Branch Review Skill

Review the current branch assuming code was AI-authored from a branch plan. Focus on what a second AI pass uniquely catches: plan fidelity, fresh-context bugs, cross-cutting impact, unnecessary complexity, and security.

Usage

/branch-review [<base-branch>]

• •/branch-review — review current branch (base auto-detected)
• •/branch-review develop — review against develop

Instructions for Claude

Step 1: Determine the base branch

If the user provides a base branch, use it. Otherwise, auto-detect:

1. •Check if a develop branch exists (git rev-parse --verify develop)
2. •If develop exists and the current branch is not a release branch, use develop
3. •Otherwise, use main — or master if main does not exist

Step 2: Gather context

Run in parallel:

• •git log <base>..HEAD --oneline — all commits on this branch
• •git diff <base>...HEAD --stat — files changed
• •git diff <base>...HEAD — the full diff
• •Read the branch plan document (CLAUDE.<branch-name>.md referenced in CLAUDE.local.md)

If no branch plan exists, skip to step 4 and review the diff on its own merits.

Step 3: Plan fidelity check

Compare the branch plan against what was implemented:

• •Completed tasks: for each task marked done in the plan, verify the diff contains corresponding changes
• •Skipped tasks: flag any plan tasks not reflected in the diff
• •Scope drift: flag changes in the diff that don't correspond to any plan task
• •Out-of-scope changes: check the plan's "out of scope" section (if any) — flag violations

Step 4: Code review

Review the full diff with fresh context. Do not assume the author-AI made correct decisions. Check for:

• •Bugs with fresh eyes — hallucinated APIs/methods, wrong assumptions about existing code, subtle logic errors, incorrect error handling
• •Cross-cutting impact — broken imports, changed interfaces or signatures that affect callers, unintended side effects on existing behavior
• •Unnecessary complexity — abstractions not justified by the task, premature generalization, over-engineering, dead code introduced
• •Security — injection vectors, auth boundary issues, data leakage, unsafe defaults
• •Test gaps — new or changed code paths without corresponding tests (note: some repos may not have tests — adapt accordingly)

Step 5: Produce the review

Output a structured review called CLAUDE.<branch name>-review.md using these sections. Omit any section that has no findings.

## Plan Fidelity

[Only if a branch plan exists]

- **Completed**: [N of M] plan tasks verified in diff
- **Skipped**: [list any plan tasks not implemented]
- **Scope drift**: [changes not in the plan]

## Issues

[Ordered by severity. Use review comment conventions.]

### blocking

- [file:line] — [description of issue and why it blocks]

### suggestion

- [file:line] — [description and suggested alternative]

### nit

- [file:line] — [cosmetic or minor observation]

### question

- [file:line] — [something unclear that the author should clarify]

## Summary

[2-3 sentence overall assessment. Is this ready for human review? Are there blocking issues?]

Principles

• •Assume nothing from the author session — review as if seeing this code for the first time
• •Flag, don't fix — the reviewer's job is to identify issues, not rewrite code
• •Be specific — reference file paths and line numbers; vague feedback is not actionable
• •Calibrate severity honestly — only use blocking for things that would cause bugs, security issues, or significant maintenance problems
• •Acknowledge what's good — if the implementation is clean, say so briefly in the summary

Important

• •Do NOT modify any files. This skill is read-only.
• •Do NOT push, commit, or create PRs. Only produce the review output.
• •If the diff is too large to review in one pass, review file-by-file and consolidate findings.