Artifact Commit Verification

Artifact Commit Verification

When to Use

Use when an agent claims work is complete and you need to verify exact files, commits, generated artifacts, issue closeout evidence, or working-tree state before trusting the claim.

Class-Level Workflow

1. Identify the claimed artifact/file/commit set.
2. Resolve whether the artifact path is inside the canonical git repository. If the generated file lives in a staging/non-repo mount (for example /mnt/ace/...) but the deliverable belongs in a tier-1 repo, copy it into the repo-tracked canonical path first, then verify and commit the repo path. Do not treat a non-repo staging directory as the source of truth for push/closeout.
3. Compare the exact claimed paths against git status, git diff, and generated output files.
4. Confirm no unrelated dirt is being mistaken for task output.
5. For public/distributable generated artifacts, inspect machine-readable sidecars/manifests as well as the visible output: they must not serialize absolute local paths, staging roots, client repo names, temp directories, or other environment/client identifiers.
6. For visual artifacts (PNG/SVG/PDF/HTML charts, brochures, dashboards), run both structural smoke checks and a human/visual readability check before claiming success.
7. For interactive chart artifacts (dropdowns, sliders, tabs, filters), verify at least one representative control path in a browser or DOM-capable test: confirm the default selection is present, changing the control updates the expected chart/data region, and the displayed labels/units remain correct. Static HTML grep alone is not sufficient for interactive controls.
8. For generated artifact families (HTML + PDF + ZIP/manifests), verify the complete family together: inspect file output, sizes/page counts where available, secret/deny-list scan text renderables, and re-run status after staging/commit because PDF/ZIP generators can rewrite already-tracked binaries after an apparently clean check.
9. If the repo-wide/legal scanner fails because of unrelated dirty files outside the claimed artifact set, do not either ignore it or falsely report a clean official scan. Run a staged/claimed-file-only deny-list check, report it explicitly as scoped evidence, and document the unrelated blocker separately.
10. Record evidence before closing or reporting success.

Dirty or Hanging Git Status During Handoff

If repo-wide git status or combined status/log commands hang, time out, or produce unusable/truncated output, switch to bounded path-scoped verification instead of retrying broad commands. Use GIT_OPTIONAL_LOCKS=0 timeout 10 ... around conflict checks, individual path status checks, branch divergence checks, and file-existence checks. If the workspace is behind remote, dirty, or conflict-adjacent (AA/UU/ambiguous planning files), do not create a mixed handoff commit; leave the handoff untracked if necessary, document why, and give the next session explicit salvage/reconciliation steps. If normal git commit also hangs but the staged file set and diff are narrow, fully verified, and ready for immediate push, follow the worktree-branch-sync-hygiene references/commit-tree-fallback-when-commit-hangs.md fallback rather than repeatedly invoking hanging porcelain. See references/dirty-hanging-status-handoff.md.

If a killed or timed-out proof command leaves .git/index.lock, treat it as a lock-recovery step, not a destructive cleanup. Check for active git processes first (ps -ef | grep '[g]it') and inspect the lock (stat .git/index.lock). Only remove the lock if no active git process is present and the lock is consistent with the just-killed command, then immediately rerun the narrow status/add/commit/push/fetch verification sequence before reporting clean state.

Post-Compaction Verification Resume

When a context-compaction handoff leaves only a preserved active task list, treat the summary as reference-only and re-ground before claiming closeout. Reload the governing verification skill, identify the exact committed artifact paths, verify those paths are clean, validate representative machine-readable outputs (for example JSON with uv run python -m json.tool), and compare git rev-parse HEAD with git ls-remote origin refs/heads/main. If the broader worktree still has unrelated/session-generated dirt, report it separately as a caveat instead of blocking or polluting the transactional artifact commit.

Public Artifact Hygiene

When a task generates client-facing or public GTM/report assets, treat metadata files as part of the artifact surface. Search generated manifests/sidecars and representative rendered files for /mnt/, /tmp/, workspace names, confidential repo buckets, and client/project identifiers that are not intended for publication. If an adversarial review flags local path leakage, fix the generator so future outputs emit repo-relative or artifact-relative paths rather than post-processing one file by hand. See references/public-chart-artifact-hygiene.md for the #2555 chart-pack example.

When the official scanner reports failures from unrelated uncommitted state (for example .claude/state/** session logs), preserve truthfulness by separating:

• official scan result: failed/blocked and why
• scoped staged-file evidence: exact files scanned and pass/fail result
• decision: whether the scoped pass is sufficient for a docs-only/handoff commit, or whether the unrelated blocker must be cleaned before publication/release

Never summarize a scoped staged-only scan as a full repo legal PASS.

Remote Ref-Lock Push Anomaly

If git push fails with a remote ref-lock message like cannot lock ref 'refs/heads/main': is at <new> but expected <old>, do not assume the push failed. Immediately verify remote state with git fetch origin main or git ls-remote origin refs/heads/main, then compare to local git rev-parse HEAD. If remote already equals local HEAD, treat the commit as landed, record the verified state, and avoid unnecessary retry/rebase churn.

Client-Facing GitHub Links for Generated Artifacts

When the user asks for a GitHub link to client-facing generated artifacts, especially PNG/PDF/HTML reports:

1. Commit and push the exact artifact paths first; do not give cache paths or untracked local file paths as if they are GitHub deliverables.
2. Provide both the GitHub blob/<branch>/... URL for browser review and the raw.githubusercontent.com/<owner>/<repo>/<branch>/... URL for direct download/embedding.
3. For binary/image artifacts, verify the raw URL returns HTTP 200 after push before reporting it.
4. If the artifact is on a feature/issue branch rather than main, say that plainly in the response so the user does not assume the link is from the default branch.

Consolidated Session Learnings

Narrow skills absorbed during the 2026-04-29 umbrella consolidation are preserved under references/.

Absorbed Narrow Skills (2026-04-29)

targeted-artifact-commit-verification

• Former skill demoted to references/targeted-artifact-commit-verification.md.
• Preserved insight: Verify whether the exact files from a just-completed task are still uncommitted before creating another commit, especially in dirty repos with unrelated churn.