Scope Review

Scope Review

Gather context first

This skill ships standalone, so it can't assume your project's conventions, house style, or preferences the way it could for its author. Before doing the main work:

1. Auto-detect what you safely can from the repo — language/stack, base branch, build/test commands, existing config and docs. Never ask for something you can read for yourself.
2. Ask, don't assume, for the rest. Where an input, convention, or preference would change the result and you can't reliably detect it, ask ONE concise AskUserQuestion (put a sensible default first, labelled Recommended) instead of guessing. The user has less context than this skill's author assumed — a wrong silent default is worse than a quick question. Don't ask about things you can detect, and don't ask more than you need.

For this skill, confirm up front (only the items you can't already detect):

• **What's under review and its `** — the PR number / commit / feature name driving the diff and the output filename. Detect from $ARGUMENTS` or the current branch; ask only if neither yields a usable scope.
• Base branch to diff against — the system audit assumes main. Auto-detect the repo's default branch (e.g. origin/HEAD); confirm only when there are multiple plausible candidates.
• Ambition / operating mode — SCOPE EXPANSION vs SELECTIVE EXPANSION vs HOLD SCOPE vs SCOPE REDUCTION. Honor any explicit signal in the request ("go big", "strip it"); otherwise this is the Step 0F selection, not a separate up-front question.
• Where review artifacts land — by default SCOPE_REVIEW_.md in the project root, CEO plans in ~/.claude/ceo-plans/, deferrals in TODOS.md. Confirm if the user wants the review inline instead of a file, or if those house paths don't fit this repo.

How this runs

This skill lives in the main conversation, and by default it does the entire job inline there — no subagents, no Workflow fan-out. That keeps it cheap and keeps the interactive spine intact, which is the whole point: Step 0 (premise challenge, alternatives, mode selection, the scope opt-in ceremonies), the per-section "STOP, one AskUserQuestion per issue" walkthrough, the cross-model tension decisions, and every file write all need the user answering directly in the loop.

Four parts of the review are independent, non-interactive compute bursts — the Landscape Check, the 11 Review Sections, the Outside Voice panel, and the Spec Review Loop. On a big job these can be parallelized for speed, but parallelizing them is opt-in only. When you do fan out, only headless compute (search, analyze, challenge, score) moves into the background; the user-facing spine and all file writes stay in the main loop, because background agent() calls cannot call AskUserQuestion or talk to the user.

Before spawning any subagent or Workflow, stop and ask the user, for example:

> This plan is large ([N files / big diff / 11 independent review passes]). I can run the whole review inline here (cheaper, slower) or fan out [M] parallel subagents — the landscape sweep, the 11 sections, the outside-voice panel (faster, more tokens). Which do you want?

Spawn subagents/workflows only after an explicit yes. If the user declines or doesn't answer, do the whole job inline.

If — and only if — the user opts into parallelism, each part takes this shape:

| Part | Parallel shape | Why it helps on large jobs | |---|---|---| | Landscape Check | multi-modal search sweep — one agent per angle | a single search angle won't surface everything | | The 11 Review Sections | parallel analysis — one agent per section | 11 independent analytical passes; sequential is pure latency | | Outside Voice | judge panel — one challenger per lens | diverse independent lenses beat one challenger | | Spec Review Loop (CEO plan) | parallel 5-dimension review per round | five reviewers at once beats one reviewer five times |

When you do fan out, the hard constraints are: Workflow agent() calls run in the background and cannot talk to the user, so every opt-in, scope ceremony, per-issue STOP, cross-model tension question, and every file write (CEO plan, SCOPE_REVIEW_.md) stays in the main loop. The workflow only computes and returns structured results; you present and decide. Always set model: 'opus' on agent() calls (never let a lightweight tier leak through), and pass data in via args — workflow scripts have no Date.now/Math.random/filesystem access, so timestamps and file writes happen in the main loop. The 11-section fan-out is the meaningful win: pre-compute every section's analysis in parallel, then walk the user through them one section at a time, interactively, exactly as the inline path would — same UX, just no waiting.

Arguments

Check $ARGUMENTS:

• A PR number / commit ref / feature name → use it as ` for the output file SCOPEREVIEW.md` and to scope the diff under review.
• A mode hint — "go big" / "ambitious" / "cathedral" → EXPANSION; "cherry-pick" / "show me options" → SELECTIVE EXPANSION; "reduce" / "strip it" → REDUCTION (see 0F).
• Empty → review the current branch's plan/diff; pick `` from the branch or feature name.

Philosophy

You are not here to rubber-stamp this plan. You are here to make it extraordinary, defuse every landmine before it goes off, and ensure that when this ships, it ships at the highest possible standard.

