autoreview
Structured Codex, Claude, Amp, Pi, or Kimi code review when explicitly requested.
Install / Use
npx skills add openclaw/crabbox --skill autoreviewInstalls into whichever agent you are using.
SKILL.md
Installable skill definition
Quality Score
Category
AI & Machine LearningSupported Platforms
Our assessment of autoreview
autoreview scores 90/100 on our quality scale, 306th of 901 AI & Machine Learning skills we index (top 34%).
Its SKILL.md is 39 KB long, well organised into 28 sections with 20 code examples: a thorough specification that gives an agent plenty to work with.
With 1,428 GitHub stars, it is one of the more widely adopted skills in the catalogue.
Maintenance, license and trust
- The repository was last updated 6 days ago, so autoreview is actively maintained.
- It is released under the MIT license, a permissive license that allows use, modification and commercial use with attribution.
- Its trust signals score 100/100, with no cautions. These come from repository metadata, not a code audit — read the skill file before letting an agent act on it.
autoreview compared with similar skills
All 4 of these similar skills score higher than autoreview; compare them before choosing.
| Skill | Score | Stars | Updated | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| autoreview (this skill)by openclaw | 90 | 1.4k | 6d ago | SKILL.md |
| claude-memby thedotmack | 100 | 95.0k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| Understand-Anythingby Egonex-AI | 100 | 84.9k | 2d ago | CLAUDE.md |
| headroomby headroomlabs-ai | 100 | 74.2k | today | CLAUDE.md |
| CowAgentby zhayujie | 100 | 47.2k | today | CLAUDE.md |
Frequently asked questions
- How do I install autoreview?
- Run
npx skills add openclaw/crabbox --skill autoreview. The install tabs above show the steps for each supported agent. - Which AI agents does autoreview work with?
- It is written for Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, as a SKILL.md file. Other agents that read the same format can often use it too.
- Is autoreview safe to use?
- It is MIT-licensed and scores 100/100 on trust signals. Skills are instructions an agent will follow, so read the file before installing it and do not approve commands you do not understand.
- Is autoreview still maintained?
- The repository was last updated 6 days ago, so autoreview is actively maintained.
Skill content
View source on GitHubname: autoreview description: "Structured Codex, Claude, Amp, Pi, or Kimi code review when explicitly requested."
Auto Review
Run the bundled structured review helper only when the user explicitly asks for autoreview, a second-model review, or one of its named review engines. This is code review, not Guardian auto_review approval routing.
Codex review is the default when no engine is set. It uses gpt-5.6-sol with high reasoning by default, then retries once with gpt-5.6-terra only when the account cannot access Sol. Claude review is optional and uses claude-fable-5 by default. Amp review is optional and uses openai/gpt-5.6-sol with high reasoning by default. Pi and Kimi use the model configured by their respective CLIs unless --model overrides it.
Do not invoke Autoreview automatically before a commit, push, PR, merge, deploy, or final reply. Repository or workflow rules may call it only when they explicitly name it.
Contract
- Default accepted findings are P0 only: report issues worth blocking the current change
because they materially break the normal flow, outcome, or safety boundary.
Use
--max-priority P1,P2, orP3only when the caller explicitly asks for a wider review. - Treat review output as advisory. Never blindly apply it.
- Verify every finding by reading the real code path and adjacent files.
- Read dependency docs/source/types when the finding depends on external behavior.
- Reject unrealistic edge cases, speculative risks, unrelated rewrites, and fixes that over-complicate the codebase.
- Prefer root-cause fixes at the right ownership boundary. A coherent refactor is appropriate when it removes the bug class, duplicate policy, stale paths, or ownership confusion; do not default to a symptom patch.
- When an accepted finding exposes a bug class or repeated pattern, inspect its owner and relevant sibling implementations before fixing.
- Fix the same bug class across its owner-boundary neighborhood when practical; stop at unrelated invariants, different owners, and unapproved contract changes.
- Run one bounded review pass. If an accepted finding changes code, run the smallest relevant test; rerun Autoreview only when the user explicitly requests another pass.
- For security-audit suppression changes, verify accepted findings remain auditable: suppressed findings stay in structured output, active output keeps an unsuppressible suppression notice, and aggregate findings cannot hide unrelated active risk.
