/agile-workflow

Apply Recommendations Command Reference

Triage and apply recommendations from reviews.

Purpose

Analyze recommendations from code/test reviews and intelligently split them into immediate actions (apply now) and deferred tasks (create follow-up).

When Used in Workflow

• Task Cycle: After reviews, when issues were found
• Conditionally invoked based on review results

Common Invocation Patterns

apply-recommendations [review-output]
apply-recommendations --quick-only    # Only low-risk fixes
apply-recommendations --defer-all     # Convert all to tasks
apply-recommendations --dry-run       # Preview without applying

Core Principle: Smart Triage

Not all recommendations are equal. Some should be fixed immediately, others need planning. The decision matrix:

APPLY NOW if ALL of:

• Effort: Trivial or Small
• Risk: Low or (Medium with good test coverage)
• Dependencies: Independent or Local
• Clear fix is obvious
• Won't break existing functionality

DEFER TO TASK if ANY of:

• Effort: Large
• Risk: High
• Dependencies: System or Team
• Requires design decisions
• Needs performance benchmarking
• Could introduce breaking changes

Assessment Criteria

Effort Required

• Trivial: < 5 minutes, single line changes
• Small: 5-30 minutes, single file
• Medium: 30-60 minutes, 2-3 files
• Large: > 60 minutes, multiple files/systems

Risk Level

• Low: Style, documentation, isolated cleanup
• Medium: Logic changes, refactoring with tests
• High: Architecture, external APIs, data handling

Dependencies

• Independent: Can be done in isolation
• Local: Requires understanding of immediate context
• System: Requires broader architectural knowledge
• Team: Needs discussion or approval

Category Handling

Critical Security Issues → ALWAYS APPLY NOW

• Hardcoded secrets/credentials
• SQL injection vulnerabilities
• XSS vulnerabilities
• Exposed sensitive data

High Priority Bugs → USUALLY APPLY NOW

• Null reference errors
• Unhandled promise rejections
• Memory leaks (if isolated)
• Clear logic errors

Code Quality → SELECTIVE

Apply Now:

• Dead code removal
• Obvious duplications (< 10 lines)
• Simple variable renames
• Missing error handling (simple cases)

Defer:

• Large-scale refactoring
• Architecture changes
• Complex abstraction creation

Test Improvements → USUALLY APPLY NOW

• Adding missing assertions
• Fixing tautological tests
• Improving test names
• Fixing test isolation

Documentation → APPLY NOW

• Adding missing comments
• Updating incorrect docs
• Clarifying confusing names

Output Format

# Recommendation Application Report

## Summary
- Total recommendations: X
- Applied immediately: Y
- Deferred to tasks: Z

## Applied Immediately

### 1. [Recommendation Title]
**Type**: [Security/Bug/Quality/Test/Documentation]
**Files Modified**:
- `path/to/file.ts` - [What changed]
**Risk**: Low

## Deferred to Tasks

### High Priority

#### Task: [Clear Task Title]
**Original Recommendation**: [What was recommended]
**Why Deferred**: [Reason]
**Effort Estimate**: [Size]
**Created at**: `/tasks/[type]/[filename].md`

## Validation
- [ ] All tests pass
- [ ] Linting passes
- [ ] No regressions detected

## Next Steps
1. Review applied changes
2. Run full test suite
3. Review high-priority deferred tasks

Quality Guidelines

1. Never break working code - If unsure, defer
2. Maintain test coverage - Add tests for bug fixes
3. Preserve behavior - Refactoring shouldn't change functionality
4. Document decisions - Explain why items were deferred
5. Incremental progress - Many small improvements > one risky change

Orchestration Notes

After applying recommendations:

• If all applied successfully: ready for PR prep
• If issues remain: loop back to review
• Deferred tasks are created but don't block workflow