---
name: stdd-finish-change
description: Close an implemented change with the review, PR evidence, terminal CI, and runtime verification its delivery boundary requires
when: Implementation is locally verified and the change is ready for review, delivery, or handoff.
---

# Finish change

Close the current checkout in this order:

1. Run the complete affected local verification.
2. Finish every plan item. Run the independent closing review when the plan
   carries a `[review:]` item or a slice was delegated, and the capability
   profile supports it; a single slice makes no review claim and is not asked
   for one.
<!-- cap:crossCli -->
   `stdd review --via {{STDD_CROSS_CLI_REVIEW_VIA}}` dispatches the other CLI
   read-only and records the verdict in the ledger.
<!-- /cap -->
<!-- cap:subagents -->
   `stdd review --via subagent` prints the brief path for a fresh read-only
   subagent; feed its JSON back with `stdd review --result <file>`.
<!-- /cap -->
3. Generate the PR evidence with `stdd evidence`; never hand-author a claim
   contradicted by the diff.
4. Open or update the PR/MR and wait for terminal checks. On GitHub use
   `stdd ci --watch`; on another forge use its adapter's equivalent.
5. If the change includes a deploy, migration, package publish, or other
   runtime effect, verify that surface separately. Green CI is not runtime
   proof.
6. Run `stdd task finish` only after the requested delivery boundary is
   actually complete.

Steps 3 and 4 apply when that delivery boundary is a PR. A change the user
asked for as a local edit is complete after step 2 and closes at step 6 —
opening a PR for it is work nobody requested. Step 5 is not a PR step: any
delivery carrying a runtime effect gets that verification, PR or not.

<!-- cap:subagents|crossCli -->
An `approved` verdict freezes the checkout. Anything you notice afterwards —
a stale comment, a better name, one more edge case — is deferred with
`stdd defer`, not edited in. Editing discards the approval rather than
improving on it, and buys a round that found nothing. Past the review
budget, `--force` needs `--reason <text>`: write what the extra round is
expected to settle, not that the reviewer asked again.
<!-- /cap -->

The review result contract, the budget and its `--force --reason` override,
the exact gate conditions, and the `stdd evidence` and `stdd check-pr` flags
are in `method/reference-commands.md`; open it when one of them blocks a step.

Do not merge, deploy, publish, or mutate an external system unless the user
has authorized that action. A permission that `stdd policy show` reports is
that authorization, but only once this session has verified the entry's
condition and said what it verified; an unverifiable condition leaves the rule
exactly as it stands. An entry the command lists as ignored grants nothing.