Verification Before Completion

Core Principle: No completion claims without fresh verification evidence.

Unverified claims break trust and ship broken code: undefined functions that crash production, incomplete features missing requirements, lost time on rework after false completion. The cost of running one command is trivial compared to the cost of a wrong claim.

The Verification Gate

Before any claim of success, completion, or satisfaction:

• IDENTIFY - What command proves this claim?

• RUN - Execute the full verification command (fresh, complete)

• READ - Check full output, exit code, failure counts

• VERIFY - Does output confirm the claim?

• NO - State actual status with evidence

• YES - State claim WITH evidence from step 2-3

When This Applies

Before:

• Claiming "tests pass", "build succeeds", "linter clean", "bug fixed"

• Expressing satisfaction ("Great!", "Done!", "Perfect!")

• Using qualifiers ("should work", "probably fixed", "seems to")

• Committing, creating PRs, marking tasks complete

• Marking a multi-file implementation as complete (dispatch ce:code-reviewer agent)

• Moving to next task or delegating work

Common Verification Requirements

Claim Required Evidence Not Sufficient

Tests pass yarn test output: 0 failures Previous run, "looks correct"

Build succeeds Build command: exit 0 Linter clean, "should work"

Bug fixed Test reproducing bug: now passes Code changed, assumed fix

Linter clean Linter output: 0 errors Partial check, spot test

Regression test works Red→Green cycle verified Test passes once

Agent task complete VCS diff shows expected changes Agent reports "success"

Work is complete Code review via ce:code-reviewer with no unresolved Critical issues Self-review, "looks good to me"

Red Flags

Stop and verify if you're about to:

• Use hedging language ("should", "probably", "seems to")

• Express satisfaction before running verification

• Trust agent/tool success reports without independent verification

• Rely on partial checks or previous runs

Key Examples

Regression test (TDD Red-Green):

Write test → Run (fail) → Fix code → Run (pass) → Revert fix → Run (fail) → Restore → Run (pass) vs. "I've written a regression test" (without verifying red-green cycle)

Build vs Linter:

Run npm run build → See "exit 0" → Claim "build passes" vs. Run linter → Claim "build will pass" (linter ≠ compiler)

Agent delegation:

Agent reports success → Check git diff → Verify changes → Report actual state vs. Trust agent's success message without verification