Verification Before Completion

Core principle

Evidence before claims. Verification should be fresh, decisive, and proportionate to the result being asserted. For an obvious low-impact local edit, apply the direct check without loading this skill or creating a formal verification artifact. Use this fuller workflow when the evidence choice, failure interpretation or completion boundary is nontrivial, or when explicitly invoked.

Lightweight gate

Before claiming that work is complete, fixed, passing, deployed, sent, published, or otherwise in a verified state:

1. Name the exact claim and its consequence.
2. Choose the smallest fresh check that can actually prove it.
3. Run the check and read the exit status, failures, and material output.
4. Report the result with exact coverage and anything not verified.

Do not replace a required runtime check with source inspection, a build with lint, or end-to-end evidence with an agent's success message. Do not run an entire test universe when a targeted regression plus the repository's required gate proves the claim.

Match evidence to the claim

Claim	Decisive evidence
Targeted bug fixed	Reproduce the original symptom or run its regression test
Tests pass	The named test command exits successfully with zero relevant failures
Build succeeds	The actual build command exits successfully
Visual issue fixed	Inspect the rendered affected state at relevant viewports
Requirements met	Check each material acceptance criterion against code, output, or runtime evidence
External state changed	Read back the exact account, message, deployment, or service state
Research complete	State sources searched, semantic coverage, exclusions, and unresolved limits

Coverage language

Use precise labels such as:

• source-inspected;
• structurally verified;
• targeted test passed;
• runtime-tested;
• visually inspected;
• external state confirmed;
• untested or blocked.

Never imply whole-system certification from a sample. Previous evidence may provide context, but a current completion claim needs current verification when the state could have changed.

Delegated work

A subagent report is evidence about what the subagent observed, not automatic proof of completion. Inspect the relevant diff or artifact and run the smallest decisive verification before adopting its claim.

Stop condition

Stop when the acceptance criteria are supported at the required confidence. Record residual limitations instead of adding ceremonial checks that cannot change the decision.