Design Review

Conventions

• Read capy knowledge base conventions at shared-capy-knowledge-protocol.md.

Overview

Pre-implementation review gate that evaluates design documents produced by $kk:design before code is written. Sits between $kk:design (creates docs) and $kk:implement (executes them). Reviews tree distinct dimensions

• document quality/structure (completeness, internal consistency, clarity, convention adherence)
• technical soundness (architectural viability, edge cases, failure modes, trade-off analysis)
• feature value (Does the feature improve things for end-users? Is it useful? Is it correct in how it tries to solve the problem?)

Review Modes

Standard Mode ($kk:review-design)

Reviews design documents in the main conversation context. Fast, single-pass review using the workflow below.

Isolated Mode ($kk:review-design:isolated)

Delegates detection to independent reviewers that did not participate in the design, then annotates their findings with author context. Two parallel reviewers: a design-reviewer sub-agent and pal codereview (external model in native format). Produces a report organized by agreement level with corroborated findings highlighted.

• Cost: Higher (sub-agent + external model + annotation)
• Isolation: True — reviewers have zero authorship bias or session context
• Degradation: Graceful — if one reviewer fails, proceeds with the other; if both fail, suggests standard mode fallback
• Best for: When extra rigor is worth the cost (before starting implementation of high-stakes features)

See review-isolated.md for the isolated workflow.

Finding Types

Type	Code	Description
Incomplete Spec	INCOMPLETE	Section lacks sufficient detail for implementation
Internal Inconsistency	INCONSISTENT	Two parts of the docs contradict each other
Technical Risk	TECH_RISK	Architecture choice has unaddressed failure modes, scalability concerns, or edge cases
Missing Concern	MISSING	Cross-cutting concern is absent (error handling, migration, backwards compatibility)
Ambiguity	AMBIGUOUS	Requirements can be interpreted multiple ways, likely to cause implementation divergence
Structure Issue	STRUCTURE	Document doesn't follow project conventions — missing sections, vague subtasks

Severity Levels

Level	Name	Description	Action
P0	Critical	Fundamental flaw — design will not work as described, or critical requirement is missing	Must fix before implementation
P1	High	Significant gap — likely to cause rework or wrong implementation	Should fix before implementation
P2	Medium	Moderate concern — ambiguity or missing detail that could cause confusion	Fix or create follow-up
P3	Low	Minor — style, structure, or nitpick	Optional

Workflow

Mandatory order — methodology before evaluation. The flow below is strictly sequential. Do not evaluate document quality, assess technical soundness, or form findings until this SKILL.md and the process file are fully loaded. The design documents are both instruction context (they define what the feature is) and subject matter (they are what you evaluate) — but the review methodology and rubric must be loaded first.

Phases:

1. Load documents — parse scope, locate feature directory, read in-scope docs
2. Capy search — search kk:arch-decisions and kk:review-findings for prior context
3. Document quality review — completeness, clarity, consistency, convention adherence
4. Technical soundness review — viability, edge cases, trade-offs, scalability, testing strategy
5. Self-check and confidence assessment — re-read, question assumptions, assign confidence
6. Present findings with next steps

See review-process.md for the detailed step-by-step process.

Invocation

Post-design gate. This is the recommended review step after $kk:design completes and before $kk:implement begins. The default scope reviews all documents, including task-format checks.

Standard mode — reviews all documents by default:

$kk:review-design [feature-name]

Standard mode with scope — review specific documents:

$kk:review-design [feature-name] design
$kk:review-design [feature-name] implementation
$kk:review-design [feature-name] tasks

Scope	Documents reviewed
(none)	design.md + implementation.md + tasks.md
design	design.md only
implementation	implementation.md only
tasks	tasks.md only

Isolated mode with independent sub-agents:

$kk:review-design:isolated [feature-name]
$kk:review-design:isolated [feature-name] tasks