magpie-review

Magpie review

Review the diff the user points at (default: working tree against the default branch). Judge every hunk against the ladder in two directions — over-building and floor breaches. Read enough surrounding code to know what already exists; a reuse finding is only real if you name the existing thing.

Findings — over-building

For each finding, report:

• file:line — where.
• Rung — the highest ladder rung that already held (1–6) and what sits there: the existing helper, the stdlib call, the native feature, the installed dep, or the one-liner.
• Cost delta — what dropping to that rung saves: saves: N lines, D deps, E entities.
• Fix — the one-line replacement or deletion.

Typical catches: re-implemented helper that lives a few files over, new dependency for a few lines, interface with one impl, config for a constant, scaffolding "for later", guard duplicated per caller instead of once in the shared function.

Findings — floor breaches

Flag any hunk that removed or skipped the floor: input validation at a trust boundary, error handling that prevents data loss, security, accessibility, a calibration knob, or the ONE runnable check non-trivial logic must leave behind. A floor breach outranks every over-building finding — report it first.

Shortcut hygiene

A deliberate shortcut is fine iff marked with a reuse: comment naming the ceiling and upgrade path. Unmarked shortcut → ask for the comment, not for more code.

Output

Findings ordered floor-first, then by cost delta descending. Each finding at most three lines. No finding → say "clean at every rung" and stop; a review padded with nitpicks is itself over-building.