---
name: principle-sequence-verifiable-units
description: "Apply to multi-step work (sweeps, migrations, runs of similar edits) and to how you stack commits and PRs. Break work into small units that each end in a verifiable state, check each before the next, and order delivery so the sequence proves itself to a reviewer."
user-invocable: false
---

# Sequence work into verifiable units

Order work as a sequence of small units, each ending in a state you can check, and don't advance until the current one is green.

**Why:** A break caught at the unit that caused it is cheap to localize. A break caught after a batch is buried, and you have already built further on a broken base. Sequencing those same units into a delivery a reviewer can replay turns "trust me" into "watch it go red, then green."

**Execution.** In a sweep, migration, or any run of similar edits, verify each change before starting the next. Each unit is a before/after bracket: known-good state, one change, run the check, then proceed. Rebase onto clean trunk first so every check measures against the real baseline. When a lever does the edits, the per-unit check is nearly free. Run it anyway.

**Delivery.** Stack commits and PRs in the order that proves the work. For a bug, run the failing test before the fix and show that red run, then commit the test and the fix together, since most repositories require every commit to be green. Split them into a red commit and a fix only where the repository allows and wants it. Other story orders are a subtraction before the reshape, a baseline capture before the treatment, the scaffold before the feature. Each commit lands on its own, stays green, and the sequence reads as an argument.

The sequencing complement to [principle-prove-it-works](../principle-prove-it-works/SKILL.md), which keeps each check real, and [principle-build-the-lever](../principle-build-the-lever/SKILL.md), which makes the per-unit check cheap.