verify

Verification Before Completion

Overview

Claiming work is complete without verification is dishonesty, not efficiency.

Core principle: Evidence before claims, always.

Violating the letter of this rule is violating the spirit of this rule.

The Iron Law

NO COMPLETION CLAIMS WITHOUT FRESH VERIFICATION EVIDENCE

If you haven't run the verification command in this message, you cannot claim it passes.

The Gate Function

BEFORE claiming any status or expressing satisfaction:

1. IDENTIFY: What command proves this claim?
2. RUN: Execute the FULL command (fresh, complete)
3. READ: Full output, check exit code, count failures
4. VERIFY: Does output confirm the claim?
   - If NO: State actual status with evidence
   - If YES: State claim WITH evidence
5. ONLY THEN: Make the claim

Skip any step = lying, not verifying

Common Failures

Claim	Requires	Not Sufficient
Tests pass	Test command output: 0 failures	Previous run, "should pass"
Linter clean	Linter output: 0 errors	Partial check, extrapolation
Build succeeds	Build command: exit 0	Linter passing, logs look good
Bug fixed	Test original symptom: passes	Code changed, assumed fixed
Regression test works	Red-green cycle verified	Test passes once
Agent completed	VCS diff shows changes	Agent reports "success"
Requirements met	Line-by-line checklist	Tests passing

Red Flags - STOP

• Using "should", "probably", "seems to"
• Expressing satisfaction before verification ("Great!", "Perfect!", "Done!", etc.)
• About to commit/push/PR without verification
• Trusting agent success reports
• Relying on partial verification
• Thinking "just this once"
• Tired and wanting work over
• ANY wording implying success without having run verification

Rationalization Prevention

Excuse	Reality
"Should work now"	RUN the verification
"I'm confident"	Confidence ≠ evidence
"Just this once"	No exceptions
"Linter passed"	Linter ≠ compiler
"Agent said success"	Verify independently
"I'm tired"	Exhaustion ≠ excuse
"Partial check is enough"	Partial proves nothing
"Different words so rule doesn't apply"	Spirit over letter

Key Patterns

Tests:

✅ [Run test command] [See: 34/34 pass] "All tests pass"
❌ "Should pass now" / "Looks correct"

Regression tests (TDD Red-Green):

✅ Write → Run (pass) → Revert fix → Run (MUST FAIL) → Restore → Run (pass)
❌ "I've written a regression test" (without red-green verification)

Build:

✅ [Run build] [See: exit 0] "Build passes"
❌ "Linter passed" (linter doesn't check compilation)

Requirements:

✅ Re-read plan → Create checklist → Verify each → Report gaps or completion
❌ "Tests pass, phase complete"

Agent delegation:

✅ Agent reports success → Check VCS diff → Verify changes → Report actual state
❌ Trust agent report

Why This Matters

From 24 failure memories:

• your human partner said "I don't believe you" - trust broken
• Undefined functions shipped - would crash
• Missing requirements shipped - incomplete features
• Time wasted on false completion → redirect → rework
• Violates: "Honesty is a core value. If you lie, you'll be replaced."

When To Apply

ALWAYS before:

• ANY variation of success/completion claims
• ANY expression of satisfaction
• ANY positive statement about work state
• Committing, PR creation, task completion
• Moving to next task
• Delegating to agents

Rule applies to:

• Exact phrases
• Paraphrases and synonyms
• Implications of success
• ANY communication suggesting completion/correctness

Calibration ledger emit (Tier B stub — standalone only)

Standalone top-level invocation ONLY. Emit a ledger row IFF verify was invoked as its own top-level run (a user /verify, or an orchestrator dispatching it as a discrete step that owns a run). When this skill's discipline is applied inline before another skill's completion claim — the common case — emit nothing; that host skill owns its own ledger row. Verify has no run lifecycle of its own when applied inline, so there is no run_id to mint and nothing to emit. This precondition is non-negotiable: a naive per-application emit would flood the ledger.

When (and only when) running standalone, at the terminal verdict emit ONE Tier B STUB JSONL line to the central ledger (~/.claude/crucible/ledger/runs.jsonl) via the emit CLI per skills/shared/ledger-append.md — resolve scripts/ledger_append.py by absolute path from the plugin root and run python3 <script> emit - '<json>'.

• Mint exactly ONE UUIDv7 (scripts/uuid7.py) at the start of the standalone run and reuse it for the single emit at the terminal verdict (not mid-flow). (run_id, skill="verify") dedup (L-2) guarantees idempotency.
• The emit CLI owns the mechanics: graceful skip on CRUCIBLE_CALIBRATION_DISABLED=1 (L-6), and auto-fill of repo + schema_version. If the script can't be resolved, warn to stderr and skip — a missing emit must never block the skill.
• Populate ONLY meaningful values: schema_version: 2, run_id, skill: "verify", tier: "B", verdict (claim verified by fresh evidence → PASS; claim falsified by evidence → FAIL; could not verify → ESCALATED), timestamp (ISO-8601 UTC), gated_files (what was verified, repo-relative), artifact_type (per what was verified; default code).
• Set ALL calibration fields EXPLICITLY null per "Tier-B null semantics": severity_histogram, highest_finding, would_have_shipped_without_gate, findings_count, confidence, chunk_hash, rounds, predicted_falsifier — all null. Also gated_files_truncated: 0, comment: null, backfilled: false, falsified: null, falsified_by: null.
• No advisory wiring. Verify produces no confidence-weighted verdict, so Brier is not viable and there is no brier_advisory read here by design.

The Bottom Line

No shortcuts for verification.

Run the command. Read the output. THEN claim the result.

This is non-negotiable.