ce-code-review

Code Review

Artifact Root

Resolve the CE artifact root <root> before composing any artifact path.

• Read docs_root from <repo-root>/.compound-engineering/config.yaml only (<repo-root> = git rev-parse --show-toplevel). Do not read it from config.local.yaml. Unset -> <root> is docs, exactly as before.
• Validate a set value: a repo-relative directory whose real, symlink-resolved path stays inside the repo and is neither the repo root nor under .git/. Otherwise stop with an error naming docs_root and the value -- never fall back to docs.
• Use <root> as the sole artifact location: create it if absent, compose each path as <root>/<subdir> with this skill's own subdirectory, and never also read docs.

Execution spine

Follow these steps in order; the references supply the detail but never change the order. Each reference named below is a required read for its step: load it before doing that step's work.

1. Read references/modes-and-output.md first. It settles what the arguments mean, which argument conflicts stop the run before any reviewer is dispatched, whether the quick-review short-circuit applies, and what this invocation returns.
2. Stage 1. Read references/scope.md and resolve the reviewed diff, the scope mode, and the deterministic scope signals.
3. Stage 2. Read references/intent-and-plan.md, write the intent summary every reviewer receives, and discover the plan Stage 6 verifies requirements against.
4. Stage 3. Read references/persona-catalog.md and references/select-and-route.md, then select the risk-driven reviewer roster, discover applicable standards paths, and bind the adversarial route.
5. Stage 3d. When adversarial is selected for a local reviewed tree, start and persist the sanctioned cross-model job that references/cross-model-review.md defines, before any local persona dispatch. Invoking this skill is itself the authorization for its configured or allowlisted peer route, once you have made the required disclosure of the recipient and of the code that leaves the machine. Do not ask the user to confirm a second time, and do not skip the peer because the user did not repeat that authorization. An explicit user prohibition on external review overrides it, as does a checkout that sets cross_model_review_mode: off with no live opt-in; both are resolved before you bind a route. This pass's skip and target-selection keys are cross_model_review_mode and cross_model_peer. Missing files or unset keys take the default auto route; they are not a skip. Another skill's engine preference is not this gate. Model and effort overrides stay with the bound target as the reference states. A started peer replaces the local adversarial persona at this stage, and only a real failure to scope, allowlist, reach, authenticate, or start it leaves the local fallback in the roster; a later stage may still restore the local reviewer under the conditions that reference states.
6. Stage 4. Read references/dispatch-reviewers.md. Dispatch the materialized local roster as one foreground concurrent batch sized to the host's active-agent cap. Every successful launch is collected when its terminal outcome is in hand: consume valid compact returns, classify a terminal tool error or malformed output as a failed reviewer, and keep launch receipts uncollected. Use the host's blocking collection capability for asynchronous receipts, and do not synthesize until every successful launch is collected. If launched work cannot be collected reliably, stop it, discharge any persisted peer through its owning cleanup before returning the failure result, and never emit progress or wait for a notification. Detaching local review into a polled background job is forbidden. The cross-model peer is the only detached work, and it may overlap this batch.
7. Stages 5 and 6. Once the reviewer returns are ready, read references/finish-review.md. Fold in the peer once, run the documented findings mechanics, and run every validator the reference selects; only then return the report. Never synthesize directly from raw reviewer artifacts. In the multi-agent path, emit only this skill's report: do not also invoke a harness-native findings or reporting tool, which belongs to the quick-review short-circuit alone.