Related skills: Follow up with /skill:requesting-code-review before merging. Done? /skill:finishing-a-development-branch.

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.

If a tool result contains a ⚠️ workflow warning, stop immediately and address it before continuing.

Boundaries

• Run verification commands: yes
• Read code and output: yes
• Edit source code: no

The Iron Law

NO COMPLETION CLAIMS WITHOUT FRESH VERIFICATION EVIDENCE

If you haven't run the verification command in this message, you cannot claim it passes.

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

Red Flags - STOP

• Using "should", "probably", "seems to"
• Expressing satisfaction before verification ("Great!", "Perfect!", "Done!", etc.)
• About to commit/push/PR without verification
• Trusting agent success reports without checking outputs
• Relying on partial verification
• Thinking "just this once"
• Tired and wanting work over
• ANY wording implying success without fresh evidence

Key Patterns

Tests:

✅ Run tests + confirm 0 failures before saying "tests pass"
❌ "Should pass now" / "Looks correct"

Regression tests (TDD Red-Green):

✅ Verify red → green sequence before claiming fix durability
❌ "I added a regression test" (without proving red-green)

Build:

✅ Run build command + confirm exit 0
❌ "Linter passed" (linter ≠ build)

Requirements:

✅ Check requirements one-by-one, report verified status
❌ "Tests pass, so everything is complete"

Agent delegation:

✅ Verify agent output + diffs + commands yourself
❌ Trust "agent says success"

Enforcement

The workflow-monitor extension gates git commit, git push, and gh pr create. If you haven't run a passing test suite since your last source file edit, the command gets a warning injected into its tool result. The gate clears automatically after a fresh passing test run.