crit-cli - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: crit-cli description: Use when an agent needs to author or reply to crit inline comments programmatically (including multi-agent workflows commenting on shared code/plans/docs/proposals), publish or unpublish a crit review with crit share, sync a crit review to or from a GitHub PR, or read/interpret a crit review JSON file. Covers crit comment, crit share, crit unpublish, crit pull, crit push, review file format, and resolution workflow. Not for invoking an interactive review loop — that's the `crit` skill. user-invocable: false

Crit CLI Reference

If a plan was just written and the user said "crit" or "review", use the $crit skill instead — it covers the full review loop. This skill covers CLI operations like crit comment, crit pull/push, and crit share.

Comments have three scopes:

Line comments (scope: "line") — tied to specific lines, stored in files.<path>.comments
File comments (scope: "file") — about a file overall, stored in files.<path>.comments with start_line: 0
Review comments (scope: "review") — general feedback, stored in the top-level review_comments array

The review file path is shown by crit status.

Use read_file on the path printed by crit. Example structure:

{
  "review_comments": [
    {
      "id": "r_f1e2d3",
      "body": "Overall the architecture looks good",
      "scope": "review",
      "author": "User Name",
      "resolved": false,
      "replies": [
        { "id": "rp_b4a5c6", "body": "Thanks, addressed the minor issues", "author": "Grok" }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "files": {
    "path/to/file.go": {
      "comments": [
        {
          "id": "c_a1b2c3",
          "start_line": 5,
          "end_line": 10,
          "body": "Comment text",
          "quote": "the specific words selected",
          "anchor": "The sessions table needs a complete rewrite...",
          "author": "User Name",
          "resolved": false,
          "replies": [ ... ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Field rules:

resolved: false or missing both mean unresolved. Only true means resolved.
quote (optional): the exact text the reviewer highlighted.
anchor (line comments): the full text of the commented lines at the time the comment was placed. Use the anchor to locate content after edits.
drifted: true: content was removed or heavily rewritten — treat line numbers as approximate.
Unresolved comments may have replies — read them before acting.

Use run_terminal_cmd with the following patterns. Always pass --author 'Grok'.

# Review-level (general feedback)
crit comment --author 'Grok' 'Overall feedback here'

# File-level (whole file, no line numbers)
crit comment --author 'Grok' path/to/file.md 'The whole file needs X'

# Line (single line or range)
crit comment --author 'Grok' path/to/file.go:42 'Missing null check'
crit comment --author 'Grok' path/to/file.go:50-55 'Extract to helper'

# Reply to an existing comment
crit comment --reply-to <id> --author 'Grok' 'Fixed — added the helper and tests'

Hard rules:

Always pass --author 'Grok'.
Always single-quote the body in the shell command (double quotes break on backticks, $, etc.).
Line numbers are 1-indexed file lines on disk (not diff lines).
Reply bodies support full markdown.
Only pass --resolve when the user explicitly asks you to.

Use --json for atomicity and speed. Two ways to feed JSON:

# Short bodies — pipe via stdin
echo '[
  {"body": "overall feedback", "scope": "review"},
  {"path": "session.go", "body": "restructure the round logic", "scope": "file"},
  {"file": "src/auth.go", "line": 42, "body": "Missing null check"},
  {"file": "src/auth.go", "line": "50-55", "body": "Extract to helper"},
  {"reply_to": "c_a1b2c3", "body": "Fixed — added null check"}
]' | crit comment --json --author 'Grok'

Prefer --file <path> for any multi-paragraph body (shell quoting of newlines in JSON is fragile). Write the JSON with write, then point crit at it:

crit comment --json --file /tmp/replies.json --author 'Grok'

--file - reads stdin (same as omitting the flag).

Per-entry schema:

Field	Type	Required	Notes
`file` / `path`	string	line/file comments	Relative path. `path` alone → file-level.
`line`	int/string	line comments	`42` or `"45-47"`
`end_line`	int	optional	Defaults to `line`
`body`	string	always
`author`	string	optional	Per-entry override
`scope`	string	optional	`"review"` / `"file"` — usually inferred
`reply_to`	string	replies	Comment ID (`c_…` or `r_…`)
`resolve`	bool	optional	Only when user explicitly asks

Scope inference (when scope omitted): has reply_to → reply; no file/path and no line → review-level; path but no line → file-level; file/path + line → line.

Comment IDs are unique per session, but the same ID can appear in multiple files. Disambiguate with --path:

crit comment --reply-to c_a1b2c3 --path src/auth.go --author 'Grok' 'Fixed the null check'

In --json mode, set the file field on the entry. Review-level IDs (r_…) are globally unique.

Plan reviews (via crit plan or the exit_plan_mode hook) store the review file in ~/.crit/plans/<slug>/. Always pass --plan <slug> — without it crit comment looks in the project root and will not find the comments. The slug is shown in the review feedback prompt and in the output of crit plan-hook.

crit comment --plan my-plan-2026-05-14 --reply-to c_a1b2c3 --author 'Grok' 'Updated the plan'

When you are in a Grok plan-mode session, the plan file itself lives at ~/.grok/sessions/<cwd>/<session-id>/plan.md. The --plan <slug> flag tells crit comment which Crit-managed review file to write to.

crit pull [pr-number]                                    # Fetch PR review comments into the review file
crit push [--dry-run] [--event <type>] [-m <msg>] [pr]   # Post review comments as a GitHub PR review

Requires the gh CLI installed and authenticated. PR number is auto-detected from the current branch (or you can pass it explicitly).

--event values: comment (default), approve, request-changes. -m adds a review-level body message.

crit share <file> [file...]                          # Upload and print URL
crit share --qr <file>                               # Also print QR code (terminal only)
crit share --org <slug> <file>                       # Share under an organization
crit share --org <slug> --visibility unlisted <file> # Org share with explicit visibility
crit unpublish [file...]                              # Remove shared review

No server needed — reads files directly from disk. If a review file exists, comments for the shared files are included automatically.
Always relay the output — copy the URL (and QR if used) into your response.
--qr is terminal-only — skip in web/chat UIs where block characters won't render.
--org <slug> shares under an organization. Visibility defaults to organization (members only). Override with --visibility (organization, unlisted, public).
Unpublish uses the persisted delete token in the review file — no extra args needed.

Review file location quick reference

Normal git/files mode: ~/.crit/reviews/<key>.json
Plan mode (via crit plan or hook): ~/.crit/plans/<slug>/review.json (the current.md symlink points at the latest plan version)
The exact path is always printed by the crit command and by crit status --json.

Use read_file on the printed path, then act on the review_comments and per-file comments arrays as described above.

This reference skill is automatically available whenever the agent needs to manipulate Crit comments or reviews programmatically. Pair it with the main crit skill when the user wants the interactive browser review experience.