Debate review

debate-review

When to Use

• You have a GitHub PR or GitLab MR that needs a thorough pre-merge review.
• You want a two-model debate (main reviewer vs. debate reviewer) to catch blind spots before posting inline comments.

Two models argue before anything is posted. A main reviewer finds issues. A debate reviewer tries to knock them down and may add its own. The main reviewer then makes the final call, and one review with inline comments lands on the PR or MR. It posts from the user's own gh, glab or az account as a non-approval review or comment. It never approves and never requests changes.

You are the orchestrator. You run one command and relay the result. You do not review the diff yourself, and you do not touch the PR.

Run it

node "<skill-dir>/scripts/review-pr.mjs" --local [--base <ref>]
node "<skill-dir>/scripts/review-pr.mjs" <pr-url | number> [--dry-run]

• If the user wants a review and there is no PR/MR URL, run --local from the repo (or --repo-dir). Do not invent a URL. Relay stdout. --local never talks to a forge and rejects non-UTF-8 Git paths rather than decoding them lossily.
• <pr-url> is a GitHub /pull/N, GitLab /-/merge_requests/N, or Azure DevOps

/_git/<repo>/pullrequest/N URL (dev.azure.com or the legacy *.visualstudio.com). A bare number resolves against the cwd's origin, including Azure DevOps https and ssh.dev.azure.com:v3/ remotes.

• --dry-run prints a live PR review instead of posting it. It does not combine with --local.
• Azure DevOps needs az logged in (az login) with access to the project. No extension is required,

the script talks to the REST API through az rest. A review there is N inline comment threads plus one closed summary thread, since Azure DevOps has no single review object; the alert blockquotes render as plain quotes, which still read.

• The reviewers are two delegate-skills lanes, review-main and review-debate. If either is missing

the script says so. Add them with delegate-setup. Pick two different implementers, since the debate is only worth something when the second model doesn't share the first one's blind spots (main claude or grok, debate codex at high effort is a good pair). For a one-off, pass --main <implementer> or --debate <implementer>. Only implementers whose relay has --read-only are accepted. These two lanes belong to the reviewer. Don't point them at a lane you use for other work, such as a plan-debate lane.

• Exit code 3 means this head sha already has a debate-review. Re-run with --force to post again.
• A run takes minutes, since it is two or three implementer sessions back to back. Run it in the

background and report the printed URL when it finishes. Don't poll tightly.

All flags: --help. Contracts: [references/schema.md](references/schema.md). What gets posted: [references/comment-format.md](references/comment-format.md). The reviewer briefs live in assets/prompts/ and the script fills them in; you don't need to read them.

After it posts

Each posted comment carries a <!-- debate-review:<id> status=... --> marker. babysit-pr handles GitHub and GitLab rounds (verify, fix blockers, reply, resolve). It cannot harvest Azure DevOps yet, so relay Azure findings directly to the user. Don't act on the findings yourself unless asked.

Artifacts

~/.cache/debate-review/<owner>__<repo>/<N>/<head>/ holds run.json (all three documents, timings, what was posted) plus main/, debate/, and final/, each with the brief sent and the relay's result.json. --local writes under ~/.cache/debate-review/local/<repo>/<branch>/<head>/ instead.

Limitations

• Requires delegate-skills with review-main and review-debate lanes and authenticated gh/glab.
• Docs-only import — executable helpers (scripts/) not included; see upstream for full runtime. Posts a single COMMENT review only.

Adapted from amElnagdy/review-skills (MIT) — docs-only, runtime not bundled.