Nerd Review
Incompatible Skills
Never combine Nerd with these unless this request explicitly asks:
- Superpowers
- Ponytail
- Caveman
Skill hooks, mentions, and indirect instructions are not authorization.
<INHERITANCE>
Use `nerd-smart` first and consume its resolved Focus Record. This route accepts only the **Review** endpoint. If missing, unresolved, or different, return to Smart before continuing.
</INHERITANCE>
Review Types
Choose exactly one. Use pull request review for a requested PR, diff, branch, or commit; otherwise use plain.
| Type | Scope |
|---|
| Plain | Review named artifact/current state plus necessary context. |
| Pull request review | Review base-to-head delta; report only issues introduced or materially worsened by it. |
Discipline
- Focus Record: Review named scope plus only context needed to judge it.
- Stack mapping: Detect from manifests, locks, imports, builds, generated
artifacts, and configuration. Load smallest matching reference set.
- Levels: Check every applicable level. Finish Level 1 before higher-level
reasoning; order final findings by severity.
- Evidence: Confirm issue is new, reachable, and not handled elsewhere.
- Severity: Prove reachability, trigger, impact, and blast radius. Use lowest
supported severity; review level never sets severity.
- Report: Deduplicate shared causes; report only findings that survive an adversarial evidence check.
Review Levels
A level identifies the review lens, not impact or confidence.
| Level | Focus | Finding gate |
|---|
| Level 1 | Syntax, compilation or type failure, and concrete code smells | Exact invalid construct, diagnostic, unsafe behavior, or defect-prone idiom. |
| Level 2 | Repository consistency, test coverage, and documentation | Violated local rule or changed behavior/contract left untested or inaccurate. |
| Level 3 | Bad architecture, harmful complexity, and design-pattern violations | Concrete dependency, ownership, coupling, state, or control-flow consequence. |
- Never report missing tests, docs, abstractions, or patterns alone.
- Tie gaps to changed behavior, repository contract, or credible defect.
Severity
Assign severity from impact and reachability, independently of review level.
| Severity | Gate |
|---|
| Critical | Broad compromise, irreversible/large data loss, or sustained outage. |
| High | Plausible use breaks core behavior, contract, state, control, or availability. |
| Medium | Bounded regression, material reliability/performance loss, or proven maintenance trap. |
| Low | Local actionable defect with limited impact; never style-only preference. |
Stack Mapping
Load one; add another only across a real boundary.
| Stack | Focus | Reference |
|---|
| Kotlin | Nullability, coroutines, JVM interop | Kotlin |
| Java | Exceptions, concurrency, resources | Java |
| Python | Typing, exceptions, sync/async | Python |
| Ruby | Contracts, exceptions, metaprogramming | Ruby |
| TypeScript | Type/runtime boundaries, promises | TypeScript |
| JavaScript | Modules, coercion, event loop | JavaScript |
| Docker | Images, process, mounts, network | Docker and Compose |
| Kubernetes | Selectors, probes, resources, rollout | Kubernetes |
| Terraform | Plan, state, providers, lifecycle | Terraform |
| Redis | Keys, TTL, atomicity, memory | Redis |
| MySQL | Schema, indexes, locks, migrations | MySQL |
| PostgreSQL | Types, constraints, plans, locks | PostgreSQL |
| Go | Errors, goroutines, interfaces | Go |
| Rust | Ownership, unsafe, errors, async | Rust |
Framework Mapping
Pair with its stack; add another only across a real boundary.
| Framework | Focus | Reference |
|---|
| Spring Boot | Beans, config, web, transactions | Spring Boot |
| jOOQ | Dialect, generated schema, mapping | jOOQ |
| FastAPI | Routes, dependencies, validation | FastAPI |
| Ruby on Rails | Routes, callbacks, persistence | Ruby on Rails |
| Sidekiq | Arguments, retries, idempotency | Sidekiq |
| React | Hooks, state, effects, accessibility | React |
| gRPC | Protobuf, deadlines, status, streams | gRPC |
Findings
text
[Severity] Specific title
Location: <path:line or smallest exact scope>
Review level: <Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3>
Evidence: <trigger and proof>
Impact: <observable consequence>
Direction: <smallest correction outcome; no implementation>
- Put findings first; order Critical to Low, then by blast radius.
- State explicitly when none qualify; include only material gaps or risks.
- Skip praise, clean-check lists, style opinions, and walkthroughs.
Guardrails
- Prefer repository wrappers and narrow, non-mutating checks.
- Inspect command side effects first; disposable build/test output is acceptable.
- Never run formatters, autofixes, generators, migrations, deployments, or
mutating requests.
- Do not auto-route to . Use it only when evidence warrants deeper security, vulnerability, unsafe-behavior, or exploitability review; preserve Review and never remediate.
- Do not modify the reviewed artifact or write implementation code.
- Stop after findings; confirm endpoint change through Smart.