sap-transport-review

SAP Transport / Change Review

Answer "what actually changed?" for a transport or for your in-flight (unactivated) work, as a reviewable report: a per-object unified diff plus risk flags — not a wall of full source.

It leans on two token-cheap ARC-1 primitives so a review of a 30-object transport costs a handful of small diffs instead of 60 full-source reads:

• SAPTransport(action="list", summary=true) — scan many open transports cheaply (objects omitted, objectCount kept), then drill into one.
• SAPRead(action="diff", from=…, to=…) — server-side unified diff per object; the response is just the hunks.

Complements explain-abap-code (deep single-object understanding) and sap-object-documenter (written docs for a package). This skill is about delta — what moved between two points in time — for code review, hand-off, or a pre-release gate.

Pick the mode (who's asking)

You are…	Scope	What the skill does
Reviewing a transport (senior dev / approver)	one transport id	Diff every diffable object + impact + ATC by default — risk-focused. The chat / whole-transport twin of Eclipse ADT 3.6's "Object Changes" tab (same per-object diffs, same coverage boundary).
Checking your own recent work (dev)	your modifiable transports	"What have I changed since my last release?" — diff each object's last-released version → current. Light: skip impact/ATC unless asked.

For a system-wide inventory of every open transport (basis: who has what open, how big, conflicts — no diffs) that's a different job → sap-transport-overview.

Smart Defaults (apply silently, do NOT ask)

Setting	Default	Rationale
Transport scope	current user, modifiable (status="D")	The work in progress, not released history
Overview first	summary=true when listing	Cheap scan before pulling any object list in full
Diff direction (in-flight)	from="active", to="inactive"	"What I'm about to activate" — the reliable diff (no snapshot needed)
Diffable types	PROG, CLAS, INTF, FUNC, FUGR, INCL, DDLS, DCLS, BDEF, SRVD, DDLX, TABL	The plain-text source types action="diff" supports
Object-diff cap	~40	Above that, summarize counts and ask which to expand
Impact / ATC	ON in transport-review mode; off in the quick "what did I change" pass	A reviewer needs "what breaks / quality"; a dev glancing at their own drafts doesn't

Input

The user provides one of:

• A transport id (e.g. A4HK900123) — review everything in that request.
• "my pending changes" / "before I activate" — review unactivated drafts (active → inactive).
• An object list or package — review those objects' pending changes.
• Nothing specific ("what changed") — list the user's modifiable transports (summary) and ask which one, or default to pending drafts.

Optional: +impact (who consumes the changed CDS/RAP), +atc (new quality findings), output path for a Markdown file.

Scope guard: if the selected set exceeds ~40 diffable objects, show the object table with +/- counts only and ask which objects (or which task) to expand into full diffs. A review nobody reads is worse than no review.

Step 1: Resolve scope

• Transport id given → SAPTransport(action="get", id="<id>") → the tasks[].objects[] list.
• "what changed" / pick a transport → SAPTransport(action="list", summary=true) → a cheap table (id, description, owner, status, objectCount). Present it, let the user pick, then get that one.
• Pending changes / package → enumerate the objects the user touched (the transport's object list, or the objects in the named package). No transport id needed for the diff itself.

Step 2: Classify the objects

Split the object list into:

• Diffable (source types above) → these get a real diff in Step 3.
• Metadata-only (SRVB, G4BA, SUSH, DOMA, DTEL, MSAG, VIEW, ENHO, AUTH, DEVC, server-driven, …) → action="diff" returns "not supported" (their read is parsed metadata/XML, not plain-text source). This is exactly the boundary SAP's own Eclipse ADT 3.6 "Object Changes" has — it prints "Feature not supported for object …" for these same types (e.g. SRVB). Don't try to diff them. For a thorough review, still read the object's metadata (e.g. SAPRead(type="SRVB", name=…)) so the report names what the object is and that it's in the change set — just without a source diff.

Step 3: Diff each object — pick from/to by intent

Run these in parallel (each returns only hunks):

SAPRead(type="<type>", name="<name>", action="diff", from="<from>", to="<to>")

Choose the sides by what the user is reviewing:

Intent	from → to	Notes
In-flight ("what I'm about to activate/release")	active → inactive	The reliable diff. No draft → "no pending changes" (clean).
Since my last release (dev's recent work)	<last released revision id> → active (or inactive if still draft)	"What changed after my last request." Last-released revision = newest VERSIONS entry carrying a transport title; captures both activated-since-release and pending edits.
Released transport ("what did this TR change")	<pre-transport revision id> → active	Get ids from SAPRead(type="VERSIONS", name=…); SAP only snapshots on release.
Specific revisions	<id|uri> → <id|uri|active>	From a VERSIONS response.

