- name
- velth-doc-verify
- description
- Automated L5 - verify correctness of generated VELTH documents (all 6 doc types, any vertical) without opening a PDF by hand. Deterministic defect checks plus an adversarial DIFFERENT-FAMILY LLM judge plus a localhost/UI propagation smoke. Load whenever a task touches a renderer, extractor, the export route, the gate, or any vertical's output. Scope each run to the doc types and verticals of the current session.
- when_to_use
- Before reporting any change to document_renderers.py, an extractor, the export route, or a vertical config as done — runs after velth-test- strategy's L1-L4, never as a replacement for them.
# VELTH Document Correctness Skill (automated L5)
## WHAT THIS REPLACES
velth-test-strategy L5 is currently a HUMAN rung: open `smoke_t16_combined_*.pdf`
and eyeball it. This skill automates that rung so Cowork verifies document
correctness itself before reporting DONE. It runs AFTER L1-L4 (pre_commit_gate.py),
never instead of them.
## WHY TWO LAYERS (research-grounded - do not collapse to one)
- Deterministic layer = mechanical defects. Exact, zero false negatives, free.
Catches the known P0 blockers: mojibake, mid-word truncation, umlaut
ASCII-fallback, US-locale leak, non-German risk_class, RPZ != Schwere x
Wahrscheinlichkeit, the #504 class/band mismatch, UUID / (needs_review) leaks,
empty Feststellungen while hazards exist, duplicate Massnahmenplan text.
- LLM judge = semantic / legal correctness regex cannot see. Graded by a SEPARATE
model. Huang (ICLR 2024) + Kamoi (TACL 2024): a model grading its own reasoning
with no external signal can DEGRADE output. The 2026 self-repair scaling study:
logical errors are the hardest to self-detect. So: maker != checker, adversarial,
reference-guided.
## WHY THE JUDGE IS A DIFFERENT FAMILY (not Claude)
Cowork's implementer is Claude. LLM judges systematically favor their OWN family
("Play Favorites" arXiv 2508.06709: Claude/GPT over-score their own and same-family
outputs) and that bias is AMPLIFIED inside self-refinement loops (Xu 2024;
arXiv 2509.00462). Documented mitigation: judge with a DIFFERENT provider,
reference-guided, calibrated to human spot-checks (Adaline 2026; Zheng 2023).
=> Default judge = Gemini (already trusted for GBU prose), keyed from the dev shell
env, NOT the Cowork session. Set:
`VELTH_JUDGE_PROVIDER=google` and `GEMINI_API_KEY=...` in `.env`
`VELTH_JUDGE_MODEL=gemini-2.5-flash` (or your current Gemini id; flash is fine,
use a pro tier for ambiguous legal calls - detection capability is the bottleneck).
Fallbacks (selectable, lower priority): `anthropic` (same family - higher self-bias,
only sensible if the maker is NOT Claude or as one voice in a jury) and `groq`
(fast/cheap, weaker detection - never the sole judge on a legal doc). For
high-stakes docs, a 2-family jury (Gemini + one other) cuts correlated blind spots;
single different-family judge is the 80/20.
**Checked against `CLAUDE.md`, 2026-08-26 — not previously verified, worth
flagging rather than silently assuming stale.** Production AI generation for
velth runs "Claude via AWS Bedrock (eu-central-1) primary · Mistral EU
fallback" — not Gemini. That does not make the Gemini-judge default wrong:
Cowork's implementer is Claude, so Gemini still satisfies "different family
from the maker" regardless of what production generation uses. But it does
mean **Mistral is a stronger fallback candidate than `groq`** for the
`--fallback` slot if Gemini access is ever unavailable — Mistral is already a
confirmed, currently-used production dependency (credentials almost
certainly already exist), where `groq`'s wiring status here was never
confirmed one way or the other. This has not been implemented or tested;
it's a candidate worth checking before reaching for `groq`, not a verified
replacement.
The deterministic layer is the PRIMARY gate and has zero model bias - correctness
never rides on the judge alone.
