Verify it landed

A green build is not evidence that your change exists. Removing nothing breaks nothing, so a no-op edit compiles and passes every test. This skill is the short mechanical check that closes that gap.

Observed failure this exists to prevent: a fix for "a batch delete must not abandon itself after destroying part of a folder" never landed, because the string replacement targeted a literal the code expressed as a named constant. It matched nothing. The file compiled, the whole suite passed, and it was reported as fixed. It surfaced a day later only as an unused-field static-analysis smell — the logger added beside the catch block that was never inserted.

The check

1. Grep for the new code, not for a green build. After every behaviour-changing edit, search for the symbol, clause, or string you believe you added, and confirm the match is in the file you intended. One command. Do this even when — especially when — the build is green.

2. Watch the new test fail without the fix. A test written after the fix, that passes immediately, proves nothing about the fix. Either write it first, or stash the change and see it go red. If that is impractical, at minimum assert on the specific new behaviour (the reported failure mode), not on a general happy path that already worked.

3. For a fixed review finding, re-read the file at the reported line. Do not infer "fixed" from a commit message you wrote. The commit message is your intent; the file is the fact. When re-reporting findings as fixed, each one needs a look at the code.

4. Name the enforcement point, not the intention. A criterion like "no bypass", "must be rate limited", "cannot escalate" is met by a mechanism. Identify the class, method, filter, or config directive that refuses the thing. If you cannot name it, the criterion is not met — however complete the feature looks from the happy path.