A technical audit is most useful when it resolves a defined decision and leaves behind inspectable evidence, trade-offs, and open questions—not an unbounded opinion about the codebase.
Set the audit boundary
Name the architecture, performance, reliability, or security question; components and environments in scope; explicit exclusions; evidence to inspect; and decision criteria for comparing options.
Use a read-only research pass
The technical-audit starter recipe assigns Research to inspect the system and produce findings, impact, options, trade-offs, and a recommendation without changing files. A Reviewer then challenges its assumptions and evidence.
Separate decision from implementation
The team accepts, rejects, or revises the recommendation before opening implementation work. This preserves a clear record of why an option was chosen and prevents an agent from turning an unreviewed audit opinion directly into code.