## INVOKE (scope to the session's doc types / verticals)
First use: materialize the two scripts at the bottom of this skill into
`apps/backend/scripts/` as no-BOM UTF-8, then run from `apps/backend/`:
```bash
# deterministic + judge on a doc type for a vertical you are working on.
# --fixture is a JSON content dict (live/exported); omit for the smoke fixture.
uv run --no-sync python scripts/doc_verify.py \
--doc-type gbu --vertical safetransport-svg --fixture ./_fixtures/svg_gbu.json
# repeat per doc type touched this session (begehungsbericht, ba, gfv, ...)
```
```bash
# UI / localhost propagation smoke (start the stack first).
uv run --no-sync uvicorn api.main:app --reload --port 8000
( cd ../frontend && bun run dev )
uv run --no-sync python scripts/ui_smoke.py --expect-class Mittel \
--export-url http://localhost:8000/<export route> --token-env VELTH_SMOKE_JWT
```
## REPO WIRING (one-time, inside Cowork - per velth-preflight: read, don't guess)
`doc_verify.py` already calls the canonical `render_project_document_sections(
doc_type, title, content)` and imports the repo's own `_risk_class_from_rpz`, so it
checks against the SAME mapping the renderer uses (catalog owns the number). Two
hooks need wiring (they need .env + Supabase admin, so they run in Cowork):
1. `load_live_project(project_id)` -> pull `project_risk_sets.risk_set_json`
(active=True) via `get_supabase_admin_client()` to verify real exports.
2. `ui_smoke.py --export-url` -> point at `export_vault_doc_version` (+ the
`documents.py` theater path) with a smoke JWT in `VELTH_SMOKE_JWT`.
Confirm the rpz->class band matches `document_renderers.py` on first run (the import
is tried first; the hardcoded band is only a fallback). `doc_verify.py` calls the
judge API over raw HTTP (no `anthropic` SDK) so it does not trip L1 import-safety;
keep it where `test_no_direct_anthropic.py` does not scan (next to smoke_e2e_t16.py).
## ABSOLUTE RULES
1. Run AFTER L1-L4 (pre_commit_gate.py), never instead.
2. Any P0/P1 from either layer => NOT done. Fix, re-run. Do not commit.
3. Judge error / missing key => treated as NOT PASS (never silently green).
4. Scope to the session's doc types + verticals; do not sweep all 43 unless asked.
5. Surgical fixes (velth-preflight); re-run after each fix; cap iterations per
velth-loop (do not snowball a wrong fix across rounds).
6. Report the issue list and PASS/FAIL IN CHAT - never a .log sidecar.
7. COWORK NEVER COMMITS - Anshu does.
## REFERENCES
Design decisions in this skill are grounded in the following. Inline cites above
map to these entries (author-date / arXiv).
Self-correction & verification loops:
- Madaan et al. (2023). Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback. NeurIPS 2023. arXiv:2303.17651.
- Shinn et al. (2023). Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learning. NeurIPS 2023. arXiv:2303.11366.
- Huang et al. (2024). Large Language Models Cannot Self-Correct Reasoning Yet. ICLR 2024. arXiv:2310.01798. [no external signal -> cannot reliably self-correct]
- Kamoi et al. (2024). When Can LLMs Actually Correct Their Own Mistakes? A Critical Survey. TACL 2024. [intrinsic self-correction can DEGRADE output]
- Iterative Self-Repair in LLM Code Generation Across Model Scales (2026). arXiv:2604.10508. [pass-rate gains saturate after ~2 rounds; logical errors hardest to self-detect -> cap=3 + a non-LLM layer]
- From Hallucination to Structure Snowballing (2026). arXiv:2604.06066. [reflection can snowball errors; detection is the bottleneck, citing Tyen et al. 2024 -> checkpoint/restore]
LLM-as-judge self-preference & family bias (why a different-family judge):
- Zheng et al. (2023). Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena. NeurIPS 2023. arXiv:2306.05685. [~80% human agreement; position/verbosity/self-enhancement bias]
- Wataoka et al. (2024). Self-Preference Bias in LLM-as-a-Judge. arXiv:2410.21819.
- Xu et al. (2024). Pride and Prejudice: LLM Amplifies Self-Bias in Self-Refinement. ACL 2024. [self-bias widespread; AMPLIFIED in self-refinement]
- Panickssery et al. (2024). LLM Evaluators Recognize and Favor Their Own Generations. NeurIPS 2024. arXiv:2404.13076.
