On a fresh machine with no peer coding-agent CLI on PATH, ce-code-review silently falls back to the in-process adversarial reviewer and reports "cross-model pass: not run." Two friction points made this harder to diagnose than it needed to be.
1. App-bundled CLIs are not discovered
I had OpenAI Codex installed as the desktop app (/Applications/Codex.app), which ships a fully functional codex CLI (v0.146.0, with exec / review / -s read-only) at Contents/Resources/codex and is authenticated via the same ~/.codex/auth.json. But it is not symlinked onto PATH, so command -v codex fails and the cross-model gate is skipped.
A codex doctor-style probe of common app-bundle locations (or a documented note to symlink it) would recover the pass automatically. The same likely applies to Cursor.
2. The requirement is not surfaced at install
Nothing during plugin install indicates that the independent cross-model pass needs a peer agent CLI (codex / claude / grok / cursor-agent) - and specifically that a raw OPENAI_API_KEY / Gemini API key does not satisfy it (the script drives a read-only agent CLI for in-tree context, not the chat API). A one-time install check ("no peer CLI found; cross-model review will run in-process only - install one of X to enable it") would set expectations up front.
Minor
Gemini has no standalone peer route (only via Cursor if it attests family) - worth making explicit in the docs so users do not expect a gemini target.
Environment
- macOS (arm64), Claude Code host, CE plugin v3.20.0
- Worked around locally by symlinking the bundled binary onto
PATH
On a fresh machine with no peer coding-agent CLI on
PATH,ce-code-reviewsilently falls back to the in-process adversarial reviewer and reports "cross-model pass: not run." Two friction points made this harder to diagnose than it needed to be.1. App-bundled CLIs are not discovered
I had OpenAI Codex installed as the desktop app (
/Applications/Codex.app), which ships a fully functionalcodexCLI (v0.146.0, withexec/review/-s read-only) atContents/Resources/codexand is authenticated via the same~/.codex/auth.json. But it is not symlinked ontoPATH, socommand -v codexfails and the cross-model gate is skipped.A
codex doctor-style probe of common app-bundle locations (or a documented note to symlink it) would recover the pass automatically. The same likely applies to Cursor.2. The requirement is not surfaced at install
Nothing during plugin install indicates that the independent cross-model pass needs a peer agent CLI (
codex/claude/grok/cursor-agent) - and specifically that a rawOPENAI_API_KEY/ Gemini API key does not satisfy it (the script drives a read-only agent CLI for in-tree context, not the chat API). A one-time install check ("no peer CLI found; cross-model review will run in-process only - install one of X to enable it") would set expectations up front.Minor
Gemini has no standalone peer route (only via Cursor if it attests family) - worth making explicit in the docs so users do not expect a
geminitarget.Environment
PATH