roboco/docs/rag/architecture/review-findings.md

Revision Findings Ledger

Structured, persistent code-level feedback for every QA/PR-gate/PM/CEO bounce back to needs_revision — the replacement for a prose issues list that got flattened into free text and forgotten by the next round. If a task ever comes back to you as needs_revision, this is the mechanism that carries WHAT was wrong, not just THAT something was wrong. Always on — there is no feature flag.

The four producers

Verb	Caller	Origin	Note it renders into
fail (fail_review)	QA	qa	qa_notes
pr_fail	PR reviewer (in-path gate)	pr_gate	pr_reviewer_notes
request_changes	Cell PM / Main PM	pm	pm_notes
ceo_reject	CEO (panel-only, not a gateway verb)	ceo	— (a single finding derived from your rejection reason)

Each takes findings: list[dict] — a list of structured findings. The legacy issues: list[str] (plain strings) still works this release as a deprecated shim: each string becomes a file-less severity=major finding. Sending both findings and issues in the same call merges them rather than dropping one.

The Finding shape

{
    "file": "roboco/api/routes/rate_limit.py",   # optional; repo-relative, no ".."
    "line": 88,                                   # optional; >= 1
    "severity": "blocker",                        # required: blocker | major | minor | nit
    "criterion": "<acceptance-criterion id or exact text>",  # optional
    "expected": "429 on the 101st request",       # required, <=300 chars
    "actual": "the 100th request also 429s",      # required, <=300 chars
    "fix": "use > not >= on the window limit",    # optional, <=500 chars — describe the change, never a literal patch
    "evidence": "<failing test output / CI lines / diff hunk>",  # optional, <=2000 chars
}

• severity: blocker (must fix before merge/pass) → major (significant defect) → minor (small defect, fix advised) → nit (cosmetic).
• criterion, if supplied, must match one of the task's acceptance-criterion ids or exact text — a criterion that matches neither is rejected outright, so a typo doesn't silently detach the finding from what it's actually about.
• Count guard: a soft nudge appears (non-blocking) above 5 findings in one call; more than 10 is a hard reject — split across calls or prioritize the blocking ones first. An oversized findings list is as unreviewable as an oversized task.

What happens when you file one

Every finding is validated, then inserted as one append-only row on the task's task_review_findings ledger (origin, round = the revision count this bounce belongs to, status=open), then rendered into a deterministic line — [F-xxxxxxxx] file:line (severity) — expected → actual → fix — that becomes both the structured note's summary (so qa_notes/pr_reviewer_notes/pm_notes show it directly) and the A2A message body. Nothing here is a snapshot that a later round can overwrite — every round's findings stay on the ledger alongside every earlier round's.

Resolving findings (the bounced side)

i_am_done, submit_up, and submit_root all accept resolved_findings:

i_am_done(
    task_id="<task>",
    notes="...",
    resolved_findings=[
        {"finding_id": "a1b2c3d4", "commit": "<sha>", "note": "fixed the off-by-one"},
    ],
)

finding_id is the 8-char id shown in the [F-xxxxxxxx] rendering (an unambiguous longer prefix, or the full id, also matches). Every entry on the ledger still open for this task must be named or the call is refused, listing exactly which ids are still open — you don't have to guess or re-derive them. This is a gate, not a suggestion: an unresolved finding blocks resubmission.

Where findings arrive

• evidence(task_id) carries revision_findings — the OPEN findings on the task, for any role.
• claim_review (QA) and claim_gate_review (PR reviewer) additionally carry prior_findings — the FULL ledger (every round, every status), so a round-2+ reviewer checks each prior finding against the current diff instead of re-deriving what was already found.
• Your respawn prompt, if the task bounced, renders the open findings inline (id, file:line, expected → actual → fix) — you don't have to call anything extra to see them.
• A PM re-spawned onto a bounced root sees a "bounced" block in its triage prompt with the same rendering.
• The A2A message a producer sends alongside the bounce carries the identical rendering.
• The panel's task-detail Findings tab shows the full ledger per round with status badges; the task header shows a bounced xN chip.

Verification (the reviewer's side)

When the SAME origin's review passes on a later round, every addressed finding of that origin is bulk-promoted to verified in the same transaction — pass (QA) verifies qa-origin findings, pr_pass verifies pr_gate-origin, complete (PM) verifies pm-origin. ceo_approve does the same for ceo-origin findings, best-effort. A finding can also be waived (the repository supports it) but no verb currently calls that path — an unaddressed finding cannot yet be dismissed without actually resolving it.

ceo_reject specifically

The CEO acts through the panel, not a gateway verb — there is no agent-facing ceo_reject call. But the CEO's rejection reason is no longer just a status flip: it becomes one origin=ceo, severity=blocker finding on the ledger (expected="CEO sign-off on this task", actual=<your reason>), visible in the Findings tab and delivered to whoever reworks it exactly like a QA or PR-gate bounce. An empty or placeholder reason ("", "wip", "n/a") is rejected cleanly rather than causing a server error.

Don't confuse this with convention_findings

convention_findings (surfaced in QA's claim_review evidence when the architectural-conventions standard is enabled) is a completely different concept: diff-time lint findings from the architecture validator (misplaced definitions, lint suppressions), keyed to a different table (project_convention_findings), replaced per-task rather than append-only. A findings-driven claim_review evidence payload can carry BOTH convention_findings and revision_findings/prior_findings at once — don't conflate the two words.

See also

• docs/rag/roles/qa.md — fail/pass in practice
• docs/rag/roles/pr-reviewer.md — pr_fail/pr_pass in practice
• docs/rag/roles/cell-pm.md / docs/rag/roles/main-pm.md — request_changes in practice
• docs/rag/roles/developer.md — resolving a bounce with resolved_findings
• docs/rag/roles/ceo.md — ceo_reject
• docs/rag/lifecycle/intent-verbs.md — the canonical verb reference
• docs/rag/standards/conventions.md — the unrelated convention_findings concept
• docs/map/review-findings.md — the implementation map (code-facing, not agent-facing)