- Play Favorites: A Statistical Method to Measure Self-Bias in LLM-as-a-Judge (2025). arXiv:2508.06709. [Claude 3.5 Sonnet / GPT-4o self- and same-family bias]
- AI Self-preferencing in Algorithmic Hiring (2025). arXiv:2509.00462. [reviews self-preference; amplified in self-refinement pipelines]
Engineering practice (NOT peer-reviewed - workflow shape, not load-bearing claims):
- Anthropic. Building Effective Agents (2024); Effective context engineering for AI agents; How we built our multi-agent research system; Claude Code best practices (code.claude.com/docs).
- Cherny, B. Claude Code workflow thread (X, Jan 2026). [verification loop 2-3x quality; plan mode; one git checkout per parallel session]
- Adaline (2026), LLM-as-a-Judge reliability & bias [secondary synthesis of the above].
VELTH-specific checks, gates, entrypoints, and German class invariants are grounded
in the repo and in velth-preflight / velth-test-strategy - codebase facts, not papers.
## EMBEDDED SCRIPTS - materialize into apps/backend/scripts/ (no-BOM UTF-8)
### scripts/doc_verify.py
```python
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""velth-doc-verify - automated L5 document-correctness verifier.
Replaces the manual "open the PDF and eyeball it" L5 rung with two layers:
1. Deterministic checks - mechanical defects (mojibake, mid-word truncation,
umlaut ASCII-fallback, US-locale leak, RPZ math, German risk_class,
UUID / (needs_review) leaks, empty Feststellungen, duplicate Massnahmen).
Cheap, exact, zero false negatives.
2. Adversarial LLM judge - semantic / legal correctness the regex layer
cannot see, graded by a SEPARATE, DIFFERENT-FAMILY model, never by the agent that
wrote the code.
Research basis (why two layers, why a separate judge, why bounded):
- Madaan 2023 (Self-Refine) / Shinn 2023 (Reflexion): iterative critique
improves code -- but only with a feedback signal.
- Huang ICLR 2024 + Kamoi TACL 2024: INTRINSIC self-correction (a model
grading its own reasoning, no external signal) often fails to improve and
can DEGRADE output. => verification must be external. maker != checker.
- Self-repair scaling study (arXiv 2604.10508, 2026): logical / "assertion"
errors are the hardest for a model to self-detect; gains saturate after
~2 rounds. => deterministic layer catches mechanics; LLM judge catches
semantics; the loop that calls this caps iterations (see velth-loop skill).
Run from apps/backend/ :
uv run --no-sync python <skills_dir>/velth-doc-verify/verify_docs.py \
--doc-type gbu --vertical safetransport-svg [--fixture path.json]
Exit code 0 = clean, 1 = P0/P1 issues found, 2 = harness error.
"""
from __future__ import annotations
import argparse
import json
import os
import re
import sys
import urllib.request
from pathlib import Path
# --- VELTH invariants (kept in sync with velth-test-strategy L5) ---------------
GERMAN_CLASSES = {"Gering", "Mittel", "Hoch", "Sehr Hoch"}
ENGLISH_LEAKS = {"low", "medium", "high", "critical", "very high"}
UUID_RE = re.compile(r"[0-9a-f]{8}-[0-9a-f]{4}-[0-9a-f]{4}", re.IGNORECASE)
NEEDS_REVIEW_RE = re.compile(r"\(?\s*needs[_ ]review\s*\)?", re.IGNORECASE)
# mojibake signatures seen in Nachweisprotokoll (UTF-8 read as cp1252, etc.)
MOJIBAKE = ("ä", "ö", "ü", "ß", "â€", "Ä", "Ö", "Ü", "\ufffd")
# ASCII-fallback umlauts that should be real umlauts in a German legal doc
ASCII_FALLBACK = re.compile(r"\b(Massnahme|Gefaehrdung|fuer|Pruef|Begehungsber)", re.IGNORECASE)
US_DATE_RE = re.compile(r"\b(0?[1-9]|1[0-2])/(0?[1-9]|[12]\d|3[01])/(\d{4})\b") # MM/DD/YYYY
