the reviewer's. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION resolve target type BEFORE reviewing: plan/PBI rationale, code changes, docs/spec/report, findings, or another artifact. Commit/PR/diff input defaults to code-change review; say "no active plan" ONLY for unresolved plan-rationale requests, NEVER silently convert target types. — why: wrong target type reviews the wrong artifact against the wrong checklist. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION recursion guard is non-negotiable: full mode may call $why-review --validate-findings at most ONCE; validate-findings mode is TERMINAL — NEVER re-invokes why-review, NEVER runs the gate, NEVER spawns a sub-agent. — why: any of these from terminal mode causes infinite recursion.

IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION cite file:line evidence + severity + confidence for EVERY finding (>80% act, <60% do NOT recommend); reject "probably / should be / I think" — why: an unproven finding is speculation, not a review result. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION judge by Easy-to-Change — every finding, test, refactor, abstraction must lower future change cost; name the real enemies (coupling, hidden state, duplicated knowledge, unclear intent, premature irreversible decisions) or reject the recommendation. — why: this metric overrides any downstream "best practice" that raises change cost. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION search 3+ existing patterns and read target files BEFORE judging conventions; evaluate fit before flagging a nearby pattern as "wrong" (closest example ≠ matching preconditions). — why: local conventions override generic framework defaults; pattern-matching without context manufactures false findings. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION break work into small todo tasks via task tracking BEFORE starting; in full mode create the Findings Validation Gate closing task at skill START (Task Bootstrap) and run it whenever findings exist — re-invoke $why-review --validate-findings (TERMINAL, SAME session) to confirm every finding is correct, proof-backed, reasonable, best-practice; RE-DO ONLY on surfaced finding issues/enhancements (max 2 re-dos, then escalate by asking the user directly). — why: the gate catches inflated, misread, or unproven findings before handoff. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION execute the review loop: review → validate findings → fix validated findings → full re-review; a complete review pass with zero findings ENDS the review. NEVER fix unvalidated findings; NEVER reuse a sub-agent across rounds (spawn NEW spawn_agent calls); main agent reads sub-agent reports but does NOT filter or override. — why: every fix invalidates the prior verdict, and orchestrator confirmation bias hides regressions a fresh zero-memory reviewer catches. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION judge the WHOLE PACKAGE, not the diff alone — load the behavior's spec (§3 AC / §4 BR / §8 TC), its tests, and the changed code together and triangulate; a missing or disagreeing face is itself a finding (CODE-WRONG / SPEC-STALE / TEST-GAP / SPEC-SILENT). NEVER mark PASS while any face disagrees without a logged finding. — why: the diff is the entry point, the package is the unit of judgment. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION when the target holds integration/E2E tests — or changes behavior that HAS covering integration tests — apply the Integration-Test-Review Linkage: $integration-test-review owns the 8 test-quality gates, so read its protocol (Mode A default) or delegate to it (Mode B, standalone full mode only) rather than judging assertion quality by eye. SKIP under any of the 4 guard rows (validate-findings mode · invoked by $integration-test-review Phase 9 · by changes-review in ANY phase — 0.8, 6, or 7.5 — or $workflow-review-changes · by $debug-investigate's root-cause gate) and record the deferral line. — why: this skill's Test/spec/doc sync dimension claims to prove tests protect the invariant, but only those gates can answer it; and an unguarded call closes a why-review → integration-test-review → why-review cycle. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION every behavior-changing finding carries BOTH a spec-drift verdict (CODE-WRONG / SPEC-STALE / AMBIGUOUS / SPEC-SILENT / in-sync) AND a concrete test-feedback action; a SPEC-SILENT verdict additionally REQUIRES a spec-enrichment action (§4 BR/§3 AC + §8 TC). A missing axis is HAS-ISSUES, never a clean finding. — why: code-only fixes silently drop the invariant from the spec and leave it unguarded. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION for bugfix / regression / behavior-changing reviews, walk the End-to-Start debugger trace (observed final state → backward → feeder paths → hypothesis matrix → owning layer → forward convergence proof) and produce the Behavioral Delta Matrix (≥3 rows, ≥1 row outside the bug report) BEFORE the verdict; any REGRESSION delta → FAIL until a preservation test covers it. — why: narrative claims hide regressions and symptom-first fixes the matrix and trace force into view. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION require fixes at the owning layer — the lowest layer that owns the invariant — NEVER at the symptom/crash site; a fix touching 3+ files with defensive checks signals the wrong layer, go lower. — why: symptom-site patches leave every other consumer exposed. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION High/Medium residual risk must be fixed, reduced, or explicitly accepted by the user/owner before PASS; AI-extracted specs/TCs are not accepted evidence unless the canonical owner/review gate accepted them. — why: unowned residual risk is a deferred failure, not a pass. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION flag 3+ duplicated patterns for extraction and same-suffix classes (*Entity/*Dto/*Service) for a shared base when it lowers future change cost; NEVER recommend a pattern with fewer than 3 occurrences (YAGNI). — why: both over- and under-abstraction raise future change cost. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION read reference docs chosen by Project Reference Docs Gate (always include docs/project-reference/lessons.md); persist long-review findings to plans/reports/ incrementally; validate the next step with the user by asking the user directly in full mode — NEVER auto-proceed. — why: project docs override generic assumptions, external memory survives compaction, and the review gate is user-owned. IMPORTANT MUST ATTENTION add a final review todo task to verify work quality.

