Cy Final 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 the verification command has not been run in the current message, the result cannot be claimed.

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

Scope of Verification

Match the verification scope to the claim scope:

• Narrow claim (e.g., "this test passes"): Run the specific test.
• Broad claim (e.g., "task complete", "ready to commit"): Run the full verification pipeline — formatting, linting, all tests, and build. If the project defines a single gate command (e.g., make verify), run that.

A narrow verification does not support a broad claim. Running make test alone does not justify "task complete." Running the linter alone does not justify "ready to commit." The verification scope must be equal to or broader than the claim scope.

If in doubt, run the full pipeline. Over-verification wastes minutes. Under-verification wastes hours.

Passing pipeline != meeting requirements. A green build proves the code compiles, lints, and passes existing tests. It does not prove the implementation matches the requirements. For "task complete" or "requirements met" claims, also verify the deliverables against the original specification — line by line, not by assumption. In a spec/PRD workflow, "the original specification" means the canonical artifacts in the spec directory (example documents, input tables, parity maps, QA seeds) — never just the task file's paraphrase of them (see "Spec Contract Parity").

Common Failures

Red Flags

• Using "should", "probably", or "seems to"
• Expressing satisfaction before verification
• About to commit, push, or open a PR without verification
• Trusting another agent's success report
• Relying on partial verification
• Thinking "just this once"
• Any wording that implies success without current evidence
• Verifying against a task file's paraphrase when a canonical contract artifact exists in the spec directory
• Calling implementation-only screenshots “design parity” without rendering and comparing the named reference

Rationalization Prevention

When To Apply

Apply this skill before:

• any success or completion claim
• any expression of satisfaction with the implementation state
• any commit or PR creation
• any handoff that implies correctness
• moving to the next task based on completion

Optional Companion Skills

Two companion gates below are conditional. Probe the agent skill roots (.agents/skills/, .claude/skills/, or the runtime's skill catalog) for a SKILL.md under the named skill. If the skill is absent, skip that gate entirely — do not invent a substitute, and do not fail verification for the missing companion.

Deslop Gate (code-change tasks)

Only when the deslop skill exists. Before collecting completion evidence, run deslop on the branch diff and apply its cleanup. Order matters: deslop mutates code, so verification evidence gathered before it is stale — deslop first, then verify. Skipping it when the skill is present ships AI slop (noise comments, defensive clutter, style drift) into permanent artifacts.

Pre-Commit and Pre-PR Gate

Commits and PRs are permanent artifacts. They require the highest verification standard.

Before git commit:

1. If the deslop skill exists, run the deslop pass (see "Deslop Gate" above).
2. Run the full verification pipeline (e.g., make verify). Not a subset. The full pipeline.
3. Confirm zero errors, zero warnings, zero test failures in the output.
4. If both qa-report and qa-execution skills exist and the project keeps living QA scenario files (e.g. docs/qa/scenarios/*.md), apply the QA impact flag (see "QA Tracker Impact" below).
5. Produce a Verification Report (see template below) with verdict PASS.
6. Only then run git commit.

Before creating a PR:

1. All of the above, plus:
2. Verify the diff matches the intended changes (git diff review).
3. Confirm no unrelated files are staged.

If the full pipeline has not passed in this session after the last code change, the commit or PR must not proceed.

QA Tracker Impact (living QA docs)

Only when both qa-report and qa-execution skills exist. A green pipeline proves the code works; it does not keep QA verdicts honest. When the project also keeps living QA scenario files (e.g. docs/qa/scenarios/*.md), a completion claim also requires the impact flag — one question, ~1 minute:

Does this diff change user-visible behavior (UI, CLI verb, API route, config key, user-facing copy)?

• No (pure refactor, internal-only): state "no user-visible change" in the completion notes. Done.
• New behavior: add content-addressed scenario file(s) with qa_status: untested.
• Changed behavior: reset the affected files' qa_status to untested (a stale pass is worse than no verdict).

Flag, don't retest. Running QA is the QA cycle's job — untested scenarios are exactly its scope. Skipping the flag silently (when the companion skills and tracker are present) is a stale-verdict claim: the same dishonesty as claiming tests pass without running them.