Snapshot-sparsity reality (important): ABAP cuts a version snapshot only when a transport is released. So for an open/unreleased transport, objects usually have just the active version (+ maybe an inactive draft) — there is no "before" revision to diff against. Handle it honestly:

1. For each object, SAPRead(type="VERSIONS", name=…, objectType=…). If ≥2 revisions exist, diff the pre-change revision → active.
2. If only 1 revision (the common case for unreleased work), fall back to active → inactive (shows the pending edit) and label it "pending (unactivated)".
3. If active == inactive and only 1 revision, report "no diff available (object created in this transport, or no prior snapshot)" — for a brand-new object, note it's an add, not a change.

Step 4 (optional): impact + quality — only when asked or the change is risky

• Impact (a changed DDLS/BDEF/SRVD can break consumers): SAPContext(action="impact", type="DDLS", name="<view>") → projection views, BDEFs, service defs/bindings, ABAP consumers that depend on it.
• Quality: SAPDiagnose(action="atc", ...) per changed object → new ATC findings the change introduces; or SAPLint(action="lint", name=…) for a fast local pass.
• Pre-release validity: for unactivated work, SAPActivate (or SAPDiagnose action="syntax") confirms the draft even compiles before you stake a release on it.

Step 5: Write the report

# Change review — <transport id or "pending drafts"> on <SID>

_<owner> · <status> · <description>_

## Summary

| Object | Type | Change | +/− | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZCL_ORDER | CLAS | changed | +12 −3 | |
| ZI_ORDER  | DDLS | changed | +4 −0  | impacts 3 consumers |
| ZNEW_REPORT | PROG | added  | —      | new in this transport |
| ZSTATUS   | DOMA | changed | —      | metadata — no source diff |
| ZHELPER   | PROG | $TMP   | —      | ⚠ local — will NOT transport |

## Diffs

### ZCL_ORDER (CLAS)  active → inactive  (+12 −3)
```diff
<the unified-diff hunks from SAPRead action="diff">

…one block per diffable object…

Risk flags

• ⚠ ZHELPER is in $TMP — it will not travel with this transport.
• ⚠ ZI_ORDER (DDLS) has 3 downstream consumers — re-activation order matters (see impact).
• ⚠ ZCL_BP locked in 2 transports — possible import-sequence conflict.

Verdict

<2–3 lines: what this change set does, what to review first, what's risky / not yet activated.>

Write to disk (default `docs/reviews/transport-<id>-<date>.md`) only if asked; otherwise return inline.

## Error Handling

| Error | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| `action="diff"` → "not supported for type X" | Metadata type (DOMA/DTEL/MSAG/SRVB/VIEW/…) | Expected — list it as "metadata — no source diff", don't diff |
| "No differences between active and inactive" | No unactivated draft for that object | Report "no pending changes"; it's already activated |
| "Revision-id diff is not available for type X" | FUGR/DDLX have no revisions feed | Use `active`/`inactive` or a full `/sap/bc/adt/` URI instead of a bare id |
| VERSIONS returns 1 revision | Snapshot only cut on release (sparsity) | Fall back to active→inactive; label new objects as adds |
| Transport `get` 404 | Wrong id / already deleted | Re-list with `summary=true` and confirm the id |
| >40 objects in scope | Review too large to read | Show the `+/-` table, ask which task/objects to expand |

## When to use this skill

- Pre-release / pre-activation gate — "show me everything I'm about to ship."
- Code review of a colleague's transport without leaving the chat — the headless / pasteable / whole-transport-at-once counterpart to Eclipse ADT 3.6's "Object Changes" tab (same per-object diffs, same coverage boundary).
- Hand-off / audit — a written delta of a change set.
- "What changed after my last request / since my last release?" (since-last-release mode).
- "I've been editing for an hour — what have I actually changed?" (pending-drafts mode).

## When NOT to use this skill

- **System-wide inventory of every open transport** (basis: who has what open, sizes, conflicts — no diffs) → [sap-transport-overview](../sap-transport-overview/SKILL.md). This skill is depth-on-one-transport; that one is breadth-across-the-system.
- **Understanding one object deeply** → [explain-abap-code](../explain-abap-code/SKILL.md).
- **Documenting a whole package** (not a delta) → [sap-object-documenter](../sap-object-documenter/SKILL.md).
- **Across multiple systems** (DEV vs QAS source compare) → out of scope here: ARC-1 binds to one system
  per instance. Do a cross-system review by running the ARC-1 CLI against each system (`arc1-cli call
  SAPRead … --url <sys>`) and diffing the two outputs — a separate orchestration, not this skill.

## Follow-up Options

- "Activate / release this once it looks right?" → `SAPActivate`, then `SAPTransport(action="release")`.
- "Who breaks if I change this CDS?" → `SAPContext(action="impact")` (or re-run with `+impact`).
- "Document these objects properly?" → [sap-object-documenter](../sap-object-documenter/SKILL.md).
- "Clean-core readiness of the changed objects?" → [sap-clean-core-atc](../sap-clean-core-atc/SKILL.md).