MUST ATTENTION apply critical + sequential thinking — every claim needs appropriate traced evidence (file:line for repo/code claims; source URL or artifact section for research, product, content, and docs claims); confidence >80% to act, <60% DO NOT recommend. Anti-hallucination: never present guess as fact, admit uncertainty freely, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence.

MUST ATTENTION apply sequential-thinking — multi-step Thought N/M, REVISION/BRANCH/HYPOTHESIS markers, confidence % closer; see $sequential-thinking skill.

MUST ATTENTION apply AI mistake prevention — verify generated content against evidence, trace downstream references before deleting or renaming, verify all affected outputs, re-read files after context loss, and surface ambiguity before acting.

[IMPORTANT] Analyze how big the task is and break it into many small todo tasks systematically before starting — this is very important.

[GOAL REMINDER — MUST ATTENTION CRITICAL]

Ensure every review target is reasonable, correct, proof-backed, and best-practice aligned. ALWAYS ASK THE 3 TRADE-OFF QUESTIONS (every decision AND every recommendation you make): (1) is there any trade-off? — name what it sacrifices; "none" is an unfinished analysis, not an answer; (2) is it worth it? — gain vs cost, who pays, when → WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR; (3) is the trade-off material enough to confirm with the user? — irreversible, cost shifted to someone else, one quality attribute traded for another, boundary crossed, high-consequence path, or UNCLEAR → STOP and confirm by asking the user directly BEFORE the verdict. NEVER resolve a material trade-off silently. — why: naming a benefit without its price is an endorsement, not a review, and a one-way door is the user's call to walk through, never yours. MANDATORY SECOND PASS (full mode): whenever Round 1 produces ANY finding, you MUST call $why-review --validate-findings a SECOND time on those findings to confirm each is correct and reasonable BEFORE handoff. NEVER skip it; NEVER suppress, demote, or under-report findings to dodge it. The self-recursive review loop — the protocol loop primarily (host-independent), plus a /goal Stop-hook gate WHEN available — BLOCKS stopping until findings are validated. — why: an unvalidated finding is an unproven claim, and a second self-review catches the misreads and inflation Round 1 rationalized.

