Verify Before Done

Verify Before Done Skill

A claim without evidence is a guess. This skill enforces evidence before assertion.

This is the skill-layer complement to the Truth Gate hook (core/hooks/truth-gate-guard.sh). The hook warns on claim verbs in output. This skill runs the actual verification.

The Rule

NO COMPLETION CLAIM WITHOUT FRESH VERIFICATION OUTPUT IN THIS SAME RESPONSE.

If the verification command was not run in this message, you cannot claim it passes.

When to use this skill

ALWAYS before any of these:

• Saying "done", "fixed", "complete", "finished", "ready"
• Expressing satisfaction: "looks good", "should work", "that should do it"
• Committing or pushing
• Moving to the next task
• Telling the user the bug is resolved

Verification checklist

Run the relevant checks and show their output:

Tests

# Run and show full output — do not truncate
bash core/tests/hooks/run-hook-tests.sh 2>&1

Claim "tests pass" only if output shows 0 failed.

Hook syntax

bash -n core/hooks/*.sh 2>&1 && echo "syntax OK"

Claim "syntax clean" only if output shows "syntax OK".

Git state

git diff --stat
git status --short

Show actual output. "No uncommitted changes" requires empty output.

For bug fixes — reproduce before claiming fixed

# Run the specific command/test that was failing
# Show it passes now
# If possible, show it would have failed before (git stash → run → git stash pop)

Output format

After running checks, report like this:

Verification:
- tests: [N/N pass | FAIL: list failures]
- syntax: [OK | errors: list]
- git: [clean | N files changed: list]
- bug: [reproduced and resolved | not verified]

Status: DONE ✓   (or)   NOT DONE — [what's still failing]

Red flags — stop and verify before continuing

• You are about to type "done", "fixed", "complete"
• You feel satisfied with the result
• The last thing you did was edit a file
• You're about to switch to a new task
• You're about to run git commit

Any of the above = run this skill first.

Common rationalisations — ignore them