/review

Review any research artifact (idea, proposal, experiment plan, paper draft, method) using cross-model review. Uses Review LLM as an independent reviewer. Outputs a structured score, actionable improvement suggestions, and a mapping to wiki entities (which ideas/methods need strengthening, which gaps are discovered). Supports three difficulty levels (standard / hard / adversarial) and four review focuses. Can be used standalone or called by /ideate, /refine, /exp-design.

Inputs

• artifact: the artifact to review, one of:
  • slug of a wiki page (e.g. sparse-lora-for-edge-devices, searched in ideas/experiments/methods/)
  • file path (e.g. wiki/outputs/paper-draft-v1.md)
  • free text (directly pasted proposal or idea description)
• --difficulty (optional, default standard):
  • standard: single-round review, delivers structured feedback
  • hard: multi-round dialogue (up to 3 rounds), Claude rebuts each weakness
  • adversarial: multi-round dialogue (up to 3 rounds), Review LLM additionally attempts to find fatal flaws, simulating the harshest reviewer
• --focus (optional, default comprehensive review):
  • method: focus on technical correctness, novelty, and feasibility of method design
  • evidence: focus on sufficiency of evidence, experimental rigor, idea/method support
  • writing: focus on clarity, structural organization, and argumentative logic
  • completeness: focus on missing content (related work, ablations, baselines)

Outputs

• Review Report (output to terminal):
  • Overall Score (1-10)
  • Strengths (list of positives)
  • Weaknesses (list of issues, ranked by severity)
  • Questions (reviewer questions)
  • Actionable Suggestions (improvement suggestions ranked by priority)
  • Wiki Entity Mapping (which ideas/methods need strengthening, which gaps were found)
  • Verdict: ready / needs-work / major-revision / rethink
• If --difficulty >= hard: additionally includes multi-round dialogue history and final revised score
• This skill does not directly modify the wiki, but outputs a list of suggested wiki updates

Wiki Interaction

Reads

• wiki/papers/*.md — locate papers cited by the artifact, verify citation accuracy
• wiki/concepts/*.md — understand technical concepts involved in the artifact
• wiki/methods/*.md — check the current status of methods the artifact depends on
• wiki/experiments/*.md — find related experiment results
• wiki/ideas/*.md — if reviewing an idea, check its context
• wiki/graph/context_brief.md — global context
• wiki/graph/open_questions.md — check completeness against the gap map
• .claude/skills/shared-references/cross-model-review.md — reviewer independence principle

Writes

• None. Review is a read-only query operation.
  • Review results are output to terminal; the user or caller (e.g. /refine) decides whether to apply them.

Graph edges created

• None.

Workflow

Precondition: confirm working directory is the wiki project root (containing wiki/, raw/, tools/).

Step 1: Load Context

1. Parse artifact:

   • If slug: search sequentially in wiki/ideas/, wiki/experiments/, wiki/methods/, wiki/papers/, wiki/outputs/ for {slug}.md
   • If file path: read directly
   • If free text: use directly

2. Determine artifact type: idea / experiment / method / paper-draft / proposal / other

3. Load relevant wiki context:

   • Read wiki/graph/context_brief.md for global perspective
   • Read wiki/graph/open_questions.md for knowledge gap list
   • Load relevant wiki pages by artifact type:
     • idea → its origin_gaps (concepts/topics), related papers
     • experiment → its linked_idea, related experiments
     • method → its source_papers and parent_methods
     • paper-draft → all wiki pages it cites

4. Read cross-model-review.md: confirm Review LLM independence principle

5. Build reviewer system prompt (based on --focus):

   Base prompt (all focuses):

   You are a senior ML researcher reviewing a research artifact.
   Be thorough, specific, and constructive. For every weakness, suggest a concrete fix.
   Score on a 1-10 scale where:
   - 1-3: Fundamental flaws, not salvageable in current form
   - 4-5: Significant issues but core idea may have merit
   - 6-7: Solid work with clear areas for improvement
   - 8-9: Strong work, minor issues only
   - 10: Exceptional, publication-ready
   

   Focus-specific additions:

   • method: additionally assess technical correctness, novelty of approach, feasibility, comparison to alternatives
   • evidence: additionally assess experimental rigor, statistical significance, idea-evidence alignment, missing controls
   • writing: additionally assess clarity, logical flow, notation consistency, figure quality, related work coverage
   • completeness: additionally assess missing baselines, missing ablations, missing datasets, missing related work, reproducibility

   Adversarial addition (adversarial mode only):

   Additionally: actively search for fatal flaws. A fatal flaw is anything that,
   if true, would make the entire contribution invalid (incorrect proof, data leakage,
   unfair comparison, published prior work). If you find one, flag it clearly.
   

Step 2: Review LLM Initial Review

Follow cross-model-review.md: do not send any of Claude's pre-judgments to Review LLM.

mcp__llm-review__chat:
  system: {reviewer system prompt from Step 1}
  message: |
    ## Artifact to Review
    {artifact full text}

    ## Context from Knowledge Base
    {relevant wiki context: related ideas/methods with status, related experiments, gap map entries}

    ## Review Instructions
    Please provide:
    1. **Strengths** (3-5 bullet points)
    2. **Weaknesses** (ranked by severity, each with a concrete suggestion to fix)
    3. **Questions** (things that are unclear or need clarification)
    4. **Score** (1-10 with one-sentence justification)
    5. **Verdict**: ready / needs-work / major-revision / rethink
    6. **Idea-/method-level feedback**: For each idea or method referenced in the artifact, assess whether the evidence/justification is sufficient. List any ideas or methods that need stronger support.
    7. **Knowledge gaps identified**: Any open questions or missing knowledge that would strengthen this work.