Anti-Rationalization:

| Evasion | Rebuttal | | --------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | "No active plan" | Valid only for unresolved plan-rationale requests; commits/diffs/PBIs/docs are targets. | | "Just code review" | Still resolve target, read docs, run graph, map tests/specs/docs. | | "Findings look obvious" | Validate every finding via terminal --validate-findings. | | "Round 1 is enough" | Full mode with ANY finding MUST run the SECOND --validate-findings pass; the protocol review loop (and the /goal Stop hook when available) blocks stopping until it does. | | "Report zero findings, skip the gate" | Suppressing/demoting findings to dodge validation is the exact bias the SKEPTIC stance forbids; surface them, THEN validate. | | "Validate inline, don't re-invoke" | The second pass is a real terminal $why-review --validate-findings call on the written report — not a mental once-over. | | "All dimensions at once" | One focused pass per dimension; split attention catches misses. | | "Ask later" | Full mode asks user next step before completion. | | "Looks good / faces agree" | Default SKEPTIC; complete all 7 Anti-Bias boxes; triangulate spec↔tests↔code — any disagreeing face is a finding. | | "No trade-off here / pure win" | Unexamined ≠ absent. Name the dimensions checked (change cost, complexity, perf, coupling, reversibility, ops, security, delivery) and why each is unaffected. | | "Trade-off is obvious, it's fine" | Emit the explicit WORTH IT / NOT WORTH IT / UNCLEAR verdict with gain, cost, who pays, when. "Obvious" is not a verdict. | | "I'll note the trade-off in the report instead of asking" | A MATERIAL trade-off needs its OWN ask the user directly before any PASS — a buried note is not a confirmation. | | "Just a review, not my decision to escalate" | Surfacing a material trade-off for the user's call IS the review's job; silence hands the decision to no one. | | "Behavior change, no spec impact" | Emit spec-drift verdict + test-feedback action; SPEC-SILENT requires §4 BR/§3 AC + §8 TC enrichment. | | "Fix where it crashes" | Fix at the owning layer (lowest invariant owner); the crash site is the symptom, not the cause. | | "High risk, but ship" | High/Medium residual risk must be fixed, reduced, or owner-accepted before PASS. |

Closing reminder — Easy to Change is the success metric. Every finding, test, refactor, and abstraction must answer one question: does this make the next change cheaper or more expensive? If it doesn't reduce future change cost, reject it. Coupling, hidden state, duplicated knowledge, and unclear intent are the real enemies — call them out by name.

Hookless Prompt Protocol Mirror (Auto-Synced)

Source: .claude/.ck.json + .claude/skills/shared/sync-inline-versions.md (:full blocks) + .claude/scripts/lib/hookless-prompt-protocol.cjs

[WORKFLOW-EXECUTION-PROTOCOL] [BLOCKING] Workflow Execution Protocol — MANDATORY IMPORTANT MUST CRITICAL. Do not skip for any reason.

Generic portability boundary: Reusable skills and protocol text stay project-neutral; project-specific conventions are discovered from docs/project-config.json and docs/project-reference/. Apply shared AI-SDD from shared/sdd-artifact-contract.md. Read docs/project-config.json and docs/project-reference/docs-index-reference.md, then open the project reference docs named there. For spec, test-case, behavior-change, public-contract, or docs/specs/ work, route through the local spec docs named by the docs index: feature-spec-reference.md, spec-system-reference.md, spec-principles.md, and workflow-spec-test-code-cycle-reference.md when specs/tests/code must stay synchronized. If either file or a required reference doc is missing or stale, auto-run $project-init (or the narrow lower-level route such as $project-config, $docs-init, $scan-all, or $scan --target=<key>) before ordinary project-specific work. Any supported AI tool may execute when this shared context and local docs are available.

