# Validate As Consumer

> Exercise a verified change the way a consumer would — in the operational environment, against the requirement that asked for it — instead of re-running the gate suite that already passed. Use at VALIDATE, before claiming a capability on a README or release note, or whenever "the tests pass" is standing in for "the feature works".

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

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<!-- Generated by `basicly skills-build` from skill.yaml. Do not edit; edit the source. -->

# Validate as a consumer

VERIFY already ran the deterministic checks and they are green. That is the
entry condition to this state, so a transcript that re-runs them proves
nothing anybody did not already know.

**The test that decides whether you validated anything: could your transcript
have been produced without the change?** If yes, you re-ran the suite.

## Three questions, in order

1. **Does the demonstration line do what the child claimed?** Type the
   command. Make the request. Read what it prints.
2. **Does it satisfy the acceptance criterion, or merely execute without
   error?** A criterion satisfiable without the behaviour is the failure mode
   to watch for — that is the whole reason each criterion names its own check
   at plan time.
3. **What does a consumer hit that nobody building it would?** A missing
   prerequisite, an error naming an internal path, an instruction that assumes
   the repository you do not have.

## The operational environment is part of the test

A consumer has no worktree, no fixtures, and no knowledge of the
implementation. Where the change ships to a consumer, exercise it there: a
fresh directory, an install, the documented command. Two recorded defects on
this repository were invisible from the source tree — a projected file over a
budget the local config raised, and a restart notice telling consumers to do
something they do not need to do.

## Read the requirement, not the change summary

The summary is the builder's account of the work. You are checking the work
against what was asked, and those diverge quietly.

## Paste output, never describe it

A described result is a claim about a result. The transcript is the artifact,
and it is worth exactly as much as the literal bytes in it.

## Do not fix what you find

A defect you repair is a defect nobody measured, and the rework ledger is how
this harness learns where it fails. Report it and stop.