nathan13888/nice-skills/sus

Suspicious Code Finder

Deploy parallel analysis agents to find architecturally problematic, suspicious, or high-impact maintainability issues in a codebase. Produces a prioritized report of at most 10 findings.

Quick Start

Follow all 5 steps sequentially. Do NOT skip the compilation gate.

Workflow

Step 1: Verify Compilation

Before analyzing code quality, confirm the project actually builds. This is a hard gate.

1. Detect the build system by checking for these files (in order):

• Cargo.toml -> cargo check
• go.mod -> go build ./...
• tsconfig.json with package.json -> check for build script in package.json, run it (e.g., tsc --noEmit, npm run build)
• package.json (no tsconfig) -> check for build script, run if present
• pyproject.toml -> python -m py_compile on main entry or python -m compileall src/
• Makefile -> make (default target, or make check if available)
• CMakeLists.txt -> cmake --build .

1. Run the compile/build command.

1. Hard gate: If compilation fails, report the errors and STOP. Do not proceed to analysis.

``` ## Compilation Failed

The project does not compile. Fix these errors before running a code quality audit:

{error output} ```

1. Lint warnings, style warnings, and CI checks are irrelevant here. Only "does the code compile/parse?" matters.

1. If no build system is detected (e.g., standalone scripts, config files), ask the user using AskUserQuestion:

• Provide a build command -- let the user specify how to compile/check the project
• Skip compilation gate -- proceed directly to analysis

Step 2: Determine Agent Roster

1. Determine the candidate roster. Check in this priority order:

• Inline overrides from the user's invocation:
• /sus focus: security -> swap default roster for security-focused agents
• /sus agents: Architecture Scout, Security Sentinel, Performance Oracle -> use exactly those agents
• /sus add: Concurrency Analyst -> default roster + the specified agent
• User's harness configuration: Check if the user has an /agents skill or agent configuration that overrides the default roster.
• Default roster: If no customization, use the 5 default agents from the agent table in Step 3.

1. Present the roster for confirmation. Use AskUserQuestion with multiSelect: true to show the candidate agents. List each agent with a short description so the user can disable any they don't want. All agents should be presented as options -- the user can select any combination or select all.

Example framing: "Which agents should I deploy? (select all that apply)"

• Architecture Scout -- module boundaries, layer violations, god modules
• Complexity Hunter -- deep nesting, long functions, complex conditionals
• Coupling Detector -- hidden deps, shotgun surgery, feature envy
• Consistency Auditor -- mixed patterns, half-migrated code, convention drift
• Risk Assessor -- missing error handling, unsafe casts, cascading failures

If the user's roster includes optional specialists, list those too.

1. Deploy only the selected agents in Step 3.

Step 3: Deploy Agents in Parallel

Launch the user-selected agents simultaneously using the Task tool.

Agent Roster

Each agent below has a subagent_type, focus area, and exploration strategy. Use this information to construct the prompt for each agent's Task call.

Architecture Scout (Plan)

• Focus: Structural integrity -- module boundaries, responsibility placement, dependency direction.
• Look for: Misplaced responsibilities (business logic in controllers, I/O in domain models), layer violations, circular dependencies, god modules (5+ distinct concerns), entrypoints that do too much.
• Strategy: Start with directory tree and module structure. Read entry points, follow the import graph. Focus on boundaries between modules.

Complexity Hunter (Explore)

• Focus: Code disproportionately hard to understand, modify, or test.
• Look for: Deep nesting (4+ levels), long functions (50+ lines of logic), complex conditionals (3+ boolean conditions, nested ternaries), boolean/string flag parameters, functions with 5+ parameters, implicit state machines as if/else chains.
• Strategy: Search for long files first, scan for nesting and complex conditionals. Prioritize most-imported files.

Coupling Detector (Explore)

• Focus: Hidden dependencies and tight coupling that make changes expensive.
• Look for: Shotgun surgery (changing one behavior touches 4+ files), feature envy, abstraction leaks, implicit contracts (ordering/naming/magic values without enforcement), shared mutable state, connascence of meaning.
• Strategy: Examine imports across module boundaries. Find functions that take or return types from other modules. Search for shared constants used across many files.

Consistency Auditor (general-purpose)

• Focus: Inconsistency signaling unfinished migrations or unclear conventions.
• Look for: Same problem solved 3+ ways, half-migrated patterns, convention drift, naming inconsistency that creates real confusion across module boundaries, mixed paradigms without clear boundaries.
• Strategy: Sample files across directories. Compare how common operations (error handling, logging, data access, validation) are implemented in different parts of the codebase.

Risk Assessor (Plan)

• Focus: Code one mistake away from a production incident.
• Look for: Missing error handling at system boundaries (network, file I/O, DB, external APIs), implicit contracts that break silently, unsafe casts/coercions (as any, unsafe, unchecked unwrap), cascading failure risk, data integrity gaps, race conditions.
