| name | reality-check |
| description | Compare a claimed state with observable repository evidence and report concrete gaps. Requires a claim or expected state to test. Triggers: "reality check", "is this claim actually done", "compare claim to repo". |
| practices | ["design-by-contract","evidence-based-engineering"] |
| hexagonal_role | domain |
| consumes | ["claim","repository-evidence"] |
| produces | ["reality-check-report.v1"] |
| context_rel | [{"kind":"supplier-to","with":"plan"}] |
| skill_api_version | 1 |
| user-invocable | true |
| metadata | {"tier":"judgment","dependencies":[],"capabilities":["compare_claim_to_evidence"],"effects":["write_advisory_gap_report"],"canonical_status":"canonical","disposition":"keep_strategy"} |
| output_contract | reality-check-report.v1 JSON validated by skills/reality-check/scripts/validate-output.sh |
Reality Check
Compare an explicit claim with observable evidence. Cite every confirmed or
missing behavior with a file, command result, or artifact. Separate:
- confirmed behavior;
- concrete gap;
- incomplete evidence;
- changed assumptions.
Vision-coverage audit
When the claim is a completion or status claim, audit it against the stated
goals, not against what happens to exist. Enumerate every goal in the vision,
plan, or intent source and give each a disposition: confirmed with evidence,
concrete gap, or unverifiable. The audit is complete only when every stated
goal carries a disposition; full coverage of the built surface alone proves
nothing about completion. The named failure mode is built-world bias:
auditing only the code that exists, so goals nobody started never surface as
gaps.
Frozen question variants
When the same check runs across multiple passes or sessions, freeze the exact
question wording before the first pass and ask it identically in every pass;
record the frozen wording in the report. A pass that answers a reworded
question starts a new baseline — comparing it against earlier passes is the
drifting-rubric failure mode, and its answer does not count as a repeated
measurement.
Ambition-escalation checkpoint
When invoked during planning, compare the currently planned scope against the
originally stated goal. Planned work that cannot be traced to a stated goal
is reported as an escalation gap, exactly like a missing behavior. Reality
Check reports the escalation; the caller decides whether the ambition or the
stated goal changes.
Output
- Artifact directory:
.agents/scratch/reality-check/<run-id>/.
- Filename:
reality-check-report.json.
- Format:
reality-check-report.v1 JSON — the checked claim, one finding per
confirmed behavior, concrete gap, incomplete-evidence item, or changed
assumption (each with cited evidence), and, for a completion or status claim,
the goal-by-goal coverage disposition. It carries no verdict, readiness, or
PASS field; the validator rejects one.
- Validation command:
skills/reality-check/scripts/validate-output.sh <reality-check-report.json>.
If the claim cannot be tested against any observable evidence, report it as
incomplete-evidence with the missing artifact named — never resolve an
untestable claim as confirmed.
Boundary
Return the report to the caller. Plan may use concrete gaps to refine the
existing bead or caller intent. Reality Check reports observations; it does not
mint a verdict or of any version, create work, schedule, claim,
implement, validate, retry, or deliver.
