---
name: self-review-eb07b6431f4e
description: >-
  Deliberate end-to-end review pass over a completed change, applying the
  laziness ladder. Invoke when the user asks for a review, or when
  orchestrating one. Not a routine step after every edit.
user-invocable: true
disable-model-invocation: false
---

# Self-Review

Review the change end-to-end. Read every file touched in full, not just the
diff — the surrounding code is what says whether the change belongs. Report
everything you find and fix what matters; don't self-censor to only the severe
findings.

## Review criteria

Beyond the obvious ones, weigh these — they are the ones most often missed:

- **Placement**: was the change made in the right place architecturally, or
  merely somewhere that works?
- **Simplicity over cleverness**: if something needs a comment to explain *why*
  it's written that way, it's probably too clever.
- **Consistency**: a codebase consistent with itself beats a change that is
  locally "better" but idiosyncratic.
- **DX and UX**: are APIs intuitive and error messages helpful, from both the
  developer's and the end user's side?
- **Testability**: look for clear seams, injectable dependencies, and logic
  separated from side effects. Hard-to-test code is a design smell — flag it
  rather than leaving it untested.
- **Robustness**: edge cases, race conditions, and assumptions that hold today
  but only by accident.

## Laziness ladder

The [ponytail](https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail) plugin applies this
ladder while code is being *written*. Apply it here in reverse, to what **was**
written: for each piece of code the change added, check it climbed no higher
than necessary.

1. **Does this need to exist?** — if not, remove it (YAGNI).
2. **Already in this codebase?** — reuse it, don't rewrite.
3. **Standard library does it?** — use it.
4. **Native platform feature?** — use it.
5. **Already-installed dependency?** — use it.
6. **One line?** — one line.
7. **Only then**: the minimum that works.

Flag anything that skipped a lower rung — a new dependency where the stdlib or
a native feature would do, a reimplementation of something the codebase already
has, or an abstraction with a single caller.

The ladder never touches safety: trust-boundary and input validation, security,
data-loss and error handling, and accessibility are out of scope for trimming.

$ARGUMENTS


---
Source attribution: fredrikaverpil
Original project: https://github.com/fredrikaverpil/dotfiles/blob/f7f0329b62954fa245c4f8a216960af2cad9f725/stow/shared/.claude/skills/self-review/SKILL.md
License: MIT
License information: https://opensource.org/license/mit
Original upstream instructions; downloaded from Mega AI Hub.

## Upstream license notice

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2021 Fredrik Averpil

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.



# Mega AI Hub resource metadata

Creator / publisher: fredrikaverpil
Original project: https://github.com/fredrikaverpil/dotfiles/blob/f7f0329b62954fa245c4f8a216960af2cad9f725/stow/shared/.claude/skills/self-review/SKILL.md
Attribution basis: Source repository record

Fields of work: Development & Engineering, Product Management
Roles: Frontend Developer, Backend Developer, Full-Stack Developer, QA / Test Engineer, Product Manager
Specialties: Cross Platform
Tools: Tool not specified
Country applicability: Country not specified
Classification basis: Source category, role and specialization labels
Instruction SHA-256: edf4292372856b0db383aeb68661dd625df1ffef73707ace705b7d26aece4f01