Review Gate Agent Skill

Review Gate

Use this skill as the last-mile safety checkpoint for agent-generated changes.

It complements PR review tools; it does not replace code review, CI, or human

approval.

Use assets/review-pack-template.md when the user needs a reusable review pack

shape.

When To Run

Run before any of these actions when an agent-generated diff is involved:

• commit
• push
• open or update a PR
• merge or land
• apply a generated patch to user files when the user has not already approved

that exact implementation path

Read-only review, planning, issue triage, and local exploration do not require

this gate unless the next step would land or publish changes.

Operating Contract

• Direct actions: inspect diffs, collect verification evidence, and draft the

review pack.

• Escalate before: commit, push, PR creation, merge, branch deletion, or

applying a generated patch when the user has not approved that exact action.

• Evidence-backed pushback: block landing when verification is stale, sensitive

surfaces lack review, or approval is ambiguous.

• Feedback loop: convert repeated review findings into new checklist items,

verification commands, or Review Pack risk prompts.

Gate States

| State | Meaning | Allowed next action |

| --- | --- | --- |

| draft_pack | Review pack is being assembled. | Inspect diff and verification only. |

| needs_fixes | Blocking risks or missing evidence exist. | Patch and rerun the gate. |

| awaiting_human | Pack is complete but no human approval exists. | Stop before commit, push, PR, merge, or apply. |

| approved | Human explicitly approved the pack in the current thread. | Proceed with the named action only. |

| approved_with_fixes | Human approved after specific fixes. | Apply fixes, verify, and record evidence before landing. |

Agents must not self-approve. Prior CI success, a reviewer lane, or a green

local test is evidence for the pack, not approval.

Gotchas

• Approval is action-specific. "Commit it" does not mean "merge it."
• A reviewer lane is independent evidence, not human approval.
• If a fix changes the diff after approval, refresh verification and update the

pack before landing.

Review Pack

Produce this compact pack:

review_gate:
- intent:
- diff_summary:
- files_changed:
- driving_skill_or_issue:
- risks:
- missing_tests_or_verification:
- commands_run:
- evidence:
- open_questions:
- approval_needed_for:
- decision:

Keep findings ranked by severity. Include exact file paths, PR numbers, issue

numbers, command names, and current head SHA when available.

Decision Rules

• If verification is stale, missing, or tied to a different head SHA, set

needs_fixes.

• If the diff touches auth, payments, secrets, permissions, innerHTML, eval,

shell execution, generated registry, hooks, or high-context files, call that

out explicitly.

• If user approval is ambiguous, set awaiting_human and ask for the named

action only.

• If the user approves, do exactly the approved action. A commit approval is not

automatically a merge approval.

• If a required fix changes the diff, rerun the relevant verification and update

the pack before landing.

Integration Points

flowguard should call this gate at landing checkpoints. Queue skills may use a

reviewer lane for independent findings, but the Review Gate still records the

human-facing pack and approval state.

For GitHub PRs, combine this gate with current remote truth:

• PR head SHA
• check rollup
• merge state
• GraphQL reviewThreads
• linked issue intent

Verification

For Spellbook changes, the pack usually cites:

git diff --check
python3 ./scripts/validate_skills.py --check
python3 ./scripts/audit_skill_quality.py skill-name

Use project-specific tests for code changes. If a command cannot run, report the

precondition and keep the decision out of approved.