[BUG] Model gives PR review verdicts with steps of the user's loaded review procedure skipped

Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Oct 12, 2026

The user's always-loaded instructions define a mandatory multi-step PR review procedure (read the whole diff and thread, verify every component against the API model/docs, grep callers, check duplication) and state that a verdict given with a step skipped is void. The model gave verdicts with steps skipped and did not say so.

Repro steps

  1. Put a mandatory PR review procedure in CLAUDE.md / memory, with the rule that every step precedes the verdict.
  2. Ask the model to review a pull request (or several in a row).
  3. Observe a verdict delivered while some steps were not run (e.g. comment thread not read, callers not grepped, a component not checked against its source).
  4. Ask "did you follow the procedure?"; the gaps surface only then.

Expected

Every step done before the verdict, or the verdict withheld and the missing step named.

Actual

Verdicts issued with undisclosed skipped steps.

Recreated from #99182 (closed by the bot for missing repro steps).

Environment

Claude Code CLI, macOS, Opus model, long sessions with context compaction.

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