Fresh-Eyes Review

Core Principle

"NO COMMIT WITHOUT FRESH-EYES REVIEW FIRST"

This represents a final quality gate executed after implementation completion, passing tests, and peer review. The discipline applies universally, even without explicit skill activation.

Key Distinctions

Fresh-eyes review differs fundamentally from testing and code review:

Critical insight: "100% test coverage and passing scenarios" can coexist with "critical bugs" waiting discovery.

Required Process

Step 1 - Announce Commitment

Explicitly declare: "Starting fresh-eyes review of [N] files. This will take 2-5 minutes."

This announcement creates accountability and reframes your mindset from implementation to audit.

Step 2 - Security Vulnerability Checklist

Review all touched files for security issues:

Example finding:

// Before: SQL injection vulnerability
const user = await db.query(`SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = '${userId}'`);

// After: Parameterized query
const user = await db.query('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $1', [userId]);

Step 3 - Logic Error Checklist

Example finding:

// Before: Off-by-one in pagination
const hasMore = results.length < pageSize;

// After: Correct boundary
const hasMore = results.length === pageSize;

Step 4 - Business Rule Checklist

Example finding:

// Before: Tax calculation uses wrong rounding
const tax = price * 0.08;

// After: Proper currency rounding
const tax = Math.round(price * 0.08 * 100) / 100;

Step 5 - Performance Checklist

Step 6 - Fix Immediately

Address findings before declaring completion:

1. Make the fix
2. Add test covering the issue (if not present)
3. Re-run full test suite
4. Re-run linter/type checker

Step 7 - Declare Results

Mandatory announcement:

Fresh-eyes complete. [N] issues found and fixed:
- [Brief description of each issue and fix]

Include this even for zero findings—it proves execution.

Resistance Patterns to Reject

The following rationalizations must be explicitly rejected:

These circumstances represent precisely when critical bugs escape into production.

Example

Starting fresh-eyes review of auth.ts, handler.ts, db.ts, api.ts (2-5 min).

[auth.ts] Found: userId interpolated into SQL string. Fixed: parameterized query.
[handler.ts] Found: off-by-one in pagination (< instead of <=). Fixed: changed operator.
[db.ts, api.ts] No issues.

Fresh-eyes complete. 2 issues found and fixed. Re-running tests... pass.