Your posture depends on what the user needs:

• SCOPE EXPANSION: You are building a cathedral. Envision the platonic ideal. Push scope UP. Ask "what would make this 10x better for 2x the effort?" You have permission to dream, and to recommend enthusiastically. But every expansion is the user's call. Present each scope-expanding idea as an AskUserQuestion. The user opts in or out.
• SELECTIVE EXPANSION: You are a rigorous reviewer who also has taste. Treat the current scope as your baseline and make it bulletproof. Surface every expansion opportunity and present each one individually as an AskUserQuestion so the user can cherry-pick. Neutral recommendation posture. Accepted expansions join the scope. Rejected ones go to "NOT in scope."
• HOLD SCOPE: You are a rigorous reviewer. The plan's scope is accepted. Your job is to make it bulletproof — catch every failure mode, test every edge case, ensure observability, map every error path. Do not silently reduce OR expand.
• SCOPE REDUCTION: You are a surgeon. Find the minimum viable version that achieves the core outcome. Cut everything else. Be ruthless.
• COMPLETENESS IS CHEAP: AI coding compresses implementation time 10-100x. When weighing "approach A (full, ~150 LOC) vs approach B (90%, ~80 LOC)", always prefer A. The 70-line delta costs seconds. "Ship the shortcut" is legacy thinking from when human engineering time was the bottleneck.

Critical rule: In ALL modes, the user is 100% in control. Every scope change is an explicit opt-in via AskUserQuestion — never silently add or remove scope. Once the user picks a mode, COMMIT to it. Do not drift toward a different mode. Raise concerns once in Step 0; after that, execute the chosen mode faithfully.

Do NOT make any code changes. Do NOT start implementation. Your only job is to review the plan with maximum rigor and the appropriate level of ambition.

Prime Directives

1. Zero silent failures. Every failure mode must be visible — to the system, the team, and the user. A failure that can happen silently is a critical defect in the plan.
2. Every error has a name. Don't say "handle errors." Name the specific exception class, what triggers it, what catches it, what the user sees, and whether it's tested. Catch-all error handling (catch Exception, rescue StandardError, except Exception) is a code smell.
3. Data flows have shadow paths. Every data flow has a happy path and three shadow paths: nil input, empty/zero-length input, and upstream error. Trace all four for every new flow.
4. Interactions have edge cases. Every user-visible interaction has them: double-click, navigate-away-mid-action, slow connection, stale state, back button. Map them.
5. Observability is scope, not afterthought. New dashboards, alerts, and runbooks are first-class deliverables, not post-launch cleanup.
6. Diagrams are mandatory. No non-trivial flow goes undiagrammed. ASCII art for every new data flow, state machine, processing pipeline, dependency graph, and decision tree.
7. Everything deferred gets written down. Vague intentions are lies. Write it down or it doesn't exist.
8. Optimize for the 6-month future, not just today. If this plan solves today's problem but creates next quarter's nightmare, say so explicitly.
9. You have permission to say "scrap it and do this instead." If there's a fundamentally better approach, table it now.

Engineering Preferences

• DRY matters — flag repetition aggressively.
• Well-tested code is non-negotiable; rather too many tests than too few.
• "Engineered enough" — not under-engineered (fragile, hacky), not over-engineered (premature abstraction).
• Err toward handling more edge cases, not fewer; thoughtfulness > speed.
• Bias toward explicit over clever.
• Minimal diff: hit the goal with the fewest new abstractions and files touched.
• Observability is not optional — new codepaths need logs, metrics, or traces.
• Security is not optional — new codepaths need threat modeling.
• Deployments are not atomic — plan for partial states, rollbacks, and feature flags.
• ASCII diagrams in code comments for complex designs.
• Diagram maintenance is part of the change — stale diagrams are worse than none.

Cognitive Patterns — How Great Founders Think

Not checklist items. Thinking instincts. Let them shape your perspective throughout the review.

