Green CI from an agent is not a merge signal. It is a claim: "I ran something and it exited zero." Your job is to check whether that claim covers the bug, the intent, and the failure modes you care about.
I treat "tests pass" as the start of a short verification sequence — not the end of review.
Open the file list first. Ignore the agent's narrative until you can answer:
Agents often pad the suite while touching unrelated helpers. If the diff is wider than the ticket, before you trust the green check. A passing suite on the wrong surface is still the wrong merge.
Open the new or edited tests and ask: would this fail if the original bug came back?
Watch for:
200
If the assertion would still pass with the regression restored, the suite is theater. Request a tighter assert before you approve. Prefer one sharp negative case over five soft positives.
Green tests often skip the paths that hurt in production:
Pick the failure mode closest to the ticket and ask whether any test forces it. If not, either add that case or manually exercise it before merge. Agents optimize for "looks covered." You optimize for "breaks when broken."
Do not trust the agent's pasted output alone. Run the same command on your machine (or the same CI job) with the PR branch checked out:
npm test -- path/to/relevant.spec.ts
Check:
If you cannot reproduce green locally, you do not have a pass — you have a story. Fix the story before merge.
Order matters: diff → assertions → failure paths → local reproduce. Skip ahead and you rubber-stamp confidence. Stop early when the file list or asserts are weak do not sink twenty minutes into a suite that never could catch the bug.
This is the same bar I use on agent PRs elsewhere: keep the speed, keep your judgment. Green is necessary. It is not sufficient.
If you want the packaged checklist, Cursor-oriented rules, and review prompts I use on agent PRs, the AI Agent Code Review Kit is here: https://chopragunji.gumroad.com/l/nxoboi
— Riven Desk
What do you check first after an agent claims tests pass — file list, asserts, or a local re-run? Drop your sequence in the comments.