redline

redline

A Claude Code plugin for automatic code review, adversarial review, and rescue delegation — powered by Codex.

Works with your existing OpenAI subscription, or route through OpenRouter for access to any model (GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and more).

The model decides

Redline's key principle: Claude decides what help it needs. After each response, a lightweight Stop hook asks whether code changes were made. If so, Claude evaluates the context and picks the most helpful action:

• /redline:review — standard code review
• /redline:adversarial — challenge design decisions, probe hidden assumptions, test failure modes
• /redline:rescue — delegate a task to Codex as a smart friend

No hardcoded triggers, no diff thresholds. The model is in the best position to decide.

How it works

Claude Code Stop hook (fires after each response)
  → reminds Claude to consider /redline:... commands
  → Claude decides based on what it just did:
      run a review, challenge the design, delegate to Codex, or skip
  → suppressed when already responding to a hook (no loops)

A non-user-invocable skill description stays in Claude's context at all times, providing the decision-making guidance. The hook is just a minimal nudge.

Reviews happen automatically — no manual invocation needed. You can also run any command directly at any time.

Install

/plugin install redline@alexanderatallah/redline

Then run /redline:setup to configure your provider, model, and effort level.

Development

claude --plugin-dir ./plugins/redline

Commands

Command	Description
/redline:setup	Configure provider (OpenAI or OpenRouter), model, effort, and routing
/redline:review	Run a standard code review on uncommitted changes
/redline:adversarial	Challenge design decisions, probe assumptions, test failure modes
/redline:rescue <task>	Delegate a task to Codex for help when stuck

/redline:review

Standard code review. Runs codex exec review --uncommitted in the background, assesses findings, and presents issues to the user.

/redline:adversarial

Goes beyond bug-finding. Challenges design decisions, probes hidden assumptions (what is the code silently relying on?), identifies failure modes (race conditions, resource exhaustion, stale state), and questions trade-offs. Asks: is this the right approach?

/redline:rescue

When you're stuck — hand the problem to Codex. Describe what you're working on and what you need help with. Codex works on it in the background. Results are presented faithfully — Claude doesn't filter or second-guess them. You decide which suggestions to act on.

Configuration

During /redline:setup, configure:

• Provider — use your existing OpenAI subscription, or route through OpenRouter for model choice
• Model (OpenRouter only) — openai/gpt-5.4 (default), openrouter/auto, or any OpenRouter model slug
• Effort (OpenRouter only) — reasoning effort: minimal, low, medium, high (default: medium)
• Provider variant (OpenRouter only) — :nitro (fastest, default), :floor (cheapest), or standard routing

Authentication

Redline supports two authentication methods:

OpenAI subscription — if Codex is already authenticated (codex login), Redline can use it directly. No additional setup needed.

OpenRouter — route through OpenRouter for access to any model. Set your API key via:

# Environment variable
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...

# Or run OAuth login during setup
/redline:setup

Customization

Every command is a plain markdown file in commands/. Edit them to fit your project:

• Focus the review — add "pay special attention to SQL injection and auth boundaries" to review.md
• Change the adversarial persona — make it focus on performance, security, or accessibility instead of general design
• Adjust rescue behavior — tell Codex to always write tests, or to explain its reasoning step-by-step

No scripts to modify, no config flags to learn. Just edit the markdown and /reload-plugins.

Why Redline?

Compared to other ways of reviewing Claude's code:

	Redline	Other plugins
Models	OpenAI subscription or any model via OpenRouter	Typically locked to one provider
Automatic reviews	Stop hook triggers automatically, model decides when to review	Manual invocation only
Customizable	Edit plain markdown commands to change review behavior	Commands are often hardcoded or complex to modify
Simplicity	~13 files, no build step	Often 30+ files across scripts, agents, and configs

Requirements