Skip to main content
Generaldavepoon

ralph-review-trio

Run a sequential three-tier code review on a finished implementation branch — Haiku (surface) → Sonnet (logic) → Opus (deep). Restarts from Tier 1 on any tier failure. Use when a solo branch or PR is code-complete and you want structured pre-merge verification before human review.

Stars
2,987
Source
davepoon/buildwithclaude
Updated
2026-05-26
Slug
davepoon--buildwithclaude--ralph-review-trio
View on GitHubRaw SKILL.md

// install — copy + paste into any project

mkdir -p .claude/skills && curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davepoon/buildwithclaude/HEAD/plugins/ralph-review-trio/skills/ralph-review-trio/SKILL.md -o .claude/skills/ralph-review-trio.md

Drops the SKILL.md into .claude/skills/ralph-review-trio.md. Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any agent that loads SKILL.md files from .claude/skills/.

Ralph Review Trio

This skill triggers /ralph-review, which runs three sequential reviewer subagents at increasing depth. If any tier flags a failure, the loop restarts from Tier 1 after fixes.

When to trigger

  • An implementation is code-complete on a feature / solo branch.
  • All acceptance criteria for the underlying issue are believed satisfied.
  • Pre-merge verification is needed before human review or merge-to-main.
  • You want structured evidence that each tier's checklist was walked.

When NOT to trigger

  • Work-in-progress branches mid-implementation — Ralph assumes the change is complete.
  • Documentation-only diffs with no code — Tier 2/3 still run but most checks short-circuit to "doc-only PR" exemption; overkill for a single README edit.
  • Hotfix branches where speed dominates verification — use the project's normal PR review.

How it works

/ralph-review
    │
    ▼
  Tier 1  — Haiku  (surface checks)   ─── fail ──> restart
    │  pass
    ▼
  Tier 2  — Sonnet (logic checks)     ─── fail ──> restart
    │  pass
    ▼
  Tier 3  — Opus   (deep analysis)    ─── fail ──> restart
    │  pass
    ▼
  RALPH_PASS  →  merge OK

A <promise>HAIKU_PASS</promise> / <promise>SONNET_PASS</promise> / <promise>OPUS_PASS</promise> token is emitted by each tier on pass. All three required for overall pass.

Entry point

/ralph-review — defined in ../../commands/ralph-review.md.

Per-tier checklists

  • ../../agents/haiku-reviewer.md — Tier 1 surface checklist
  • ../../agents/sonnet-reviewer.md — Tier 2 logic checklist
  • ../../agents/opus-reviewer.md — Tier 3 deep-analysis checklist

Extended reference content under references/ (same dir as this SKILL.md) is loaded on demand by each tier when a specific check requires more context.

Outputs

Each tier writes a fenced ## RESULT block with:

## RESULT
mcp_graph_available: yes|no      # first line when discussing graph queries
verdict: pass|fail|unknown
files_touched: [paths]
findings: [{path, line, claim, evidence}]
scope_gaps: [list or "none"]

The main agent reads the RESULT block and decides next action (restart, next tier, or PASS).