🛠️

Engineering Code Review

Review code changes for security, performance, and correctness. Trigger with a PR URL or diff, "review this before I merge", "is this code safe?", or when checking a change for N+1 queries, injection risks, missing edge cases, or error handling gaps.

by @anthropics · Apache 2.0 New

What this skill does

Keep your software safe and fast by catching security risks and bugs in your code before they impact users. Receive a clear report detailing critical fixes, actionable improvements, and confirmation of what works well. Use this whenever you are ready to release new features or need a trusted second pair of eyes on safety and quality.

Anthropic · Development
view on github ↗

name: code-review description: Review code changes for security, performance, and correctness. Trigger with a PR URL or diff, “review this before I merge”, “is this code safe?”, or when checking a change for N+1 queries, injection risks, missing edge cases, or error handling gaps. argument-hint: “<PR URL, diff, or file path>“

/code-review

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Review code changes with a structured lens on security, performance, correctness, and maintainability.

Usage

/code-review <PR URL or file path>

Review the provided code changes: @$1

If no specific file or URL is provided, ask what to review.

How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      CODE REVIEW                                   │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  STANDALONE (always works)                                       │
│  ✓ Paste a diff, PR URL, or point to files                      │
│  ✓ Security audit (OWASP top 10, injection, auth)               │
│  ✓ Performance review (N+1, memory leaks, complexity)           │
│  ✓ Correctness (edge cases, error handling, race conditions)    │
│  ✓ Style (naming, structure, readability)                        │
│  ✓ Actionable suggestions with code examples                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  SUPERCHARGED (when you connect your tools)                      │
│  + Source control: Pull PR diff automatically                    │
│  + Project tracker: Link findings to tickets                     │
│  + Knowledge base: Check against team coding standards           │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Review Dimensions

Security

  • SQL injection, XSS, CSRF
  • Authentication and authorization flaws
  • Secrets or credentials in code
  • Insecure deserialization
  • Path traversal
  • SSRF

Performance

  • N+1 queries
  • Unnecessary memory allocations
  • Algorithmic complexity (O(n²) in hot paths)
  • Missing database indexes
  • Unbounded queries or loops
  • Resource leaks

Correctness

  • Edge cases (empty input, null, overflow)
  • Race conditions and concurrency issues
  • Error handling and propagation
  • Off-by-one errors
  • Type safety

Maintainability

  • Naming clarity
  • Single responsibility
  • Duplication
  • Test coverage
  • Documentation for non-obvious logic

Output

## Code Review: [PR title or file]

### Summary
[1-2 sentence overview of the changes and overall quality]

### Critical Issues
| # | File | Line | Issue | Severity |
|---|------|------|-------|----------|
| 1 | [file] | [line] | [description] | 🔴 Critical |

### Suggestions
| # | File | Line | Suggestion | Category |
|---|------|------|------------|----------|
| 1 | [file] | [line] | [description] | Performance |

### What Looks Good
- [Positive observations]

### Verdict
[Approve / Request Changes / Needs Discussion]

If Connectors Available

If ~~source control is connected:

  • Pull the PR diff automatically from the URL
  • Check CI status and test results

If ~~project tracker is connected:

  • Link findings to related tickets
  • Verify the PR addresses the stated requirements

If ~~knowledge base is connected:

  • Check changes against team coding standards and style guides

Tips

  1. Provide context — “This is a hot path” or “This handles PII” helps me focus.
  2. Specify concerns — “Focus on security” narrows the review.
  3. Include tests — I’ll check test coverage and quality too.

Install this Skill

Skills give your AI agent a consistent, structured approach to this task — better output than a one-off prompt.

npx skills add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins --skill engineering
Download ZIP

Official Anthropic skill. Need a walkthrough? See the install guide →

Works with

No terminal needed — Claude.ai works by pasting the skill into custom instructions.

Details

Category
Development
License
Apache 2.0
Source file
show path engineering/skills/code-review/SKILL.md
engineering code-review knowledge-work-plugin