verify-gates

name	verify-gates
description	Runs the mechanical quality gates that the arcgentic state machine requires for state transitions. Invoked indirectly by transition.sh OR directly by orchestrator agent before declaring a state transition. Use when about to call transition.sh OR when manually verifying that a round artifact meets the gate criteria. Each gate is a single Bash script; output is PASS/FAIL with reason.

Verify gates

What this skill does

arcgentic's state machine has 4 gates (MVP):

Gate	Transition	Verifies
handoff-doc-gate.sh	planning → awaiting_dev_start	handoff doc exists + has all required sections
round-commit-chain-gate.sh	dev_in_progress → awaiting_audit (also fix_in_progress → awaiting_audit)	dev_commits count ≥ expected + every SHA resolves in git
verdict-fact-table-gate.sh	`audit_in_progress → passed	needs_fix`

transition.sh runs the required gate automatically. This skill is for the orchestrator (or human) when they want to pre-verify before attempting the transition.

When to invoke this skill

• About to ask a sub-agent to attempt a state transition → invoke this skill first, run the gate, fix any failures, then transition
• A transition failed and the orchestrator wants to know WHY → invoke this skill, run the relevant gate, read the failure reason
• Setting up a new gate for a project-specific transition → this skill's references/gate-script-catalog.md shows the gate-script shape

Gate script contract

Every gate script:

1. Takes --state-file PATH as its only argument
2. Reads state.yaml + does whatever check it does
3. Exits 0 on PASS, 1 on FAIL
4. Prints PASS line to stdout, FAIL reason to stderr

This contract means gates are composable. You can chain them. You can write project-specific ones in your own <project>/.agentic-rounds/gates/ and reference them in state.yaml's states.<state>.gate field.

Run a gate manually

bash $PLUGIN_ROOT/scripts/gates/handoff-doc-gate.sh \
  --state-file <project>/.agentic-rounds/state.yaml
echo "exit: $?"

Adding a project-specific gate

1. Write <project>/.agentic-rounds/gates/your-gate.sh following the contract above
2. Edit state.yaml: set states.<source-state>.gate to your-gate.sh
3. Run transition.sh --gates-dir <project>/.agentic-rounds/gates ... (override built-in gates dir)

See also

references/gate-script-catalog.md — catalog of built-in gates with anatomy + extension hooks