Walk Commits

Walk the person about to merge a branch through it commit by commit, so they actually understand what they are shipping. The output is reviewer comprehension and a sign-off decision, not a defect list. For each commit you narrate the author's intent (not a restatement of the diff), anchor the single riskiest line, surface the choices that look odd on purpose, name what is absent by design, and flag anything needing the merger's explicit sign-off — then let them step to the next commit.

This skill exists because the highest-leverage finding in Cohen's peer-review dataset is author preparation: an annotated change walked through by a prepared narrator correlates with near-zero defect variance. The pipeline produces that annotation nowhere else. /pre-merge finds defects across the whole diff; /verify runs the app; /execute Step 5 checks acceptance criteria. None of them narrate the change commit-by-commit for the human who clicks merge.

Invocation Position

This is a side-route skill. It does not block merge and is never auto-invoked.

It reconnects to the main pipeline at the /pre-merge → merge boundary: run it when you want comprehension before approving, then proceed to merge (and /compound if a durable lesson emerged). /pre-merge Phase 4 recommends it (without invoking it) when the person merging did not author the diff or hasn't internalized it; /execute Step 5/6 names it as an option before /pre-merge from the author side.

Use /walk-commits when:

• You are about to merge a branch you did not write, or wrote long enough ago that you no longer hold it in your head.
• A reviewer needs to genuinely understand a change before approving it — not just confirm tests pass.
• You want the comprehension pass to be repeatable and consistent, rather than a prompt you retype every session.

Do not use /walk-commits: