| name | verify-this |
| description | Verify a claim with fresh local evidence: restate it falsifiably, capture baseline and treatment, compare, return VERIFIED, NOT VERIFIED, or INCONCLUSIVE. Use for /verify-this, "prove it works", "did this fix it", "show me the evidence". |
Verify this
Verification is not a recap. It proves or disproves a specific claim with repeatable evidence.
When to use
- The user asks "verify this", "prove it works", "did this fix it", or "show me the evidence".
- A bug fix needs a before/after repro.
- A UI, CLI, API, performance, or memory claim needs measurement.
- A test passes but the user-visible behavior still needs confirmation.
Do not use this for vague claims like "the code is cleaner". Ask for a measurable claim first.
Workflow
- Restate the claim in falsifiable form: condition, metric, and threshold.
- Pick the smallest local surface that can disprove it.
- Capture a baseline from the old state: merge base, parent commit, failing branch, or current broken repro.
- Capture treatment from the changed state with the same command, data, warmup, and environment.
- Compare raw artifacts: numbers, screenshots, terminal transcripts, HTTP responses, profiles, heap snapshots, or test output.
- Return exactly one verdict:
VERIFIED, NOT VERIFIED, or INCONCLUSIVE.
Local surfaces
- Code behavior: focused unit/integration tests or a minimal repro script.
- CLI/TUI behavior: a terminal transcript of the real command.
- UI behavior: browser screenshots, page-text extraction, accessibility snapshots (see the
run skill and the sentinel check in pitfalls.md — confirm the page under test is serving the current code before trusting any capture).
- API behavior: local HTTP/RPC request and response diff.
- Performance: same-machine baseline/treatment timings or CPU profiles.
- Memory: heap snapshots before and after the suspected operation.
Artifact layout
When safe to write artifacts:
.tmp/verify-this/<claim-slug>/
├── claim.md
├── baseline/
├── treatment/
├── diff/
└── verdict.md
If artifacts may contain sensitive code, prompts, screenshots, HTTP bodies, or heap data, keep only the minimal inline evidence unless the user agrees to disk storage.
Verdict rules
VERIFIED: baseline and treatment differ in the predicted direction, by the claimed threshold, with no obvious confound.NOT VERIFIED: the behavior is unchanged, moves the wrong way, or misses the threshold.INCONCLUSIVE: no valid baseline, noisy signal, failed measurement, or an environment difference invalidates the comparison.
Output
VERIFIED | NOT VERIFIED | INCONCLUSIVE
Claim: <falsifiable claim>
Evidence:
<metric/artifact>: baseline=<...>, treatment=<...>, delta=<...>, threshold=<...>
Reasoning:
<one tight paragraph naming the evidence and any confounds>
Do not soften a negative result. A clear NOT VERIFIED is useful.
Adapted from the verify-this skill in cursor/plugins cursor-team-kit (MIT).
