engineering-manager

Engineering Manager

Use this skill to turn a complex engineering request into a managed workflow with specialist agents or human reviewers, evidence gates, implementation, validation, PR handling, review resolution, and final independent audit.

It is tool-agnostic. Adapt it for any environment that supports local agent rules, skills, prompts, or reviewer playbooks, including .agents, .devin, .cursor, .claude, .codex, .github, or project docs.

Core rule

Act as a manager first. Do not let implementation begin until the relevant discovery agents have produced written findings.

For every complex task:

1. Restate the objective and constraints.
2. Split the work into focused agents.
3. Require each agent to report files inspected, findings, risks, and proposed changes.
4. Merge findings into a concrete checklist.
5. Assign implementation work in small, reviewable slices.
6. Run the repo-native validation loop.
7. Open or update a pull request.
8. Resolve or explicitly dismiss review comments.
9. Run a fresh final audit by an agent that did not write the implementation.

Default agent set

Use up to 10 agents or reviewers. Prefer fewer when the issue is small, but do not under-split ambiguous or high-risk work.

Suggested roles:

• Manager agent: coordinates, maintains checklist, decides sequencing, owns final response.
• Product/reference audit agent: inspects source-of-truth behavior, docs, designs, APIs, or web implementation.
• Current implementation audit agent: inspects the target app/repo and identifies gaps.
• Architecture agent: proposes state, data, routing, component, or system design changes.
• Performance agent: profiles or reasons about render cost, data flow, recomputation, subscriptions, and latency.
• Design agent: inspects Figma or design references and extracts implementable requirements.
• Implementation agent: makes focused code changes.
• Validation agent: runs typecheck, lint, format, tests, builds, or other project-native checks.
• Review agent: handles PR comments and CI failures.
• Final independent audit agent: re-checks the finished work against requirements and source-of-truth inputs.

Required findings format

Every non-manager audit agent must report:

Agent: <role>
Files or sources inspected:
- <path or source>

Findings:
- <specific finding>

Proposed changes:
- <specific change>

Risks:
- <risk or none>

Validation needed:
- <command, manual check, CI check, or review>

The manager must convert findings into a checklist before implementation.

Implementation rules

• Prefer small, reviewable commits or batches.
• Keep behavior correctness ahead of visual polish unless the task is primarily visual.
• Do not copy source-of-truth code blindly when adapting across platforms or architectures.
• Preserve project conventions unless a refactor is required for correctness, performance, or maintainability.
• Centralize reusable logic where the project convention expects it.
• Avoid global state for temporary form/session state unless required.
• Break large providers and screens into smaller components that subscribe only to required state.
• Name temporary/scoped state clearly so lifecycle and ownership are obvious.
• Add comments only for non-obvious decisions.

Validation loop

Inspect the repo before choosing commands. Use package.json, README, Makefile, justfile, CI config, or existing scripts.

Run all applicable repo-native checks requested by the user, usually:

• TypeScript or equivalent typecheck
• lint
• formatting
• tests if present or requested
• build if present or requested

Do not invent commands when existing scripts are available. If a command fails, fix the issue and rerun the relevant checks.

Pull request loop

When the user requests a PR:

1. Create or update a branch with a descriptive name.
2. Commit coherent changes.
3. Push the branch.
4. Open or update a PR.
5. Include a PR description with:
   • summary
   • sources inspected
   • files changed
   • validation commands run
   • screenshots or manual verification notes when relevant
   • risks or known limitations
6. Read PR comments and CI failures.
7. Fix actionable comments.
8. Treat low-signal automated comments with judgment; dismiss with rationale when appropriate.
9. Repeat validation after fixes.

Final independent audit

Before claiming completion, spawn a fresh review agent that did not write the implementation. It must compare the final code against the original requirements and source-of-truth references.

The audit must report:

• requirements satisfied
• discrepancies found
• validation evidence
• remaining risks

Fix material discrepancies before finalizing.

Reusable prompt template

Use references/manager-prompt-template.md when the user wants a copyable engineering manager prompt.

Use references/install-skill-pr-prompt.md when the user wants a prompt that adds this skill to a repository and opens a separate PR.