---
id: workflow.improve.review-code-changes
title: Review and apply proposed changes
summary: Inspect a Lemon Code proposal against its Harness Draft and your intended behavioral change.
kind: task
product_area: improve
status: stable
updated: 2026-11-11
canonical: /docs/improve/review-code-changes
---

# Review and apply proposed changes

Inspect a Lemon Code proposal against its Harness Draft and your intended behavioral change.

## Prerequisites

A Harness conversation with a proposed file change and the context that motivated it.

## Steps

1. Read the proposed diff and rationale alongside the current Draft.
2. Check which files and behavior change, and which requirements the intervention needs to preserve.
3. Continue the conversation to refine the proposal. Apply only the changes you choose to accept into the Draft.
4. Validate the revised Draft as needed, then publish an exact Version. Select that saved Version for any debug run, and evaluate it against the intended Benchmark Version.

## Object and state changes

Applying changes edits the Draft. Publishing and benchmark execution create separate saved records; your engineers decide what to integrate into their application.

## Success criteria

The saved candidate contains the reviewed changes and its assessment addresses the original objective and protected behavior.

## Common failure modes

Applying a proposal without inspecting its file scope; treating a plausible explanation as measured improvement.

## Related reference pages

{% related-card-grid title="Continue this workflow" %}
- [Develop a Harness with Lemon Code](/docs/concepts/lemon-code)
{% /related-card-grid %}

## Related troubleshooting pages

{% related-card-grid title="Resolve a problem" %}
- [Permissions troubleshooting](/docs/troubleshooting/permissions)
- [Benchmark run troubleshooting](/docs/troubleshooting/benchmark-runs)
{% /related-card-grid %}