Reality Check

Every project tells two stories: the one its docs tell and the one its runtime tells. This skill reads both and reports the difference. It is the instrument the other verticals steer by (project-autopilot's assess step, ship-it's Phase-0 preflight gate, idea-forge's intent source of last resort), and its only loyalty is to what actually ran. The value is catching "we think it works but it doesn't" before a ship, a demo, or a week of polish built on sand.

Core Insight: The README is a press release; the only admissible evidence for "it works" is watching it work. Build it, launch it, exercise the headline promise end to end, unmocked. The gap that kills projects is never the one in the backlog (that one's at least known). It's the one between "we believe it works" and "we watched it work." Every WORKS in the report cites an execution trace, never a doc.

Core Insight #2: Reality-check is read-only by design. It never fixes, never refactors, never "while I'm here"s. The moment the assessor starts repairing, the report stops being trustworthy (you grade what you wish you'd found). Output is a report, a verdict, and inbox items. Fixing belongs to project-autopilot and the quality verticals downstream.

Preconditions

1. A project directory with code in it. That's the whole bar: this skill exists precisely for projects whose docs are missing, stale, or lying.
2. br is optional. If br list works, the bead graph (open AND closed) is a first-class evidence source; if not, proceed without it and say so in the report. Never fail the run over a missing tracker.
3. Leave the tree as found. Builds/test runs/launches must not dirty the working tree (stash or clean anything they create); downstream skills ratchet off a clean baseline. On a unified-memory box (e.g. an NVIDIA DGX Spark/GB10) with memguard installed, launch anything memory-heavy via memguard run, never bare; elsewhere, launch normally.

Mode gate

Intent sources, in priority order: AGENTS.md · README.md · CLAUDE.md · plan docs · any project notes in the repo · existing <project>/.autopilot/INTENT.md. Any of these states what the project is trying to be → ASSESS (default). None do → EXTRACT first, then (on a combined run) feed the confirmed statement back into ASSESS.

ASSESS Pipeline (staged: issue each phase only when the prior finishes)

Phase 0  PROMISES   Read every intent source. Distill into a NUMBERED promise
                    list: concrete claims the project makes about itself ("does
                    X", "handles Y", "deployed at Z"), headline promises flagged.
                    This list is the rubric; everything after grades against it.
Phase 1  LEDGER     The tracker's own account: `br list --status=open` and
                    `--status=closed`, `bv` (if installed) for triage shape.
                    Closed beads = what the project claims it finished; open =
                    what it admits is missing. Note promises with no bead
                    anywhere; invisible work is the usual hiding place for drift.
Phase 2  RUN IT     The heart of the skill. Build · test · launch · exercise each
                    headline promise end to end as a user would (memguard-wrapped
                    on a unified-memory box if you have it; bare elsewhere).
                    Record verbatim what ran, what errored, what
                    was unreachable. A green test suite is supporting evidence;
                    only an unmocked end-to-end exercise proves a headline
                    promise. Capture the actual commands + output traces.
Phase 3  CLASSIFY   Per promise, one verdict with evidence cited
                    (references/CLASSIFICATION.md for the rubric):
                    WORKS · PARTIAL · CLAIMED-BUT-BROKEN · MISSING · DRIFTED
                    (built something other than promised), plus UNDOCUMENTED
                    for real built capability no doc ever promised.
Phase 4  VERDICT    Write <project>/.reality/GAP-REPORT.md (template in
                    references/CLASSIFICATION.md). FIRST LINE is the greppable
                    verdict: `VERDICT: SHIP-READY` or `VERDICT: NOT SHIP-READY —
                    <top reason>`. SHIP-READY requires: every headline promise
                    WORKS via unmocked exercise · tests green · zero
                    CLAIMED-BUT-BROKEN anywhere. Anything less is NOT, with
                    blocking gaps ranked by intent impact.
Phase 5  INBOX      Judgment calls go to <project>/.autopilot/DECISIONS.md
                    (recommended option first), not into the verdict: drift that
                    might be deliberate ("code went Y, vision says X: which
                    wins?"), promises that maybe should be cut, UNDOCUMENTED
                    capability that maybe should be promoted to promise. The
                    skill reports; the operator arbitrates vision.

EXTRACT Pipeline (when no intent source exists)

Phase E1  SIGNALS   Interview the codebase: entry points + what they wire up ·
                    what the tests assert the system must do · UI copy / CLI help
                    (the project pitching itself to users) · package metadata ·
                    commit-log story (what got built first, fixed hardest) ·
                    closed beads (revealed priorities: effort spent IS intent) ·
                    any project notes.
Phase E2  DRAFT     One-paragraph Intent Statement in the INTENT.md shape: who it
                    serves, what job it does, what "winning" looks like,
                    commercial vs fun. Plus 2–3 lines of "evidence for this
                    reading" and any signals that point a different direction.
Phase E3  CONFIRM   Write to <project>/.autopilot/INTENT.md headed
                    `STATUS: DRAFT — UNCONFIRMED (extracted by reality-check)`.
                    Surface to the operator (or the calling orchestrator, which confirms
                    with the operator). A reconstructed intent NEVER silently drives
                    destructive or directional moves. Confirmation flips the
                    header to CONFIRMED, and only then does ASSESS grade
                    against it.

Contract (what orchestrators can rely on)

• <project>/.reality/GAP-REPORT.md: the gap report; first line is the greppable VERDICT: line. ship-it consumes this at Phase 0 PREFLIGHT as its go/no-go reality gate. project-autopilot consumes it as the assess step for vision-vs-reality drift (auto); each non-WORKS row is bead-ready.
• <project>/.autopilot/INTENT.md: EXTRACT mode's intent statement, written to the exact path project-autopilot already reads, DRAFT-flagged until the operator confirms. idea-forge and project-autopilot route here when a project lacks intent docs ("no intent = run reality-check's extraction first").
• <project>/.autopilot/DECISIONS.md: appended judgment items (the same inbox project-autopilot drains; one inbox, not two).
• Verdict echoed as the LAST line of the reply, so callers grep either place.
• Exit state: tree clean, nothing fixed, nothing committed. Reality-check ends where remediation begins.

THE EXACT PROMPT

/reality-check
Target: <project path>
Mode:   assess | extract | auto     (default auto: assess, falling back to extract)
Focus:  <optional — one promise or area, e.g. "the booking flow" — narrows Phase 2>

Anti-Patterns

• Grading from the README without running anything: the one failure mode this skill exists to prevent. No execution trace, no WORKS.
• Rounding PARTIAL up to WORKS to be encouraging. Flattery here costs a failed ship later; honest-and-specific IS the deliverable.
• Accepting a mocked test as proof of a headline promise. Mocks prove wiring, not delivery (shipped-reality standard).
• Fixing anything mid-assessment, even a one-line obvious bug. Report it, classify it, leave it. Read-only or the report is compromised.
• Skipping closed beads. They're the project's revealed priorities and the fastest drift detector (effort that went somewhere the vision never asked for).
• Treating an extracted DRAFT intent as confirmed, or grading against it before the operator signs off.
• Burying the verdict in prose. First line of the report, last line of the reply, greppable, every time.
• Launching the project bare on a unified-memory box (e.g. a DGX Spark) when memguard is available. Wrap anything heavy.
• Verdict-creep: SHIP-READY "except for…" is NOT SHIP-READY. The exception IS the reason.

References

• CLASSIFICATION.md: the six classes with evidence standards, the verdict rules, and the GAP-REPORT.md template