# Per-doc-type ground-truth expectations fed to the judge (from velth-test-strategy L5).
DOC_EXPECTATIONS = {
"gbu": "Must contain a 'Psychische Belastungen' section (GDA category 10). "
"Risk classes must be German. RPZ must equal Schwere x Wahrscheinlichkeit.",
"ba": "Section 4 STOP order must be Technisch (T:) before Organisatorisch (O:) "
"before Personenbezogen (P:). German only.",
"betriebsanweisung": "STOP order T: -> O: -> P:. Correct GefStoffV paragraph for the "
"actual substance (do NOT assume a hardcoded paragraph).",
"gfv": "Gefahrstoffverzeichnis must have an AGW/Grenzwert column with units "
"(e.g. 0.05 mg/m3 for Quarzfeinstaub).",
"gefahrstoffverzeichnis": "AGW/Grenzwert column with correct units per substance.",
"begehungsbericht": "If hazards were found, the Feststellungen table must be "
"populated (never all placeholder dashes).",
"begehungsprotokoll": "Feststellungen must reflect the risk_set; no '§4 Keine "
"Feststellungen dokumentiert' false negative when hazards exist.",
"unterweisung": "Topics must match the vertical's hazards. German only.",
"pruefprotokoll": "Pruef results present; no mid-word truncation in the protocol body.",
}
# --- env (matches the established VELTH .env idiom) -----------------------------
def load_env() -> None:
"""Load apps/backend/.env into os.environ if GROQ_API_KEY is not already set."""
if os.environ.get("GROQ_API_KEY"):
return
for candidate in (Path(".env"), Path("apps/backend/.env"), Path("../.env")):
if candidate.exists():
for line in candidate.read_text(encoding="utf-8", errors="ignore").splitlines():
m = re.match(r"^\s*([^#][^=]*)=(.*)$", line)
if m:
os.environ.setdefault(m.group(1).strip(), m.group(2).strip().strip('"'))
return
# --- LLM judge (provider-agnostic; DEFAULT a DIFFERENT family from the maker) ----
# Cowork's implementer is Claude. LLM judges favor their OWN family and the bias is
# AMPLIFIED in self-refinement loops (Xu 2024; Panickssery 2024; "Play Favorites"
# arXiv 2508.06709; arXiv 2509.00462). Mitigation: judge with a DIFFERENT family,
# reference-guided, keyed from the dev shell env (NOT the Cowork session). So default
# = Gemini (already trusted for GBU prose). anthropic/groq selectable as fallbacks;
# do NOT use the anthropic SDK here (L1 import-safety) - raw HTTP only, and keep this
# script where test_no_direct_anthropic.py does not scan (next to smoke_e2e_t16.py).
JUDGE_PROVIDER = os.environ.get("VELTH_JUDGE_PROVIDER", "google") # google|anthropic|groq
def _judge_system(doc_type: str, vertical: str) -> str:
expect = DOC_EXPECTATIONS.get(doc_type.lower(), "Document must be legally correct and complete.")
return (
"You are a senior DACH Fachkraft fuer Arbeitssicherheit (SiFa) auditing a German "
"workplace-safety document before it is signed. Be ADVERSARIAL: assume errors exist "
"and find them. Check: German-only risk classes (Gering/Mittel/Hoch/Sehr Hoch), "
"RPZ = Schwere x Wahrscheinlichkeit, in-force legal references (DGUV/TRGS/ArbSchG/"
"GefStoffV/BetrSichV), completeness, no contradictions, no English leakage, no "
"truncation, correct paragraph citations. "
f"Document type: {doc_type}. Vertical: {vertical}. Ground truth (reference): {expect} "
'Output ONLY JSON, no prose: '
'{"pass": bool, "issues": [{"severity":"P0|P1|P2","category":str,"detail":str}]}'
)
def _post(url: str, data: bytes, headers: dict, timeout: int = 60) -> str:
req = urllib.request.Request(url, data=data, headers=headers, method="POST")
with urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=timeout) as r:
return r.read().decode("utf-8", "ignore")
def _extract_json(raw: str) -> dict:
fence = "`" * 3 # built, not literal, so this is safe to embed inside markdown
raw = raw.strip().strip(fence).strip()
if raw[:4].lower() == "json":
raw = raw[4:].strip()
return json.loads(raw)
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