---
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."
disable-model-invocation: true
---

Read [the Pi integration contract](../../../pi/references/integration.md) before executing this skill.


# 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. Never batch the edits and verify once at the end. Each unit is a before/after bracket: known-good state, one change, run the check, then proceed. Verify the chosen baseline first. Rebase only with authorization on an owned branch, never over unrelated dirty work. 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. The canonical shape is the failing test first, then the fix on top. The first unit shows the bug is real (red), the next shows it resolved (green), so a reviewer sees both the problem and the proof. Other story orders are a subtraction before the reshape, a baseline capture before the treatment, the scaffold before the feature. Expected-red evidence is not independently landable. Deliver the failing-before check and passing fix as one coherent green unit; the sequence still reads as an argument.