DETECT: If the prompt starts with an explicit slash skill/workflow command, execute it directly. Otherwise match the prompt against the workflow catalog and skill list.
ANALYZE: Choose the best option: execute directly, invoke a skill, activate a standard workflow, or compose a custom step combination.
AUTO-SELECT: Pick the best option yourself. Do not ask the user to choose between direct execution, skill, standard workflow, or custom workflow.
ACTIVATE: For a selected workflow, call $start-workflow <workflowId>; for a selected skill, invoke that skill; for a custom workflow, sequence custom steps directly; for direct execution, proceed with the task.
CREATE TASKS: task tracking for ALL workflow/skill/custom steps before execution when the selected path has multiple steps.
PARALLELIZE: Before executing the task list, tag each task PAR (independent inputs + write set disjoint from every other PAR task) or SEQ (name the blocking dependency), group PAR tasks into waves, declare the wave plan, and spawn each wave's sub-agents in ONE message — all-return barrier per wave, fan-out one level deep unless a sub-agent's own definition authorizes further fan-out. Sequential-by-default is a defect when tasks are independent; do not parallelize shared write targets, output-consuming tasks, trivial single-file work, ordering a skill or workflow explicitly fixes, or user-approval gates.
EXECUTE: Advance per the Workflow Step Advancement & Parallel Phases rule in your context instructions — model-driven; a sub-agent completion advances a step identically to an inline call; a parallel-phase group is an all-return barrier (advance only after ALL members return, never serialize it)

Shared AI-SDD Protocol Markers

Source: .claude/skills/shared/sync-inline-versions.md

SYNC:ai-sdd-artifact-contract

AI-SDD Artifact Contract — Shared spec-driven development rules stay portable and source-owned.

Keep reusable AI-SDD principles in .claude; put repository-specific paths, commands, owners, products, and formats in project config/reference docs.

Preserve cycle: spec -> plan -> tasks -> implement -> verify -> update spec/docs.

Trace every requirement or invariant through decision, task, TC/test, source evidence, and docs/spec update.

Treat code-to-spec extraction as reference-only until accepted by the canonical spec owner.

Any supported AI tool may plan, implement, review, or verify with synced context; using multiple tools is optional.

Update .claude source first, then sync generated mirrors; do not manually edit .agents, .codex, or AGENTS.md. — why: mirrors are generated artifacts; hand-edits are overwritten on the next sync

If docs/project-config.json, root instruction files, or a required project-reference doc is missing or stale, auto-run $project-init or the narrow lower-level route before ordinary project-specific work.

Active reference: shared/sdd-artifact-contract.md in the active skills root.

SYNC:ai-sdd-artifact-contract:reminder

MANDATORY Apply shared/sdd-artifact-contract.md; keep reusable AI-SDD in .claude and local rules in project docs.
MANDATORY Code-to-spec extraction is reference-only until canonical acceptance; any supported AI tool may execute with synced context.
MANDATORY Update .claude source before syncing generated mirrors; do not manually edit .agents, .codex, or AGENTS.md.
MANDATORY Missing or stale project config, root instruction files, or required reference docs route project-specific work through $project-init or the narrow setup route automatically. [TASK-PLANNING] [MANDATORY] BEFORE executing any workflow or skill step, create/update task tracking for all planned steps, then keep it synchronized as each step starts/completes.

[LESSON-LEARNED-REMINDER] [BLOCKING] Task Planning & Continuous Improvement — MANDATORY. Do not skip.

Break work into small tasks (task tracking) before starting. Add final task: "Analyze AI mistakes & lessons learned".

Extract lessons — ROOT CAUSE ONLY, not symptom fixes:

Name the FAILURE MODE (reasoning/assumption failure), not symptom — "assumed API existed without reading source" not "used wrong enum value".
Generality test: does this failure mode apply to ≥3 contexts/codebases? If not, abstract one level up.
Write as a universal rule — strip project-specific names/paths/classes. Useful on any codebase.
Consolidate: multiple mistakes sharing one failure mode → ONE lesson.
Recurrence gate: "Would this recur in future session WITHOUT this reminder?" — No → skip $learn.
Auto-fix gate: "Could $code-review/$code-simplifier/$security-review/$lint catch this?" — Yes → improve review skill instead.
BOTH gates pass → ask user to run $learn. [CRITICAL-THINKING-MINDSET] Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination principle: Never present guess as fact — cite sources for every claim, admit uncertainty freely, self-check output for errors, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence — certainty without evidence root of all hallucination. AI Attention principle (Primacy-Recency): Put the 3 most critical rules at both top and bottom of long prompts/protocols so instruction adherence survives long context windows. Goal-driven execution: Define success criteria first, loop until verified, and stop only when observable checks pass. Tests verify intent: Tests must protect business rules/invariants and fail when the protected intent breaks, not only mirror current behavior.

