pig-farm-controller/bmad/bmm/workflows/4-implementation/code-review

Review Story (Senior Developer Code Review)

Perform an AI-driven Senior Developer Code Review on a story flagged "Ready for Review". The workflow ingests the story, its Story Context, and the epic’s Tech Spec, consults local docs, uses enabled MCP servers for up-to-date best practices (with web search fallback), and appends structured review notes to the story.

What It Does

• Auto-discovers the target story or accepts an explicit story_path
• Verifies the story is in a reviewable state (e.g., Ready for Review/Review)
• Loads Story Context (from Dev Agent Record → Context Reference or auto-discovery)
• Locates the epic Tech Spec and relevant architecture/standards docs
• Uses MCP servers for best-practices and security references; falls back to web search
• Reviews implementation vs Acceptance Criteria, Tech Spec, and repo standards
• Evaluates code quality, security, and test coverage
• Appends a "Senior Developer Review (AI)" section to the story with findings and action items
• Optionally updates story Status based on outcome

How to Invoke

• Tell the Dev Agent to perform a *code-review after loading the dev agent. This is a context intensive operation so this should not be done in the same context as a just completed dev session - clear the context, reload the dev, then run code-review!

Inputs and Variables

• story_path (optional): Explicit path to a story file
• story_dir (from config): {project-root}/bmad/bmm/config.yaml → dev_story_location
• allow_status_values: Defaults include Ready for Review, Review
• auto_discover_context (default: true)
• auto_discover_tech_spec (default: true)
• tech_spec_glob_template: tech-spec-epic-{{epic_num}}*.md
• arch_docs_search_dirs: Defaults to docs/ and outputs/
• enable_mcp_doc_search (default: true)
• enable_web_fallback (default: true)
• update_status_on_result (default: false)

Story Updates

• Appends a section titled: Senior Developer Review (AI) at the end
• Adds a Change Log entry: "Senior Developer Review notes appended"
• If enabled, updates Status based on outcome

Persistence and Backlog

To ensure review findings become actionable work, the workflow can persist action items to multiple targets (configurable):

• Story tasks: Inserts unchecked items under Tasks / Subtasks in a "Review Follow-ups (AI)" subsection so dev-story can pick them up next.
• Story review section: Keeps a full list under "Senior Developer Review (AI) → Action Items".
• Backlog file: Appends normalized rows to docs/backlog.md (created if missing) for cross-cutting or longer-term improvements.
• Epic follow-ups: If an epic Tech Spec is found, appends to its Post-Review Follow-ups section.

Configure via workflow.yaml variables:

• persist_action_items (default: true)
• persist_targets: story_tasks, story_review_section, backlog_file, epic_followups
• backlog_file (default: {project-root}/docs/backlog.md)
• update_epic_followups (default: true)
• epic_followups_section_title (default: Post-Review Follow-ups)

Routing guidance:

• Put must-fix items to ship the story into the story’s tasks.
• Put same-epic but non-blocking improvements into the epic Tech Spec follow-ups.
• Put cross-cutting, future, or refactor work into the backlog file.

Related Workflows

• dev-story — Implements tasks/subtasks and can act on review action items
• story-context — Generates Story Context for a single story
• tech-spec — Generates epic Tech Spec documents

Part of the BMAD Method v6 — Implementation Phase