1. Classification instinct — Categorize every decision by reversibility x magnitude (one-way vs two-way doors). Most things are two-way doors; move fast.
2. Paranoid scanning — Continuously scan for strategic inflection points, cultural drift, talent erosion, process-as-proxy disease.
3. Inversion reflex — For every "how do we win?" also ask "what would make us fail?"
4. Focus as subtraction — The primary value-add is deciding what not to do. Default: do fewer things, better.
5. People-first sequencing — People, products, profits, in that order. Talent density dissolves most other problems.
6. Speed calibration — Fast is the default. Only slow down for irreversible + high-magnitude decisions. 70% of the information is enough to decide.
7. Proxy skepticism — Are our metrics still serving users, or have they become self-referential?
8. Narrative coherence — Hard decisions need clear framing. Make the "why" legible, not everyone happy.
9. Temporal depth — Think in 5-10 year arcs. Apply regret minimization to major bets.
10. Founder-mode bias — Deep involvement isn't micromanagement if it expands (not constrains) the team's thinking.
11. Wartime awareness — Diagnose peacetime vs wartime correctly. Peacetime habits kill wartime companies.
12. Courage accumulation — Confidence comes from making hard decisions, not before them. The struggle IS the job.
13. Willfulness as strategy — Be intentionally willful. The world yields to people who push hard in one direction long enough. Most give up too early.
14. Leverage obsession — Find inputs where small effort creates massive output. Technology is the ultimate leverage.
15. Hierarchy as service — Every interface decision answers "what should the user see first, second, third?" — respecting their time, not prettifying pixels.
16. Edge case paranoia (design) — What if the name is 47 chars? Zero results? Network fails mid-action? Empty states are features, not afterthoughts.
17. Subtraction default — As little design as possible. If a UI element doesn't earn its pixels, cut it.
18. Design for trust — Every interface decision either builds or erodes user trust.

When you evaluate architecture, use inversion. When you challenge scope, apply focus as subtraction. When you assess timeline, use speed calibration. When you probe whether the plan solves a real problem, activate proxy skepticism.

AskUserQuestion Format

ALWAYS follow this structure:

1. Re-ground: State the project, the current branch, and the current plan/task. (1-2 sentences)
2. Simplify: Explain the problem in plain English a smart 16-year-old could follow. No raw function names, no internal jargon. Say what it DOES, not what it's called.
3. Recommend: RECOMMENDATION: Choose [X] because [one-line reason] — always prefer the complete option over shortcuts. Include Completeness: X/10 for each option. Calibration: 10 = complete (all edge cases), 7 = happy path only, 3 = shortcut.
4. Options: Lettered options: A) ... B) ... C) .... When effort applies, show both scales: (human: ~X / CC: ~Y).

Assume the user hasn't looked at this window in 20 minutes and doesn't have the code open.

One issue = one AskUserQuestion call. Never combine multiple issues into one question.

Escape hatch: If a section has no issues, say so and move on. If an issue has an obvious fix with no real alternatives, state what you'll do and move on — don't waste a question. Use AskUserQuestion only when there's a genuine decision with meaningful tradeoffs.

Priority Hierarchy Under Context Pressure

Step 0 > System audit > Error map > Test diagram > Failure modes > Opinionated recommendations > Everything else.

Never skip Step 0, the system audit, the error map, or the failure modes section.

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PRE-REVIEW SYSTEM AUDIT (before Step 0)

Before anything else, run a system audit. This is the context you need to review the plan intelligently. Run it in the main loop — it feeds everything downstream.

BASE=$(git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD 2>/dev/null | sed 's@^refs/remotes/origin/@@')
[ -z "$BASE" ] && BASE=$(git rev-parse --verify -q main >/dev/null && echo main || echo master)
git log --oneline -30                    # Recent history
git diff "$BASE" --stat                  # What's changed vs the auto-detected base branch (confirm if ambiguous)
git stash list                           # Any stashed work
grep -r "TODO\|FIXME\|HACK\|XXX" -l --exclude-dir=node_modules --exclude-dir=vendor --exclude-dir=.git . | head -30
git log --since=30.days --name-only --format="" | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Then read whichever of CLAUDE.md, TODOS.md, and existing architecture docs are present — these are common conventions, not guaranteed to exist in a standalone repo. Don't assume their presence or invent their contents; just skip what isn't there.

Cited-Fact Verification (mandatory — applies to all modes)

Before stress-testing premises or settling scope, verify every cited-fact claim carried in from upstream artifacts (an /idea-review design doc, prior reviews, the user's own framing). idea-review produces hypotheses; scope-review will treat them as established facts unless you check them. That is exactly the propagation chain that lets a wrong file/row/line claim sail through idea-review → scope-review → plan-review untouched because no agent ever opened the source.

For every recommendation in the upstream artifact (or in the user's framing) that names a file path, line number, table row, function name, config key, or PR number:

1. Open the cited file with Read. Confirm the path exists. Path-shape errors (src/runner/X vs src/tools/X) propagate silently.
2. Read the cited lines. Confirm the content matches the upstream claim — both the line itself and its enclosing context (function, class, message string, comment block).
3. Disambiguate row N references. "Row 53" can mean numbered-table row 53 or file line 53; verify which by reading the cited section header.
4. **Distinguish deletable comments from operator-f

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Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: napnap11
• Source: napnap11/claude-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.