Spec Contract Parity (PRD/spec workflows)

A green pipeline and ticked task checkboxes do not prove the deliverable matches the spec. When the work executes a task from a spec directory (PRD/TechSpec plus sibling artifacts), a "task complete" claim additionally requires:

1. List the canonical contract artifacts for this task found during grounding (e.g. _examples.md, _qa.md input tables, _tests.md test contracts, _user_stories.md acceptance criteria, parity maps). If none are known, survey the spec directory now — absence must be proven, not assumed.
2. Compare the deliverable to each artifact field by field: names, types, defaults, required flags, shapes, topologies, behaviors. Paraphrase-level similarity is not parity.
3. Any mismatch fails the completion claim — fix the deliverable to match the resolved contract and re-verify; never reinterpret the canonical artifact to match what was built, and never pause to ask which side wins.
4. Cite the compared artifacts in the Verification Report (Contract parity: line).

Failure mode this section exists to prevent (real incident): a task shipped "green" through seven peer-review rounds while contradicting the spec's canonical example document — every check measured engineering quality against the task file's paraphrase, and nothing ever compared the deliverable to the canonical contract.

Visual Contract Parity (visible UI)

When a spec/task names an OpenDesign artifact, HTML mock, screenshot, or other trusted visual reference, completion additionally requires:

1. Resolve the exact reference path, including absolute paths outside the current worktree. If eng-ui-screenshot is installed, follow its Visual Contract Mode in full.
2. Enumerate every required state/viewport. For each one, require a durable bundle containing reference.png, implementation.png, side-by-side.png, diff.png, comparison.json, and review.md.
3. Open and inspect every pair. A wrong shell, missing/reordered region, materially different geometry or hierarchy, substituted component anatomy, missing visible state, or uncited visual-language delta is a blocker regardless of green tests or pixel ratio. Content, data, copy, brand-mark, and control-existence divergences are judged against their canonical owners (runtime truth, COPY.md, brand inventory) — require the cited authorized difference, not prototype parity.
4. Run the eng-ui-screenshot bundle validator for every row and require exit zero (PASS plus blocking_divergences: 0). Implementation-only screenshots, filenames, checklist ticks, and “looks close” prose are not parity evidence.
5. Cite the contract matrix and bundle root in the Verification Report (Visual contract: line). If no named visual reference exists, report n/a — no named visual reference found.

A runtime-truth conflict does not permit a silent visual deviation: follow runtime truth, then reconcile the contract or cite the higher-authority artifact that explicitly authorizes the difference before reporting PASS.

Verification Report Template

Verification is not complete until the agent cites actual command output in their response. "I ran it and it passed" is not evidence. If the verification output is not shown, the verification did not happen.

Every verification must be reported using this structure. Do not deviate.

VERIFICATION REPORT
-------------------
Claim: [What is being claimed — e.g., "tests pass", "build succeeds", "task complete"]
Command: [Exact command run — e.g., `make verify`]
Executed: [Timestamp or "just now, after all changes"]
Exit code: [0 or non-zero]
Output summary: [Key lines from output — pass count, error count, build result]
Warnings: [Any warnings, or "none"]
Errors: [Any errors, or "none"]
Contract parity: [spec-workflow tasks: artifacts compared + PASS/mismatch; otherwise "n/a"]
Visual contract: [named-reference UI: matrix rows passed/total + durable bundle root; otherwise "n/a — no named visual reference found"]
Verdict: PASS or FAIL

If the verdict is FAIL, do not use completion language. State what failed and what remains.

If the verdict is PASS, the claim may proceed — but only the specific claim supported by the evidence. "Tests pass" does not mean "build succeeds."

When Verification Fails

Verification failure is not a dead end. It is information. Follow this protocol:

1. Read the failure. Identify the exact error: which command failed, which test, which lint rule, which build error. Quote the relevant output lines.
2. Diagnose the root cause. Do not guess. Read the error message. Trace it to the source. If multiple things failed, address them one at a time starting with the first failure.
3. Fix the root cause. Apply the minimal change that addresses the actual error. Do not apply workarounds, suppress warnings, or skip checks.
4. Re-verify from scratch. Run the full verification command again. Do not assume the fix worked. Do not run only the previously-failing subset.
5. Report with evidence. Use the Verification Report Template. If it passes now, the claim may proceed. If it fails again, return to step 1.

Never:

• Claim partial success ("3 of 4 checks pass, close enough")
• Skip re-verification after a fix ("I fixed the error, so it should pass now")
• Blame the tooling ("the linter is wrong") without evidence of a false positive
• Move on to the next task while verification is still failing

If the correct verification command is unclear, identify it before making any completion claim. If only partial verification is available, state that limitation explicitly and avoid completion language.