- Never switch or override the requested review engine/model except for the documented Codex Sol-to-Terra account-access fallback. Capacity, rate-limit, and unrelated failures keep the same engine/model.
- Be patient with large bundles. Structured review can take up to 30 minutes while the model call is active, especially with Codex tools or web search.
- Treat heartbeat lines like
review still running: ... elapsed=... pid=...as healthy progress, not a hang. Let the helper continue while heartbeats are advancing. Pass--stream-engine-outputwhen live engine text is useful; Codex and Claude filter tool/file chatter, other runnable engines pass raw output through. - Do not kill a review just because it has been quiet for 2-5 minutes, or because it is still running under the 30-minute window. Inspect the process only after missing multiple expected heartbeats, after 30 minutes, or after an obviously failed subprocess; prefer letting the same helper command finish.
- Tools are useful in review mode. Codex receives the validated bundle in an empty workspace so ignored files and linked-worktree metadata remain unreadable; web search stays available for dependency contracts and upstream docs.
- Security perspective is always included, but it should not cripple legitimate functionality. Report security findings only when the change creates a concrete, actionable risk or removes an important safety check.
- Reviewer subprocesses preserve engine authentication and non-credentialed proxy variables needed by headless or restricted-network environments while stripping process-injection, Git override, and credentialed proxy values.
- Immediately before every provider call, autoreview writes the exact outgoing review pack to an owner-only temporary file and scans it with TruffleHog using
verified,unknown. It uses the installed binary with--no-updateto disable self-update checks and attempts. The scan covers prompt and dataset inputs, untracked content, and every diff line, including deleted lines. A finding, scanner error, or missing TruffleHog binary refuses the send and names the implicated repository file when it can be resolved; credentials are never redacted and forwarded. Security-sensitive paths remain omitted. Safe large diffs are sent as one pass while they fit the aggregate prompt limit, then partitioned into complete bounded passes without truncation. - Regression provenance needs patch proof, not blame alone.
git log -S/-G,git blame, commit subjects, and PR metadata locate candidates. Before sayingintroduced by, inspect raw parents withgit --no-replace-objects cat-file -p <sha>and verify the implicated behavior changed ingit --no-replace-objects diff --no-ext-diff --no-textconv <raw-parent> <sha> -- <path>; a genuine root needs raw-header proof that it has no parents. - Blame
^sha, porcelainboundary, and shallow/grafted history alone are not introduction proof.--rootcan hide boundary markers;git showorrev-list --parentscan make a shallow boundary look like a root. An available raw parent permits explicit comparison even at a shallow boundary; missing parents or an unverifiable patch requireunknownwith the gap. Usecarried forwardonly for verified preexisting behavior andmade visibleonly for a verified trigger. Apply the same bar to finding prose, summaries, and owner hints. - Keep code author, introducing PR author, merger, committer, automation trigger, and current PR author separate; none of those roles alone proves causation. Cite the verified commit/PR/date. If no PR is traceable, use the verified commit and known author identity; unknown identities stay unknown, and missing PR metadata is not a separate finding.
- For automation merges, identify the human trigger only from explicit timeline/comment/event evidence, such as a maintainer automerge command or arming label. Report
automerge triggered by @loginonly when verified; otherwise say trigger unknown. Triggering or merging is not proof of authorship or introduction. - Do not invoke built-in
codex review, nested reviewers, or review panels from inside the review. The helper builds one validated bundle, calls the selected engine once for normal inputs or once per complete bounded chunk for oversized inputs, validates the structured results, and stops. - Stop as soon as the helper exits 0 with no accepted/actionable findings. Do not run an extra review just to get a nicer "clean" line, a second opinion, or clearer closeout wording.
- Treat
scoped-cleanwith exit 0 as clean only for the selected Git target and requested priority.filteredis not a correctness certificate;incompleterequires resolving the scope mismatch or missing required finding before claiming clean. - If rejecting a finding as intentional/not worth fixing, add a brief inline code comment only when it explains a real invariant or ownership decision that future reviewers should know.
