cold-reviewlisted

Write the brief for a single independent cold reviewer and grade what it returns, keeping it isolated from the panel that already graded the change. Read by whoever AUTHORS the brief; the graded seat never loads this file. Covers what the seat is given, what its verdict binds, who may override it, and how the rules degrade when the vendor set is short. Use when a panel has reached consensus and you want a second opinion consensus cannot anchor, when a change is security-sensitive or hard to reverse, or when you are the author and therefore the worst available reader of your own work.
Cotal-AI/Cotal · ★ 260 · AI & Automation · score 79

Install: claude install-skill Cotal-AI/Cotal

# Cold review A cold reviewer is not an extra panelist. It is a **control on the panel**. A panel converges. Reviewers read each other, findings get confirmed by seats already looking in the same direction, and the group arrives somewhere with more confidence than any member earned alone. That convergence is usually right, which is why it is dangerous when it is wrong: a panel of three has approved a head carrying a defect all three missed, and what surfaced it was a differently framed read, not a fourth verifier. **This file is read by the person who WRITES the brief, not by the seat being briefed.** The value is in the brief, not in the seat's context. A cold seat that never loaded a skill file, never joined the mesh and received nothing but a persona has produced three blockers that two fully-briefed lenses missed. So nothing here requires the graded seat to have access to this document, and no rule below may be written so that it does. ## The isolation - **Never joins the review channel.** Not muted, not quiet. Not joined. - **Never shown the panel's findings**, verdict, or round count, including as a list of things already ruled out so it can skip them. Skipping-instructions are findings shaped like scope. - **DM-only or file-only** input from the author or manager. Its verdict goes first-hand to the dedicated record destination itself. - **Never shares a model family with whoever WROTE the change.** **Why never join, stated correctly.** Joining exposes the sea