---
title: "Review the whole change against its base · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/review-against-the-base
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Review the whole change against its base

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

- Level: Required
- Chapter: [Code review](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review)
- Rule: Review a branch as one solution, compared with the branch it will merge into. Never review only the changed lines.
- How: Diff the branch against its base, such as `main` or `development`. Read the changed files in full, plus the code that calls them. Ask what the change does as a whole before judging single lines.
- Check: The review names the base branch and the commit range it covered. Every changed file appears in the review.

Example:

```sh
git fetch origin
git diff --stat origin/development...HEAD
git diff origin/development...HEAD
```

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers architecture playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/review-against-the-base`.

- Next: [Check that it solves a named problem](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review/solves-a-named-problem)
- [Code review](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/architecture/code-review)