The review process is how Arborwake's work is checked before the user sees it or the lead integrates it. It exists because many sessions work in parallel and the user cannot look at every small change.
The standing rule#
On 1 November the user said: "Stop asking me for every single little thing. IF in doubt, get a blind reviewer to review it."
- Decide small things. A workstream makes its own small design and content calls, and General makes small coordination calls.
- Use a blind reviewer when unsure. Then act on what it finds.
- Send only finished studies to the user. The user sees art looks, reversals, big direction changes and anything that costs money.
- Paid tools need the user's go-ahead. Each paid Meshy call is confirmed first.
Blind reviews#
A blind reviewer is a fresh AI session that sees only the material, never the intent. Typical steps:
- Capture the studies and build code-named sheets ("character 1", "S03").
- Ask open questions first: what changed, where did it come from, did it succeed, can I keep acting, what was confusing, and readability from 1 to 5.
- Then ask targeted questions and show the hover titles.
- For colour, check simulated colour blindness and contrast.
- For characters, always ask whether any shape reads as suggestive, rude or anatomical. This question was added after testers read Bram's first body as phallic.
Examples: the Run HUD goal strip (15 testers across five options), the named-cast A/B picks (three testers), and every VFX group (two to five rounds each).
Limits#
Blind reviewers never override the user's standing rules. They cannot push words or dark popups back into VFX, for example. Their scores can also miss craft defects. On 2 November the user called a redrawn Ranger "trash" because of a wobbly outline that similarity scores had hidden. Since then, a redrawn sprite is checked by eye beside the original at the same size.
Preview, not full render#
The user's rule, first given on 31 October for Threadway: "ALWAYS do it for small changes from now on." For a small art change, render or inspect only the changed sprite, layer, region or object. A full Threadway build takes 6.5 to 10 minutes or more; a cropped object preview takes about 8 seconds. Full renders are for milestones or when the user asks.
After review#
- An approved delivery is recorded in its workstream's report and in Claude's to-do records, with the commit and the user's words.
- Approval is not integration. The lead integrates later, and the wiki tracks the two separately (
approvedversusalphaorintegrated). - The lead's audits check what actually shipped. On 2 November the lead found that it had published an alpha "without reconciling the other conversations first", and called that an integration and release-review failure.
See also#
Sources#
- docs/ops/agent-messages/2026-11-01-claude-workstreams-todo.md (working copy, not in Git)
a0ba90a7a:docs/vfx/groups/BRIEF.md16c9aab43:art/characters/named-cast/ab-blind/RESULTS.md5ed726064:art/environment/blender-study/threadway-street/QUEUE.mda893e4f08:docs/run-hud/goal/READABILITY.md