- If
gh/Gitcrawl reportsdatabase disk image is malformed, rungitcrawl doctor --jsononce to let the portable cache repair before retrying review; do not bypass the shim unless repair fails and freshness requires live GitHub. - If Gitcrawl reports a portable manifest mismatch, source/runtime DB health error, or stale portable-store checkout, run
gitcrawl doctor --jsonand inspectsource_db_health,runtime_db_health, andportable_store_statusbefore falling back to live GitHub. - Do not push just to review. Push only when the user requested push/ship/PR update.
Scope
Autoreview does not expand the task. Fix only verified blockers in the requested path. Mention unrelated findings without opening a new workstream, and stop when the requested review pass is complete.
Skill Path (set once)
Set the skill script paths once, then use "$AUTOREVIEW" and "$AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS" in the examples below.
Choose one:
# Project-local skill in the current repo for Codex and other agents:
export AUTOREVIEW=".agents/skills/autoreview/scripts/autoreview"
export AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS=".agents/skills/autoreview/scripts/test-review-harness"
# Claude Code project-local skill in the current repo:
export AUTOREVIEW=".claude/skills/autoreview/scripts/autoreview"
export AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS=".claude/skills/autoreview/scripts/test-review-harness"
# Source checkout of openclaw/agent-skills:
export AUTOREVIEW="skills/autoreview/scripts/autoreview"
export AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS="skills/autoreview/scripts/test-review-harness"
# Global skill:
export AGENTS_HOME="${AGENTS_HOME:-$HOME/.agents}"
export AUTOREVIEW="$AGENTS_HOME/skills/autoreview/scripts/autoreview"
export AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS="$AGENTS_HOME/skills/autoreview/scripts/test-review-harness"
When using Claude Code, set AGENTS_HOME="$HOME/.claude" for global skills.
On native Windows, choose the matching pair:
# Project-local skill in the current repo for Codex and other agents:
$AUTOREVIEW = ".agents\skills\autoreview\scripts\autoreview"
$AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS = ".agents\skills\autoreview\scripts\test-review-harness.ps1"
# Claude Code project-local skill in the current repo:
$AUTOREVIEW = ".claude\skills\autoreview\scripts\autoreview"
$AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS = ".claude\skills\autoreview\scripts\test-review-harness.ps1"
# Source checkout of openclaw/agent-skills:
$AUTOREVIEW = "skills\autoreview\scripts\autoreview"
$AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS = "skills\autoreview\scripts\test-review-harness.ps1"
# Global skill:
$AgentsHome = if ($env:AGENTS_HOME) { $env:AGENTS_HOME } else { Join-Path $HOME ".agents" }
$AUTOREVIEW = Join-Path $AgentsHome "skills\autoreview\scripts\autoreview"
$AUTOREVIEW_HARNESS = Join-Path $AgentsHome "skills\autoreview\scripts\test-review-harness.ps1"
Pick Target
Dirty local work relative to HEAD:
"$AUTOREVIEW" --mode local
Without --base, this reviews HEAD-to-index, index-to-working-tree, and validated
untracked files only. --mode auto selects the same HEAD-based scope when dirty;
it does not include the committed PR merely because the checkout is on a PR
branch. --mode uncommitted is an alias for --mode local. A clean local checkout
without an explicit base has no local patch to review.
To review a dirty candidate against an explicit base, including a resolved merge that has not been committed:
"$AUTOREVIEW" --mode local --base origin/main
The helper pins that base to a commit at target selection. It reviews base-to-index
changes and index-to-working-tree changes separately, plus validated untracked
files. Only files identical across the base, index, and working tree are outside
the change bundle; staged changes later undone remain included. Actual binary
or submodule changes still refuse review. The bundle labels its pinned
staged base. Git status remains relative to HEAD and does not define review scope.
Without --base, local mode retains its usual HEAD-to-index behavior; it never
infers a base from an in-progress merge.
Committed-only branch/PR work:
"$AUTOREVIEW" --mode branch --base origin/main
Branch mode reviews BASE...HEAD (merge-base-to-HEAD); staged, unstaged, and
untracked changes are excluded even in a dirty checkout. To review the complete
PR candidate including dirty rewrites, pin the PR merge base and use local mode:
pr_base=$(gh pr view --json baseRefName --jq .baseRefName)
merge_base=$(gi
Truncated for display — read the full file on GitHub.
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Trust signals
From repository metadata: license, adoption, age and documentation. Not a code audit — see the Safety scan above for what the skill file itself contains.
