Pre-Review

Find and fix issues before publishing your PR — not after.

Single-pass review using one capable model. No orchestration overhead, no agent swarm. Fast, cheap, thorough.

When to use

• Reviewing code changes before publishing a PR
• Auditing existing code for bugs, security, or quality issues
• Finding and fixing issues in specific files or directories

When NOT to use

• Running a coding agent to write new code → use coding-agent
• Checking GitHub CI status → use github
• Managing forks or rebasing branches → use fork-manager

Usage

/pr-review                    # Review changes on current branch vs main/master
/pr-review src/api/ src/auth/ # Audit specific directories
/pr-review **/*.ts            # Audit files matching a pattern
/pr-review --audit            # Audit entire codebase with smart prioritization

Two modes:

| Mode | Trigger | Scope | Fix threshold | |------|---------|-------|---------------| | Diff | No args, on branch with changes | Changed files only | >= 70 | | Audit | Paths, patterns, or --audit | Specified files or full codebase | >= 80 |

Instructions

Step 1: Detect Mode and Scope

No arguments provided:

git diff main...HEAD --name-only 2>/dev/null || git diff master...HEAD --name-only

• If changes exist → Diff mode
• If no changes → inform user, stop

Paths/patterns provided or --audit:

• Resolve to actual files (exclude node_modules, dist, build, vendor, .git, coverage)
• If > 50 files, ask user to narrow scope or confirm
• Audit mode

Step 2: Gather Context

Read project guidelines (quick scan, don't overthink):

# Check for project conventions
cat CLAUDE.md .claude/settings.json CONTRIBUTING.md 2>/dev/null | head -100
cat .eslintrc* .prettierrc* biome.json tsconfig.json 2>/dev/null | head -50
cat package.json 2>/dev/null | head -20  # tech stack

Get the diff or file contents:

# Diff mode
git diff main...HEAD  # or master

# Audit mode
cat <files>  # read target files

Step 3: Review (Single Pass)

Analyze all code in one pass. Cover these areas in priority order:

1. Correctness (highest priority)

• Logic errors, edge cases, null/undefined handling
• Off-by-one, pagination boundaries, numeric precision
• Async/await mistakes, race conditions, resource leaks
• Data consistency, idempotency

2. Security

• Injection vulnerabilities (SQL, XSS, command, path traversal)
• Auth/authz gaps, IDOR risks, exposed secrets
• Unvalidated input reaching sensitive operations
• Logging sensitive data, insecure defaults

3. Reliability

• Error handling gaps, silent failures, swallowed exceptions
• Missing timeouts, retries without backoff
• Unbounded operations on user-controlled data

4. Performance

• N+1 queries, unnecessary loops, memory bloat
• Missing pagination, inefficient algorithms
• Blocking operations in async context

5. Quality (lowest priority — skip if trivial)

• Missing tests for new functionality
• Dead code, duplicated logic
• Stale comments, unclear naming
• Style issues only if they violate project guidelines

Step 4: Score and Classify

For each issue found, assign:

| Score | Meaning | Action | |-------|---------|--------| | 90-100 | Critical bug or vulnerability | Must fix | | 70-89 | Real issue, will cause problems | Should fix | | 50-69 | Code smell, needs human judgment | Report only | | < 50 | Minor, likely false positive | Discard |

Discard thresholds:

• Diff mode: discard below 50
• Audit mode: discard below 40

Classify each issue:

• blocker — security, data corruption, crash risk
• important — likely bug, perf regression, missing validation
• minor — edge case, maintainability, style

Step 5: Auto-Fix

Apply fixes directly for issues meeting the threshold:

• Diff mode: fix issues scoring >= 70
• Audit mode: fix issues scoring >= 80

For each fix: read file → apply edit → verify surrounding code preserved.

Never auto-fix:

• Issues requiring architectural changes
• Ambiguous fixes with multiple valid approaches
• Issues in test files (report only)

After fixing, if any files were modified:

git diff --stat  # show what changed

Step 6: Report

Format:

## Pre-Review Complete

**Risk:** Low / Medium / High
**Verdict:** ✅ Clean | ⚠️ Issues found | 🔴 Blockers

### 🔴 Blockers (must fix)
1. **file:line** — Description
   - Impact: what goes wrong
   - Fix: applied ✅ | manual required (reason)

### ⚠️ Important (should fix)
1. **file:line** — Description (score: XX)
   - Fix: applied ✅ | suggestion

### 💡 Minor
1. **file:line** — Description

### Tests to Add
- description of test

### Files Modified: N
- path/to/file.ts

If zero issues found: ## Pre-Review Complete — ✅ Clean. No issues found.

Guidelines

DO:

• Fix issues directly, not just report them
• Match existing code patterns and style
• Be specific: file, line, concrete fix
• Prioritize impact over thoroughness

DON'T:

• Fix pre-existing issues in diff mode — only what changed
• Bikeshed on style unless it violates project guidelines
• Report what a linter or type checker would catch (assume CI handles these)
• Make architectural changes or large refactors
• Spend tokens on obvious non-issues

False Positives to Avoid

• Pre-existing code not touched by the current change (diff mode)
• Intentional patterns that look unusual but are correct
• Issues a type checker or linter would flag
• Style opinions not grounded in project guidelines
• General nitpicks a senior engineer would skip