# Verify This

> Verify a claim with fresh local evidence: restate it falsifiably, capture baseline and treatment, compare artifacts, and return VERIFIED, NOT VERIFIED, or INCONCLUSIVE.

- Skill: `davesnx/verify-this` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add davesnx/verify-this`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/davesnx/verify-this/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: davesnx (https://skillmd.com/u/davesnx)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/davesnx/verify-this

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# Verify This

Verification is not a recap. It proves or disproves a specific claim with repeatable evidence.

## When To Use

- The user asks "verify this", "prove it works", "did this fix it", or "show me the evidence".
- A bug fix needs a before/after repro.
- A UI, CLI, API, performance, or memory claim needs measurement.
- A test passes but the user-visible behavior still needs confirmation.

Do not use this for vague claims like "the code is cleaner". Ask for a measurable claim first.

## Workflow

1. Restate the claim in falsifiable form: condition, metric, and threshold.
2. Pick the smallest local surface that can disprove it.
3. Capture a baseline from the old state: merge base, parent commit, failing branch, or current broken repro.
4. Capture treatment from the changed state with the same command, data, warmup, and environment.
5. Compare raw artifacts: numbers, screenshots, terminal transcripts, HTTP responses, profiles, heap snapshots, or test output.
6. Return exactly one verdict: `VERIFIED`, `NOT VERIFIED`, or `INCONCLUSIVE`.

## Local Surfaces

- Code behavior: focused unit/integration tests or a minimal repro script.
- CLI/TUI behavior: terminal transcript or demo recording.
- UI behavior: screenshots, accessibility snapshots, or browser traces (playwright-cli when available).
- API behavior: local HTTP/RPC request and response diff.
- Performance: same-machine baseline/treatment timings or CPU profiles.
- Memory: heap snapshots before and after the suspected operation.

## Artifact Layout

When safe to write artifacts:

```text
<scratch-dir>/verify-this/<claim-slug>/    # the harness scratchpad when it provides one, else /tmp
├── claim.md
├── timeline.md
├── baseline/
├── treatment/
├── diff/
└── verdict.md
```

If artifacts may contain sensitive code, prompts, screenshots, HTTP bodies, or heap data, keep only the minimal inline evidence unless the user agrees to disk storage.

## Verdict Rules

- `VERIFIED`: baseline and treatment differ in the predicted direction, by the claimed threshold, with no obvious confound.
- `NOT VERIFIED`: the behavior is unchanged, moves the wrong way, or misses the threshold.
- `INCONCLUSIVE`: no valid baseline, noisy signal, failed measurement, or an environment difference invalidates the comparison.

## Output

Use this shape:

```text
VERIFIED | NOT VERIFIED | INCONCLUSIVE
Claim: <falsifiable claim>

Evidence:
<metric/artifact>: baseline=<...>, treatment=<...>, delta=<...>, threshold=<...>

Reasoning:
<one tight paragraph naming the evidence and any confounds>
```

Do not soften a negative result. A clear `NOT VERIFIED` is useful.