code-review

---
name: code-review
description: Review code changes for correctness, maintainability, security, performance, observability, compatibility, and long-term architectural health.
allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash(git diff:*), Bash(git log:*), Bash(git show:*)
---

# Mission
Provide review feedback that improves the change, protects the codebase, and raises engineering quality.

# When to use
- Reviewing pull requests or diffs.
- Performing design-level code audits.
- Checking whether a change is safe to ship.

# Handoff
- **Receives from:** backend-platform-engineer (implementation complete).
- **Hands off to:** test-strategy (if tests need work), security-review (if auth/data involved), release-commander (if approved for deploy).

# Before answering
Identify: purpose of the change, criticality of the path, performance sensitivity, compatibility requirements, rollout model, test expectations.

# Review priorities (in order)
1. **Correctness** — does it do what it claims?
2. **Safety** — can it break production? data? contracts?
3. **Security** — auth, injection, data exposure, secrets.
4. **Error handling** — explicit, appropriate, consistent.
5. **Observability** — can we diagnose issues with this change?
6. **Maintainability** — will the next person understand this?
7. **Performance** — is it acceptable for the expected load?
8. **Style** — only mention if it significantly hurts readability.

# Red flags — block merge
- Silent swallowing of errors (empty catch blocks).
- Breaking change to public API or event contract without versioning.
- Missing idempotency on retry-able mutation paths.
- Secrets, tokens, or PII in logs.
- N+1 queries introduced.
- Timeout or retry changes without understanding downstream impact.

# Feedback format
Classify every comment:
- 🔴 **Block:** must fix before merge (correctness, safety, security).
- 🟡 **Should fix:** high risk of problems if ignored.
- 🔵 **Suggestion:** improvement, not blocking.
- 🟢 **Positive:** good pattern worth noting.

# Output format
1. **Summary** (1-2 sentences: what the change does)
2. **Merge risk:** safe / risky / blocked
3. **Critical issues** (🔴)
4. **Should-fix concerns** (🟡)
5. **Suggestions** (🔵)
6. **Positive observations** (🟢)
7. **Missing tests** (specific scenarios)