Rafter Code Review — Structured Security Walkthroughs

A reviewer's skill, not an audit generator. Each sub-doc is a set of questions to run against the code — what to grep for, what to trace, what to ask before you sign off. No monolithic reports.

Pair with the rafter skill (detection: rafter scan, rafter run) and rafter-secure-design (prevention: design-phase walks). This skill is the middle stage — review before merge.

When this applies (and when it doesn't)

Scoped to the security surface of the diff, not the task's label. Walk it fully when the change touches: user / untrusted input, SQL or query building, shell / exec / subprocess, auth or access control, credentials / secrets / tokens, file paths or uploads, (de)serialization, crypto, network-facing endpoints or outbound fetchers, data deletion, or dependency / manifest changes.

If none of those are present — research / experimental / exploratory / local-only / throwaway code such as training scripts, data analysis, plotting, model eval, notebooks, or pure computation over trusted local data — a quick surface check is enough; you don't need to walk the full review or pair rafter run. But the check is the surface, not the label: research code that reads a secret, shells out, hits the network, or parses untrusted bytes is back on the engage list and gets the full walk.

How to use this skill

1. Identify the category of code in front of you (below).
2. Read only the matching sub-doc — do not preload them all.
3. Work through its questions against the specific files/diff. Cite file:line evidence as you go.
4. When in doubt on a single finding, jump to docs/investigation-playbook.md for canonical follow-up questions.
5. Finish with rafter run --mode plus on the same diff if the stakes warrant a deep automated pass.

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Choose Your Adventure

(1) Web application (server-rendered, session-based, or SPA backend)

For: login flows, session/cookie handling, form handlers, template rendering, admin panels, anything browser-facing.

• Read docs/web-app.md — OWASP Top 10 (2021) walk: broken access control, crypto failures, injection, insecure design, misconfig, vulnerable components, authn failures, integrity failures, logging gaps, SSRF.

(2) REST / GraphQL / gRPC API (machine-to-machine, mobile backend, public API)

For: endpoint surface that isn't primarily rendering HTML — tokens instead of sessions, authz-per-endpoint, rate limiting.

• Read docs/api.md — OWASP API Security Top 10 (2023): BOLA, broken authn, BOPLA, unrestricted resource consumption, BFLA, unrestricted access to sensitive business flows, SSRF, misconfig, improper inventory, unsafe consumption of third-party APIs.

(3) LLM-integrated feature (prompts, agents, tools, RAG, embeddings)

For: anything that sends user text to a model, uses tool calls, retrieves untrusted context, or ships model output to a downstream system.

• Read docs/llm.md — OWASP LLM Top 10 (2025): prompt injection, sensitive info disclosure, supply chain, data/model poisoning, improper output handling, excessive agency, system prompt leakage, vector/embedding weaknesses, misinformation, unbounded consumption.

(4) CLI, library, or infra-as-code

For: build tooling, developer CLIs, shared SDK packages, Terraform / CloudFormation / Kubernetes manifests, shell scripts.

• Read docs/cwe-top25.md — MITRE CWE Top 25, keyed by language (Python / JS / Go / Rust / Java) and by IaC primitive. Focus on injection, memory safety, path traversal, race conditions, privilege mismanagement.

(5) I need to pick the right depth for this review

For: "how hard should I look?", scoping a review before starting, compliance-adjacent changes.

• Read docs/asvs.md — OWASP ASVS L1 / L2 / L3. Picks the level based on risk tier of the code, then gives spot-check questions per level.

(6) I have one specific question to investigate

For: single-finding follow-up, tracing a suspicious call, "is this input reachable from outside?".

• Read docs/investigation-playbook.md — canonical questions: reachability, authz coverage, data-flow direction, trust boundary placement.

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What this skill will NOT do

• It will not generate a monolithic "security audit report". If you need a report, run rafter run --mode plus — the backend is better at that.
• It will not replace automated scanning. Always pair with rafter secrets . (secrets) and rafter run (SAST/SCA) before review.
• It will not produce recommendations without evidence. Every question expects a file:line answer before moving on.

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Fast path for a typical PR review

# 1. Run deterministic checks first — cheap, catches the obvious
rafter secrets .
rafter run                    # remote SAST/SCA, if RAFTER_API_KEY set

# 2. Then pick the category and walk the questions
#    Read docs/<category>.md

If the diff spans categories (e.g. a web app that also has an LLM feature), Read both sub-docs and walk them sequentially. Don't try to merge the checklists.

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Tie-backs

• Finding from the scanner you don't understand? → rafter skill, docs/finding-triage.md.
• Designing a new feature instead of reviewing one? → rafter-secure-design.
• Risky command came up mid-review? → rafter skill, docs/guardrails.md.