Common AI Mistake Prevention (System Lessons)

Re-read files after context compaction. Edit requires prior Read in same context; compaction wipes read state. Re-read before editing.
Grep for old terms after bulk replacements. AI over-trusts find/replace completeness. Grep full repo after bulk edits for missed refs in docs/configs/catalogs.
Check downstream references before deleting. Deletions cascade doc/code staleness. Map referencing files before removal.
After memory loss, check existing state before creating new. Compaction wipes prior-work memory. Query current state to resume — never blindly duplicate.
Verify AI-generated content against actual code. AI hallucinates APIs, class names, method signatures. Grep to confirm existence before documenting/referencing.
Trace full dependency chain after edits. Changing a definition misses downstream consumers. Trace the full chain.
When renaming, grep ALL consumer file types. Some file types silently ignore missing refs (no compile error). Search code, templates, configs, generated files.
Trace ALL code paths when verifying correctness. Code existing ≠ code executing. Trace early exits, error branches, conditional skips — not just happy path.
Update docs that embed canonical data when source changes. Docs inlining derived data (workflows, schemas, configs) go stale silently. Update all embedding docs alongside source.
Verify sub-agent results after context recovery. Background agents may finish while parent compacted — grep-verify output, don't trust assumed completion.
Cross-check full target list against sub-agent assignments. Parallel sub-agents by category miss boundary items. Reconcile union of assignments against target list before proceeding.
Sub-agents inherit knowledge only from their agent .md definition — use custom agent types, not built-in Explore. Tool adoption = permission + knowledge + enforcement (numbered workflow step).
Persist sub-agent findings incrementally, not as a final batch. Long sub-agents hit cutoffs before final write — findings lost. Instruct append-per-section to report file.
When debugging, ask "whose responsibility?" before fixing. Trace caller (wrong data) vs callee (wrong handling). Fix at responsible layer — never patch symptom site.
Test failure → record a provisional verdict before trace/edit, then investigate. Use the full five-way taxonomy: SOURCE-WRONG (production violates intent), TEST-WRONG (assertion/setup is stale), TEST-NOT-OPTIMAL (valid but fragile or low-signal test), ENVIRONMENT-BLOCKED (external state prevents a verdict), or AMBIGUOUS (intent/evidence cannot choose safely). Then trace root cause and triangulate against the governing spec (docs/specs/** if one exists) AND source. NEVER weaken an assertion, add a skip, relax a timeout, or change source merely to force green.
Grep ALL removed names after extraction/refactoring. Primary file "done" ≠ secondary files clean. Grep entire scope for every removed symbol before declaring complete.
Assume existing values are intentional — ask WHY before changing OR flagging one as a defect. Pattern-matching as "wrong" skips context. Before changing or reporting any constant/limit/flag/cutoff: read comments, git blame, the CALLER's ordering (the guarantee that makes the value correct usually lives in code running immediately BEFORE the cited line), and 2+ sibling call sites of the same convention. A doc stating WHAT without WHY is missing rationale, not proof of a missing guard — and in a validation pass, an accurate file:line citation proves the transcription, never the defect.
Verify ALL affected outputs, not just the first. One build green ≠ all green. Multi-stack changes (backend/frontend/tests/docs) require verifying EVERY output.
Evaluate fit before copying a nearby pattern. Closest example ≠ matching preconditions — verify the new context shares the same constraints, base classes, scope, lifetime.
Holistic-first debugging — resist nearest-attention trap. Don't dive into first plausible cause. List EVERY precondition (config, env vars, paths, DB, endpoints, creds, versions, DI, data). Verify each against evidence (grep/query — not reasoning). Ask "what would falsify this?" — if nothing, it's not a hypothesis. Most expensive failure: going deeper in "obvious" layer while bug sits in layer never questioned.
