Reviewer Loop

loop pattern · maturity: established · risk: low

Work product passes through a distinct review pass (separate skill, separate agent, or separate role prompt) that hunts for defects against a rubric before the work is accepted. Findings route back to the producer for fixes, bounded by iteration count.

When to use

Code review, content editorial, plan review: anywhere producer bias hides defects.

Steps

Step	What happens	Verification
Produce	Producer completes work to its own definition of done.	Producer's own checks pass first; review is not a substitute for self-verification.
Review	Reviewer evaluates against a written rubric, reporting findings with severity and evidence.	Each finding cites the specific artifact location and failure scenario.
Resolve	Producer fixes confirmed findings or documents disagreement; loop repeats up to the iteration bound.	Re-review of changed areas only; iteration count enforced.

Specification

Verification method	The rubric. Reviewer quality is measurable via seeded-defect recall.
Recovery behavior	bounded-iteration-then-escalate
Observability	Findings log with severities and resolutions.
Inputs	Work product, Review rubric, Iteration bound
Outputs	Accepted work, Findings log
Risk level / maturity	low / established

Failure modes

Reviewer rubber-stamps (same context as producer)
Unbounded ping-pong
Rubric drift: findings not tied to written criteria

Assessment

Context separation is what makes this work: a reviewer sharing the producer's full reasoning inherits its blind spots. Fresh-context review finds what self-review cannot.