Record the threadId returned by Review LLM (for multi-round dialogue in Step 3).

Step 3: Multi-Round Dialogue (hard / adversarial mode)

Skip this step if --difficulty is standard.

Respond to each of Review LLM's weaknesses (up to 3 rounds):

Round N (N = 1, 2, 3):

1. Claude analyzes Review LLM's weaknesses and classifies each:

   • Rebuttal: Claude has strong reasoning or wiki evidence to counter it → write a rebuttal
   • Acknowledge: the weakness genuinely exists → acknowledge it and propose a fix
   • Clarify: the weakness is based on a misunderstanding → provide clarification

2. Send Claude's response to Review LLM:

   mcp__llm-review__chat-reply:
     threadId: {from Step 2}
     message: |
       Thank you for the review. Here are my responses:
   
       {for each weakness: rebuttal / acknowledgment / clarification}
   
       Please re-evaluate considering these responses. Update your score if warranted.
       If --difficulty == adversarial: Also, please try harder to find any remaining
       fatal flaws I may have missed.
   

3. Review LLM responds with a new assessment and revised score

4. If Review LLM's score change < 0.5 and no new weaknesses → stop dialogue (converged)

5. If 3 rounds reached → stop dialogue

Step 4: Structured Output

Synthesize Step 2 + Step 3 results into a structured Review Report:

# Review Report: {artifact title}

## Meta
- **Artifact type**: {idea / experiment / method / paper-draft / proposal}
- **Difficulty**: {standard / hard / adversarial}
- **Focus**: {method / evidence / writing / completeness / comprehensive}
- **Reviewer**: Review LLM (configured in `.env`)
- **Rounds**: {1 for standard, N for hard/adversarial}

## Score: {final score}/10 — {verdict}

| Verdict | Meaning |
|---------|---------|
| ready | Ready to use or submit directly |
| needs-work | Clear improvement points; usable after fixes |
| major-revision | Core sections need significant revision |
| rethink | Fundamental direction may be flawed; reconsider |

## Strengths
1. {strength 1}
2. {strength 2}
...

## Weaknesses (by severity)

### Critical
- {weakness}: {specific description} → **Fix**: {specific fix suggestion}

### Major
- {weakness}: {specific description} → **Fix**: {specific fix suggestion}

### Minor
- {weakness}: {specific description} → **Fix**: {specific fix suggestion}

## Questions
1. {question}
...

## Wiki Entity Mapping

### Ideas / methods needing stronger support
| Entity | Signal | Issue | Suggested action |
|--------|--------|-------|------------------|
| [[idea-slug]] | novelty_score 2/5 | Novelty argument is thin | Run /novelty rerun |
| [[method-slug]] | source_papers sparse | Missing source paper backing | Ingest the missing paper, then rerun /check |

### Knowledge gaps identified
| Gap | Related to | Suggested action |
|-----|-----------|------------------|
| {description} | [[slug]] | /ingest, /exp-run, or /query |

### Suggested wiki updates
- `wiki/ideas/{slug}.md`: add risk factor from review
- `wiki/methods/{slug}.md`: tighten Tradeoff profile / Limitations
- `wiki/graph/open_questions.md`: will be updated on next rebuild

## Dialogue History (hard/adversarial only)

### Round 1
**Review LLM**: {summary of initial review}
**Claude**: {summary of rebuttals/acknowledgments}

### Round 2
**Review LLM**: {updated assessment}
...

## Actionable Items (ranked)
1. [CRITICAL] {action item}
2. [MAJOR] {action item}
3. [MINOR] {action item}

Constraints

• Reviewer independence: strictly follow shared-references/cross-model-review.md; do not leak Claude's pre-judgments to Review LLM
• Do not modify wiki: review only outputs suggestions; it does not directly modify any wiki pages. Wiki modifications are handled by the caller (e.g. /refine)
• Scores must have justification: scores without a rationale are not accepted
• Weaknesses must have fixes: every weakness must include a specific, actionable fix suggestion; vague criticism is not accepted
• Entity-level mapping is required: output must include the Wiki Entity Mapping section, mapping review findings to specific wiki entities (ideas, methods, etc.)
• Adversarial mode must search for fatal flaws: e.g. fully published identical work, incorrect proofs, data leakage
• Multi-round dialogue capped at 3 rounds: prevents infinite loops; output current state if 3 rounds do not converge
• Use [[slug]] when referencing wiki pages: all references to wiki pages use wikilink syntax

Error Handling

• Artifact not found: prompt user to check slug or path, list likely candidate pages
• Review LLM unavailable: downgrade to Claude self-review mode; annotate report with "single-model review, cross-model verification unavailable"; recommend the user retry with Review LLM later
• Wiki empty: proceed with review normally, but annotate Wiki Entity Mapping section with "wiki empty, no entity mapping available"
• Artifact too long: if it exceeds Review LLM's context window, review section by section and merge at the end
• Review LLM returns invalid response: retry once; if still invalid, use Claude self-review fallback
• Review LLM does not converge in multi-round dialogue: force-stop after 3 rounds; output the last round's score and summary

Dependencies

Tools（via Bash）

• No direct tool calls (review does not require deterministic tools)

MCP Servers

• mcp__llm-review__chat — Review LLM initial review (Step 2)
• mcp__llm-review__chat-reply — Review LLM multi-round dialogue (Step 3)

Claude Code Native

• Read — read artifact and wiki pages
• Glob — find wiki page corresponding to artifact

Shared References

• .claude/skills/shared-references/cross-model-review.md — reviewer independence principle (required reading)

Called by

• /ideate Phase 4 (review top ideas)
• /refine each iteration round (review current version)
• /exp-design --review (review experiment plan)