Surgical changes — apply the diff test (context-aware). Two modes: (1) Bug fix → every line traces to the bug; no restyling; orphan cleanup only for imports YOUR changes made unused. (2) Review/enhancement → implement improvements AND announce as "Enhancement beyond main request: [what]". Never silently scope-creep. Diff test: "Would this line exist if I wasn't asked to do X?" — if no, delete or announce.
Surface ambiguity before coding — don't pick silently. Multiple valid interpretations → present each with effort: "[Request] could mean (1) [N h], (2) [N h]. Which matters?" List scope/format/volume/constraints assumptions first. If simpler path exists, say so. Never silently pick.
[MANDATORY FIRST ACTION] ALWAYS activate a suitable skill or workflow BEFORE responding. Match task against workflow catalog + skill list; invoke via skill invocation or $start-workflow <workflowId>. NEVER answer or write code before checking. Skip = protocol violation.
Why-Review adversarial mindset — apply when reviewing any plan, decision, or design. Default SKEPTIC not VALIDATOR: steel-man a rejected alternative, invert each stated reason ("what does it sacrifice?"), stress-test top 2-3 assumptions, run pre-mortem ("ships, fails in 3 months — what breaks?"), surface 1-2 alternatives author missed. Section presence ≠ quality; quality = causal reasoning + concrete mitigations + evidence, not "it's better" or "monitor closely".
Front-load report-write in sub-agent prompts for large reviews. Many-file sub-agents hit budget before final write — findings lost. Design prompts so: (1) report-write is first explicit deliverable, (2) append per-file/section (not batched), (3) scope bounded so reads don't exhaust budget. Truncated mid-sentence with no report file → spawn narrower scope, don't retry same prompt.
After context compaction, re-verify all prior phase outcomes before continuing. Summaries describe intent, not environment state (git index, filesystem, processes). On resume, FIRST audit: git status, re-read modified files, verify filesystem. Every "completed" claim is an untested hypothesis until evidence confirms.
OOM/memory: check row count before row size. Triage: (1) Unbounded query — no DB filter for trigger? Push filter to DB; eliminates OOM. (2) Large rows? Projection reduces proportionally. Row reduction > projection in ROI.
Assert the outcome your system OWNS, never the intermediate state your INFRASTRUCTURE owns. When testing anything asynchronous (queue/broker delivery, retries, background jobs, caches, replication), assert the final business/entity state. NEVER assert the delivery bookkeeping — consume/send status, attempt counts, last-error, row existence or counts in a broker, scheduler, or outbox/inbox table. That bookkeeping lives in shared infrastructure that ANY co-running process (a peer worker, a second replica, a leftover local container) can write, usually under a deterministic shared key, so the assertion silently tests the developer's environment instead of the system: green when run alone, flaky the instant anything else shares that broker + database. Gate question for every assertion: "would this hold no matter WHICH process did the work?" — if no, assert the converged data state instead. Corollary: process-local fault injection and in-process telemetry cannot gate work any process may perform — use them as stress amplifiers (arm → bounded window → disarm → assert convergence), never as preconditions.
Keep domain concepts out of generic/shared/infrastructure layers. Reusable layer (shared library, framework, infra module) must reference NO consumer-specific domain concept — tenant/customer/product IDs, business entities, feature rules. Leak compiles + runs → passes review silently while coupling the "reusable" layer to one consumer. Keep shared type domain-free; push domain fields/logic down into the consumer via subclass/composition. — why: a layer coupled to one consumer's domain is no longer reusable.

Agent Skills: why-review

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