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.

The Iron Law

NO COMPLETION CLAIMS WITHOUT FRESH VERIFICATION EVIDENCE

If you haven't verified in this message, you cannot claim it passes.

The Gate Function

BEFORE claiming any status or expressing satisfaction:

1. IDENTIFY: What evidence proves this claim?
2. RUN / EXERCISE: Execute the verification (fresh, complete)
3. READ: Full output / observed result — check exit code, count failures,
   or walk the artifact against its acceptance criteria
4. VERIFY: Does the evidence 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

Common Failures

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
• Relying on partial verification
• Thinking "just this once"
• Tired and wanting work over
• ANY wording implying success without having run verification

Rationalization Prevention

Escalate When Verification Is Impossible

If a completion claim cannot be verified from within the current session — required access is missing, the target system is prod-only, cross-machine state isn't reachable, another persona's tools are needed, or a decisive verification would take longer than ~20 minutes to design — do not claim completion.

Surface to the user with three specifics:

1. The exact completion claim you cannot verify
2. What access or environment would resolve it
3. Your recommended next step (spawn a persona that has the access / defer the claim / narrow the deliverable until it is verifiable)

Papering over an unverifiable completion claim is the failure mode this skill exists to prevent.

Key Patterns

Tests:

✅ [Run test command] [See: 34/34 pass] "All tests pass"
❌ "Should pass now" / "Looks correct"

Regression tests (TDD Red-Green):

✅ Write → Run (pass) → Revert fix → Run (MUST FAIL) → Restore → Run (pass)
❌ "I've written a regression test" (without red-green verification)

Build:

✅ [Run build] [See: exit 0] "Build passes"
❌ "Linter passed" (linter doesn't check compilation)

Requirements:

✅ Re-read plan → Create checklist → Verify each → Report gaps or completion
❌ "Tests pass, phase complete"

Agent delegation:

✅ Agent reports success → Check VCS diff → Verify changes → Report actual state
❌ Trust agent report

Why This Matters

See references/ for accumulated failure patterns. Common ones:

• should-work-without-running — claim without running; broken code merges
• trusting-agent-success-reports — subagent said done; work incomplete
• partial-check-treated-as-full — linter clean ≠ build clean
• assumption-swapped-for-verification — assumed criteria met; misaligned deliverable ships

When To Apply

ALWAYS before:

• ANY variation of success/completion claims
• ANY expression of satisfaction
• ANY positive statement about work state
• Committing, PR creation, task completion
• Moving to next task
• Delegating to agents
• Shipping any deliverable (code, deck, PRD, render, workflow, analysis)

Rule applies to:

• Exact phrases
• Paraphrases and synonyms
• Implications of success
• ANY communication suggesting completion/correctness

The Bottom Line

For code: Run the command. Read the output. Then claim the result.

For non-code deliverables: Open the artifact. Walk it against the acceptance criteria. Then claim completion.

Verification is empirical or it isn't verification. This is non-negotiable.

Nova Caelum branded skill · v2.0 · 2026-07-23 · adapted from obra/superpowers (MIT)