Staff Engineer Code Review skill for Claude and Codex

Staff Engineer Code Review as an AI skill. It asks for The diff or files, What the change is meant to do, System context and 3 more, then does the rest. Free…

Install it once and Claude or Codex runs it for you. When your request matches, your AI loads the skill, asks for anything it is missing, and works through the template itself. Prefer to fill it in by hand? See the full prompt template.

Download the skill (.zip) · View SKILL.md

When it is used

Use when an engineer needs a pre-merge review that looks for production failures such as races, missing timeouts, and unsafe migrations that pass the test suite. Do not use for style linting or reviewing a design before code exists. Related topics: coding, technical.

What it will ask you for

• The diff or files (longer free text)
• What the change is meant to do (longer free text)
• System context (longer free text)
• Language and framework (free text, e.g. "Node and Express")
• Risk level (choose one: Low, Medium, High, Critical path)
• Review strictness (choose one: Lenient, Balanced, Strict)

How it works

1. Read the change for its intent and compare it against the stated behaviour.
2. Search for production failure patterns including races, unbounded queries, duplicate retries, and missing timeouts.
3. Describe each finding with file, line, impact, a realistic trigger, and a fix.
4. Label a finding Blocking only when it risks data loss, outage, security exposure, or wrong results.
5. Give a verdict with the count of blocking findings.

What you get

A findings list with file and line, impact, trigger, fix, and a Blocking, Suggestion, or Nit label, then a verdict and the blocking count.

What it watches out for

• Marking style preferences as Blocking, which trains authors to ignore the label.
• Reporting a bug with no trigger, so the author cannot judge how likely it is.
• Reading only the diff and missing that a changed function has callers elsewhere.

How to install

Claude.ai and the Claude desktop app

1. Download the skill .zip.
2. Open Settings, then Capabilities, and find Skills.
3. Choose Upload skill and select the .zip.
4. Ask Claude for help with the task. It loads the skill when your request matches.

Claude Code

1. Download the skill .zip.
2. Unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/ (or .claude/skills/ inside a project).
3. Start a new session. Claude Code loads the skill when your request matches.

Codex

1. Download the skill .zip.
2. Unzip it into ~/.agents/skills/ (or .agents/skills/ inside a project).
3. Codex picks it up on its own. Type $ and the skill name to use it, or just ask for the task.

Cursor

1. Download the Cursor rule (.mdc).
2. Save it in .cursor/rules/ inside your project.
3. Cursor's agent applies the rule when your request matches its description.

AGENTS.md (Codex, Cursor, and other coding agents)

1. Copy the AGENTS.md section.
2. Paste it into AGENTS.md at the root of your repository, creating the file if needed.
3. Coding agents that read AGENTS.md follow it when your request fits.