design-review-gate

Design Review Gate

Purpose

This skill automatically activates after a design document is created (typically via superpowers:brainstorming). It ensures complex features receive proper review before implementation begins by spawning five specialist agents:

1. Product Manager Agent - Use case validation and user benefit review
2. Architect Agent - Technical architecture review
3. Designer Agent - UX/API design quality review
4. Security Design Agent - Security threat modeling and protection review
5. CTO Agent - Codebase alignment and TDD readiness review

All five must approve before proceeding to implementation.

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Coordination Mode Note

This skill supports both coordination modes:

• Task Mode (default): Spawn 5 parallel Task() subagents for each review round. Fresh instances per round.
• Team Mode: TeamCreate("review-{design-doc-name}"), spawn 5 reviewers as named teammates (pm, architect, designer, security, cto). Reviewers retain context through revision cycles — saves 5 cold starts per re-review round. After approval, send shutdown_request to all, then TeamDelete.

In either mode, the review criteria, iteration protocol, and escalation rules are identical. See ./guides/agent-coordination.md for mode detection.

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Activation Triggers

This skill auto-activates when:

1. A design document is committed to docs/plans/*-design.md
2. The superpowers:brainstorming skill completes
3. User explicitly requests: /review-design <path-to-design.md>

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Workflow

Phase 1: Spawn Review Agents (Parallel)

// Spawn all five agents in parallel for efficiency
const [pmResult, architectResult, designerResult, securityResult, ctoResult] = await Promise.all([
  Task({
    subagent_type: "general-purpose",
    description: "PM review",
    prompt: pmReviewPrompt(designDocPath),
  }),
  Task({
    subagent_type: "general-purpose",
    description: "Architect review",
    prompt: architectReviewPrompt(designDocPath),
  }),
  Task({
    subagent_type: "general-purpose",
    description: "Designer review",
    prompt: designerReviewPrompt(designDocPath),
  }),
  Task({
    subagent_type: "general-purpose",
    description: "Security design review",
    prompt: securityDesignReviewPrompt(designDocPath),
  }),
  Task({
    subagent_type: "general-purpose",
    description: "CTO review",
    prompt: ctoReviewPrompt(designDocPath),
  }),
]);