OpenMontage/skills/meta/reviewer.md

Reviewer — Meta Skill

When to Use

After completing any pipeline stage's work — before checkpointing. You are the quality gate between "work done" and "work accepted." This skill replaces the Python reviewer class with an instruction-driven self-review protocol.

Every stage gets reviewed. No exceptions. The review quality determines whether the final video is worth watching.

Protocol

Step 1: Load Review Context

Before reviewing, gather:

1. Review focus items from the pipeline manifest for this stage (review_focus field)
2. Success criteria from the manifest for this stage (success_criteria field)
3. Active playbook quality rules
4. The artifact produced by the stage

Step 2: Schema Validation

First, the non-negotiable check:

• Validate the artifact against its JSON schema (schemas/artifacts/<name>.schema.json)
• If schema validation fails, this is a critical finding — fix immediately, do not proceed

Step 3: Review Against Focus Items

For each review_focus item from the manifest:

1. Evaluate the artifact against this specific criterion
2. Assign a severity:
   • critical — Must fix before proceeding. The artifact is broken, incomplete, or dangerously wrong.
   • suggestion — Should fix. Improves quality significantly but doesn't block progress.
   • nitpick — Could fix. Minor polish that's nice-to-have.
3. Write a specific, actionable finding (not vague)

Good finding: "Section 3 narration is 180 words for a 10-second window — that's 1080 wpm, impossible to speak. Cut to 25 words." Bad finding: "Script might be too long."

Step 4: Cross-Check Against Playbook

If a style playbook is active, verify:

• Color references match playbook palette
• Transition types are in the playbook's allowed set
• Pacing rules are respected (min/max durations)
• Asset descriptions include playbook style cues
• Quality rules are not violated

Each violation is a suggestion severity finding.

Step 5: Evaluate Success Criteria

For each success_criteria item from the manifest:

• Is the criterion met? (yes/no/partial)
• If not met, create a critical finding

Step 6: Make a Decision

Count findings by severity:

Scenario	Action
0 critical, any suggestions/nitpicks	Pass — proceed to checkpoint. Note suggestions for the record.
1+ critical findings	Revise — fix all critical findings, then re-review (max 2 rounds).
After 2 revision rounds, still critical	Pass with warnings — proceed anyway, note unresolved issues. Never block indefinitely.

Step 7: Record Review

Structure your review as:

## Review: [stage_name] — Round [N]

**Decision:** PASS / REVISE / PASS_WITH_WARNINGS

### Findings

1. [CRITICAL] Title of finding
   - Description: What's wrong
   - Action: What to fix
   - Status: pending / fixed / accepted / deferred

2. [SUGGESTION] Title of finding
   - Description: What could be better
   - Action: How to improve
   - Status: pending / accepted / deferred

### Summary
- Critical: N (N fixed)
- Suggestions: N
- Nitpicks: N
- Playbook violations: N
- Success criteria met: N/M

Key Principles

1. Be specific, not vague. "The hook is weak" is useless. "The hook asks a question but doesn't create urgency — try leading with the surprising stat from key_point #2" is actionable.

2. Critical means critical. Don't inflate severity. A missing schema field is critical. A slightly wordy paragraph is a suggestion. A comma splice is a nitpick.

3. Two rounds max. The goal is shipping, not perfection. After two revision rounds, pass with warnings and move on. Perfectionism kills pipelines.

4. Review the artifact, not the process. You're checking the output, not how it was produced. If the brief is compelling, it doesn't matter if the agent used an unusual approach.

5. Playbook is law. If the playbook says "no more than 3 colors on screen," that's not a suggestion — it's a constraint. Violations are always flagged.

Stage-Specific Review Guidance

Stage	What matters most
idea	Hook uniqueness, research depth, angle diversity
script	Timing accuracy, narrative arc, enhancement cue density
scene_plan	Full coverage, visual variety, asset feasibility
assets	File existence, style consistency, budget adherence
edit	Timeline coverage, audio sync, subtitle presence
compose	Playability, duration accuracy, audio quality
publish	SEO quality, metadata completeness, export packaging