Godmode Second Look

Outcome

A prior pass being accepted is not proof it survives a second, independent look. This skill runs that second look against fresh evidence and either leaves the original verdict standing, on the record, or reopens it with a cited reason - never a silent redo of the same work.

Use

• Another session, PR, or diff already carries an accepted claim or verdict and the cost of being wrong about it is high enough to check again.
• A change is about to be relied on (merged, released, cited by a later claim) and no one but its own author has looked at it.
• A recheck needs to say precisely what kind of thing it found: a gap the first pass never covered, a bug it missed, a verification miss (it claimed a check ran that didn't prove what it says), or scope drift (it now covers ground the approval never considered).

Do not use

• For a first-time investigation of a fresh, never-reviewed report - that is godmode-investigation.
• To re-run the exact same suite the first pass already ran and call agreement a second look; this skill needs an independent angle (fresh evidence, a different checker, a wider blast radius), not a repeat.
• As a way to stall a decision indefinitely; a second look ends in a recorded disposition, held or reopened.

Review defaults

• Advisory. Findings inform the decision; they never gate a merge by themselves.
• Diff-only. Review what changed. A problem that predates the change is labelled pre-existing and left out of the fix.
• Important or nit. Important means it would break behaviour a user relies on. Drop a finding you cannot confirm against the code.
• Five nits at most, listed, not fixed. After the first pass, raise Important findings only.
• No "add a test" findings unless the project asks for them.

Deterministic Execution Flow

1. Locate the pass under review. Read the original record in full rather than trusting its subject line:

   godmode history --kind claim --subject "<exact subject text>"
   godmode history --kind verdict --subject "<exact subject text>"

   When the exact sequence number is already known instead:

   godmode verdict show --seq <n>

   (verdict records only - a claim record has no show counterpart; use history --kind claim --subject for those.) Fallback: if neither resolves, there is no accepted pass to recheck - route to godmode-investigation for a first look instead.
2. Check whether the evidence the original pass relied on is still there.

   godmode claim --stale

   Any of the original pass's own file citations appearing here (changed or vanished since it was recorded) is itself a finding - the approval rested on evidence that no longer exists as read.
3. Compare the state at approval against the state now, when there are two comparable states (a base commit vs HEAD, a pre-fix run vs post-fix run, a claimed file vs its current content):

   godmode differential record --subject "<what changed since the accepted pass>" --a <seq:N|file:path|cmd:...> --b <seq:N|file:path|cmd:...> --method "cmd:<comparison command>" --delta "<one observed difference>"

   Fallback: when there is only one state to look at (no prior snapshot to diff against), skip straight to step 4 and rely on retest and closure instead.
4. Run the tests that pin the changed files, independently of whatever the first pass ran:

   godmode retest --base <the pass's own base ref> --run

   A test the first pass never ran, or one that now fails, is a verification-miss finding, not a gap - the first pass claimed coverage it did not have.
5. Map how far the change actually reaches, to catch scope drift the approval never considered:

   godmode atlas closure --changed <path> [<path> ...] --depth 2

   Fallback: a fresh checkout or one with no saved graph refuses with "no graph snapshot found" - run godmode atlas graph rebuild once, then repeat the closure call. A caller or dependent outside what the original pass described is a scope-drift finding.
6. Record an independent disposition, distinct from the original claim, with its own checker:

   godmode verdict record --claim "<the original claim, restated>" --value <observed value> --witness file:<path>|seq:<n> --checker "<independent check command>" --acquitted-by independent

   The checker here must not be the same command the original pass cited; an independent second look needs a second instrument.
7. Close the loop on the original record, whichever way it goes:
   • Nothing new, evidence still holds:

     godmode claim --resolve <original-seq> --outcome held --cite verdict:<new-verdict-seq>

   • A gap, bug, verification-miss, or scope-drift finding stands up under evidence:

     godmode claim --resolve <original-seq> --outcome superseded --cite file:<path> --cite cmd:<the independent checker's command>

     verdict:<seq> only resolves a claim when that verdict is CONFIRMED; a second look that finds something records a refuted (or malformed) verdict in step 6 - exactly the case this citation cannot cover. Cite the fresh file:/cmd: evidence the independent checker actually read instead. A claim resolves at most once; do not call --resolve twice on the same sequence.
8. When a durable regression check is worth keeping (the finding is the kind that could silently recur):

   godmode verify "<name>" --rule <rule-id> --command "<the check that would have caught this>"

Must not

• Must not resolve any sequence other than the exact one identified in step 1; a second look that reopens the wrong record is worse than one that reopens nothing.
• Must not record --outcome superseded without at least one fresh --cite the original pass did not already have; disagreement without new evidence is not a reversal.
• Must not close a claim with --outcome held citing only the original pass's own evidence; cite the step 6 independent verdict (--cite verdict:<seq>) so "held" means a fresh check agreed, not that no fresh check ran.
• Must not silently redo the underlying work and stay quiet when it agrees - agreement is recorded with --outcome held, not left unrecorded.
• Must not treat this skill's own recheck as exempt from the evidence bar it is enforcing on the first pass.

Taxonomy

• Gap - something the original pass never looked at, but should have.
• Bug - something the original pass looked at and got wrong.
• Verification-miss - the original pass claimed a check that does not actually prove what it says (a stale citation, a checker that doesn't discriminate, a green run that never reproduced the failure).
• Scope-drift - the change now reaches further than what was approved.

Completion

Report which of the four taxonomy classes applied (or none), the fresh evidence behind that call, and the exact record (held or superseded) written to close the loop. A second look that produces no new record proved nothing happened - it just used the verbs and stopped.