Incremental Change Impact

Postcondition Success Signal

• Affected components/slices/libraries are explicitly listed
• Unaffected components are explicitly listed
• Required builds/tests/deployments are enumerated and justified
• Downstream and transitive impacts are identified
• Change scope is bounded, reproducible, and reviewable

Process

1. Source Review: Analyze the diff of the changes and identify the directly modified files and their associated components.
2. Implementation: Trace dependencies from modified files to identify transitively impacted components.
3. Verification: List all impacted and unimpacted components and justify why each is (or is not) affected.
4. Documentation: Document the impact set for subsequent build, test, and release planning.
5. Review: Tech Lead and Platform/DevOps Engineer must review the impact set for accuracy and completeness.

Example Test / Validation

• Given a diff range, produce an impact list and verify only impacted components run
• Verify unrelated components are not built/tested/deployed
• Confirm versioning decisions reference the impacted set
• A second reviewer can reproduce the same impact set from the same inputs

Common Red Flags / Guardrail Violations

• “It’s safer to just rebuild everything”
• Running full pipelines to avoid impact reasoning
• Assuming changes are local without checking dependencies
• Broadening scope “just in case” without evidence
• Version bumps without a clear impact narrative

Recommended Review Personas

• Tech Lead – validates scope correctness and downstream implications
• Platform/DevOps Engineer – validates build/test/deploy scope alignment
• Domain Expert – validates behavioural dependency assumptions

Skill Priority

P1 – Quality & Correctness
(Escalate to P0 where incorrect impact could cause unsafe deployments or integrity breaches.)

Conflict Resolution Rules

• Must precede any skill that builds/tests/deploys/versions/refactors
• Overrides Delivery/Optimisation skills when they skip impact reasoning
• If impact cannot be determined confidently, escalate before proceeding
• Downstream skills must not broaden scope beyond this output without justification

Conceptual Dependencies

None

Classification

Core
Governance

Notes

This is foundational. It replaces intuition with explicit, reviewable scope.