• Strategy: Focus on system boundaries. Read error handling paths. Search for unwrap, as any, bare except:, empty catch blocks.

Optional specialist agents (available via /sus add: or /sus agents:):

• Security Sentinel (general-purpose) -- injection vectors, hardcoded secrets, auth bypasses, CSRF/XSS/SSRF
• Performance Oracle (Explore) -- N+1 queries, unbounded data loading, sync blocking in async, missing caching, O(n^2) on large data
• Concurrency Analyst (Plan) -- shared mutable state without sync, deadlocks, TOCTOU, unawaited promises
• API Contract Reviewer (general-purpose) -- breaking change risks, inconsistent endpoints, missing error responses, leaking internals

Severity Criteria

Include these criteria in every agent prompt so agents filter correctly.

CRITICAL (active danger to production):

• Silent data corruption, lossy conversions on user data
• Concurrency hazards on data affecting correctness
• Security boundary violations, injection vectors, hardcoded secrets
• Cascading failure risk, missing circuit breakers/timeouts, unbounded retries
• Untestable architecture (core logic requires external services to test)

MAJOR (significant maintenance/bug risk):

• God classes (5+ responsibilities), shotgun surgery (4+ files), pattern confusion (3+ approaches)
• Complexity walls (CC 15+, nesting 4+), missing boundary error handling
• Implicit contracts, abstraction leaks

FILTERED OUT (never report): Naming preferences, formatting, missing docs, minor DRY (2 occurrences), unused code, TODOs, test code quality, single-use abstractions, language idiom preferences, dependency versions, magic numbers in tests, boilerplate/ceremony.

Agent Prompt Template

For each selected agent, construct the Task prompt as:

You are the {Agent Name} analyzing a codebase at {project_root}.
 
## Your Focus
{focus from the agent roster above}
 
## What to Look For
{look-for list from the agent roster above}
 
## Exploration Strategy
{strategy from the agent roster above}
 
## Severity Criteria
CRITICAL: Silent data corruption, concurrency hazards, security boundary violations, cascading failure risk, untestable architecture.
MAJOR: God classes (5+ responsibilities), shotgun surgery (4+ files), pattern confusion (3+ approaches), complexity walls (CC 15+, nesting 4+), missing boundary error handling, implicit contracts, abstraction leaks.
NEVER REPORT: Naming preferences, formatting, missing docs, minor DRY (2 occurrences), unused code, TODOs, test code quality, single-use abstractions, language idiom preferences, dependency versions.
 
## Rules
- Return at most 5 findings, prioritized by severity
- Quality over quantity: only report issues a senior engineer would flag in a design review
- Use the finding format below for each finding
- Include specific file paths and line numbers for every finding
- If you find fewer than 5 issues worth reporting, return fewer. Zero is acceptable.
 
## Finding Format
### [SEVERITY] Title
- **Category:** {category}
- **Location:** {file_path:line_number} (and related locations)
- **Description:** {what's wrong and why it matters}
- **Impact:** {what breaks, degrades, or becomes unmaintainable}
- **Suggested approach:** {high-level fix direction, not a full implementation}
 
## Output
Return your findings as a markdown list, or "No findings." if nothing meets the severity bar.

Step 4: Synthesize Findings

Once all agents return:

1. Deduplicate: If multiple agents flagged the same location or issue, merge them into a single finding. Note which agents flagged it (this boosts confidence).

1. Rank: Sort findings by:

• Severity (CRITICAL before MAJOR)
• Cross-agent agreement (findings flagged by 2+ agents rank higher)
• Impact scope (broader blast radius ranks higher)

1. Final filter: Re-check each finding against the severity guide. Remove anything that slipped through that should be filtered out.

1. Cap at 10: Keep the top 10 findings maximum. If there are more, drop the lowest-ranked ones.

Step 5: Present Report

Output the final report in this format:

## Sus Report: {project name}
 
**Agents deployed:** {list of agent names}
**Files explored:** {approximate count from agent outputs}
**Findings:** {count}
 
---
 
### 1. [SEVERITY] Title
 
-**Category:** {category}
-**Location:** `{file_path:line_number}` (and related locations)
-**Flagged by:** {agent name(s)}
-**Description:** {what's wrong and why it matters}
-**Impact:** {what breaks, degrades, or becomes unmaintainable}
-**Suggested approach:** {high-level fix direction}
 
---
 
### 2. [SEVERITY] Title
 
...
 
---
 
## What's Next?
 
Pick an option or tell me what you'd like to do:
 
1.**Deep-dive** into a specific finding (give me the number)
2.**Start fixing** -- I'll tackle findings in priority order
3.**Export** this report to a markdown file
4.**Re-run** with a different focus (e.g., `/sus focus: security`)

Guidelines

• Always run the compilation gate first. No exceptions.
• Deploy agents in parallel, never sequentially.
• Trust the severity guide. When in doubt, filter it out.
• Never report formatting, naming, or style issues.
• Findings must include specific file paths and line numbers.
• Prefer fewer, higher-quality findings over a long list.
• The follow-up menu is important -- always include it.
• If the user asks to deep-dive into a finding, use the appropriate agent type to explore that specific issue in depth.
• If the user asks to start fixing, work through findings in priority order, one at a time.