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Before a coding agent makes another meaningful change, review the exact candidate it has produced—not just its summary of the conversation. A useful checkpoint identifies the candidate and its scope, reports which checks actually ran on it, makes unresolved gaps visible, and asks whether to continue, revise, or stop. Each choice should constrain what the runner is allowed to do next.

What a useful checkpoint should show

A checkpoint is a decision about a particular candidate, not a general vote of confidence in an agent. Give the reviewer enough information to understand what is being accepted and what the evidence covers.

  • Candidate: identify the specific revision or proposed change under review.
  • Scope: describe what it changes and what it does not authorize the agent to change.
  • Checks: name each test or scenario run, report its result, and tie that result to this candidate.
  • Gaps: state what has not been checked or reviewed.
  • Next slice: say exactly what the agent would do if approved.

A green check only speaks to the behavior that was checked. For example, a test that confirms a preference is saved does not establish that the browser interface behaves correctly. A browser interaction does not, by itself, establish keyboard or screen-reader behavior.

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Make Continue, Revise, and Stop mean different things

Continue: authorize one bounded next slice

Continue accepts the reviewed slice and permits only the next action described in the checkpoint. If approval also gives the runner permission to edit unrelated files or deploy, it is not bounded to the stated next slice.

Revise: create a new candidate

Revise changes the target before more work begins. The changed candidate needs a fresh review. Do not carry every earlier check forward automatically: after an edit, determine which results still apply and which need to be rerun.

Stop: prevent new work from being scheduled

Stop should block new work and show what has already been issued and what remains uncertain. A Stop button alone does not demonstrate that an in-flight command was cancelled, a file write was undone, or a deployment was reversed. Those effects depend on what the executor can actually interrupt and reconcile.

Example: review a pause-notifications change

Suppose the first slice adds a pause-notifications toggle and saves the preference; a later slice would change the notification list. A checkpoint for the first slice could read:

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  • Candidate: revision 1 of the pause-notifications change.
  • Scope: add the toggle and save its preference; the notification list is outside this slice.
  • Check passed: the preference-saving test ran successfully on revision 1.
  • Not run: the browser scenario of toggling the setting and reloading the page.
  • Not reviewed: keyboard and screen-reader behavior.
  • Next slice if continued: change the notification list UI.

The reviewer can then continue with that limited next slice, request a focused revision or missing scenario, or stop new work. This is an illustrative workflow, not a report of a real test run or an existing product feature.

Keep evidence attached to the candidate that earned it

When a candidate changes after a check, reassess that check rather than treating its result as permanent approval. A test result for an older revision should not silently become evidence for the edited one. The review should keep the candidate identifiable while a reviewer requests a missing scenario or focused fix.

Useful checkpoint design is a set of workflow choices, not a product comparison or a proven productivity formula: match review effort to the change’s scope and risk, make the candidate and evidence specific, bound the next action, and make Stop reflect the executor’s real behavior.

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What an interrupt command does—and does not—prove

The official crystl CLI documentation for crystl abort describes a command for interrupting an active agent turn. For a current held approval, it documents different handling by agent: Claude uses its abort path, while Codex is denied the tool and sent Escape followed by Ctrl-C. Without a current held approval, the command sends Escape followed by Ctrl-C.

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That documentation describes interruption behavior; it does not establish atomic cancellation of in-flight work, rollback of effects, or a checkpoint card with the review semantics described above. Treat an interrupt as an interrupt, not as proof that a write or deployment was reversed.

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