Review Performance

Performance Review

Structured review of hot-path performance, allocation patterns, and benchmark coverage. Opt-in only — performance is rarely the bottleneck for new code, and a perf review on every PR is noise. Run when the user explicitly asks, or when a feature is performance-sensitive by nature (hot path, fanout, large-data).

Out of scope (defer to siblings):

• Concurrency safety (race, deadlock, leak) → review-reliability
• Cardinality / metric cost → review-observability
• Database query plans / index design → review-database

review-performance looks at code-level allocation and CPU hotspots, benchmark sufficiency, and obvious algorithmic complexity issues.

Workflow

1. Scope and explore

• Confirm scope with the user: full codebase, specific packages/directories, changed files only (PR or branch diff), or a specific hot path.
• Resolve scope. Same conventions as siblings:
• Changed files (PR or branch): git diff --name-only --diff-filter=d ...HEAD; filter to source files.
• Explicit paths/packages: include all relevant source files.
• Full codebase: walk source files.
• If invoked from review-all (only when the user opted in): receive file_list, package_paths, has_changes, base_ref, REVIEW_DIR, and pr_url.

This skill is primarily Go-focused because the existing review-* corpus targets Go; it has cross-language sections in [reference.md](reference.md) but the deepest checklist is for Go.

2. System overview

Produce a brief summary covering:

• Languages and runtimes in scope
• Identifiable hot paths (RPC handlers, queue consumers, batch jobs)
• Existing benchmark coverage (Go: Benchmark* functions; presence of testing.B)
• Observed SLOs / latency targets if documented in REVIEW.md, README.md, or runbooks

3. Launch investigation subagent

Launch a single investigation subagent (subagent_type="generalPurpose", model: sonnet per subagent-model-routing) with the system overview and in-scope file list.

Prompt it to:

• Read all in-scope source files.
• Apply the checklists in [reference.md](reference.md):
• Allocation hotspots (Go-specific patterns)
• Algorithmic complexity (N+1, nested loops over unbounded inputs, O(n²) on hot paths)
• Concurrency efficiency (goroutine-per-request anti-patterns, oversharing of locks, mutex contention)
• Benchmark sufficiency
• I/O batching and connection reuse
• Identify which findings are real concerns vs. premature optimization. Bias toward "show me the profile" over "I think this allocates". Findings without evidence are P2/nit.
• For each finding, search nearby code for existing benchmarks, comments, or TODOs.
• Return findings using the performance findings template.

4. Run static analyzers and benchmarks

# Go static analysis with perf-relevant linters
command -v staticcheck >/dev/null && staticcheck -checks "U1000,SA1019,SA6005" 
command -v gocyclo     >/dev/null && gocyclo -over 15 

# Go: identify benchmark files in scope (used to detect coverage gaps)
grep -rl 'func Benchmark' --include='*_test.go' 

# Go: existing benchmark output (do NOT run benchmarks; this is a static review)
# If the user explicitly asks to run benchmarks, ask for an isolated machine first; do not run on a dev workstation by default.

# Go: build with -gcflags="-m=1" can reveal escape analysis when the user wants it; do not run by default.

Static analyzers feed the subagent. Do not run benchmarks as part of the review unless the user explicitly asks — benchmarks need isolated, repeatable hardware to produce useful numbers.

5. Present results

Resolve the review output directory (skip if REVIEW_DIR was provided by the review-all orchestrator):

REVIEW_DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d)
REVIEW_DIR=".reviews/${REVIEW_DATE}"
if [ -d "$REVIEW_DIR" ]; then REVIEW_DIR=".reviews/${REVIEW_DATE}-$(date +%H%M)"; fi
~/.claude/scripts/ensure-gitignore.sh '.reviews/'
mkdir -p "$REVIEW_DIR"

Capture run metadata (see [Run metadata header](#run-metadata-header)) and prepend to ${REVIEW_DIR}/PERFORMANCE-REVIEW.md.

Output structure:

1. Run metadata header
2. System overview (from step 2)
3. Findings table (grouped by category: allocation / complexity / concurrency / benchmarks / I/O)
4. Recommended fix order, with explicit "needs profiling evidence" markers on findings that should not be acted on without a profile

Present the report to the user.

---

Run metadata header

RUN_DATETIME=$(date -u +"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M UTC")
GIT_BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
GIT_COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
GIT_COMMIT_FULL=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
GIT_SUBJECT=$(git log -1 --pretty=%s)
# When scope is diff-based: BASE_REF=; BASE_COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short "$BASE_REF")

> **Run:** {RUN_DATETIME}
> **Branch:** {GIT_BRANCH} @ {GIT_COMMIT} (`{GIT_COMMIT_FULL}`)
> **Subject:** {GIT_SUBJECT}
> **Base:** {BASE_REF} @ {BASE_COMMIT}   
> **Scope:** {scope description}

---

Finding link wrapping (PR mode)

When pr_url is provided (or gh pr view --json url -q .url 2>/dev/null returns one for standalone runs), wrap every path:line reference inside the finding tables as a Markdown link:

~/.claude/scripts/pr-deeplink.sh "$pr_url"  

The display text stays path:line. Pass L for findings about removed code. Findings follow terse-comments: concrete fix, optional bug:/risk:/nit:/unsure: prefix.

---

Output Templates

Performance findings

| Priority | Category | Finding | Impact | Effort | Evidence | Tracked |
|----------|----------|---------|--------|--------|----------|---------|
| P0 | allocation | Description with code references | Allocations on every request | small | profile needed | — |
| P1 | complexity | O(n²) loop in hot path at file:line | Linear-in-N regression for N > 1k | moderate | bench needed | TODO in file:line |

Category column values: allocation, complexity, concurrency, benchmarks, io.

Evidence column values: profile shown, bench shown, profile needed, bench needed, static-only. Use this to flag findings that need empirical confirmation before action.

Re-evaluation table (for follow-up reviews)

| Finding | Status | What Changed |
|---------|--------|--------------|
| ~~1. Description~~ | FIXED | Benchmark shows X% improvement |
| 2. Description | Still applicable | No changes |

---

Guidelines

• Bias toward measurement. If a finding can't be backed by a profile or benchmark, mark it static-only and downgrade priority unless the issue is glaring (e.g. O(n²) over user-controlled input).
• Don't run benchmarks on shared hardware unless the user explicitly requests it. Benchmark noise is high; bad numbers are worse than no numbers.
• Premature optimization is a real concern; explicitly say "needs profile" when a finding is intuition-based.
• Include effort estimates.
• When the user asks for a follow-up review, find the most recent review directory and append the re-evaluation table.
• For detailed framework categories, see [reference.md](reference.md).
• Opt-in opt-out: this skill should never run as part of review-all unless the user explicitly requests it. The orchestrator must check include_performance before fanning out to this skill.
• REVIEW.md integration: If a REVIEW.md context section was provided by the review-all orchestrator (or exists at the repository root when running standalone), treat its rules as additional review criteria. "Always check" items are HIGH severity; domain-specific items (Performance section) are MEDIUM severity. "Skip" patterns exclude matching files from review scope.
• Findings must cite probed evidence (path:line, grep output, command result), not pattern-matched suspicion. Per ~/.claude/rules/probe-not-assume.md.

Source & license

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

• Author: paultyng
• Source: paultyng/skill-issue
• License: MIT

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