define-done

name	define-done
description	Define acceptance criteria, risk level, and verification before editing. Use at the start of non-trivial implementation or when an issue lacks clear proof of completion.

Define Done

Use this before changing code or docs on non-trivial work.

Workflow

1. Classify risk: low, medium, or high.
2. Write testable acceptance criteria.
3. Name the minimum verification commands or manual checks.
4. Record known constraints and non-goals.
5. State rollback or recovery notes for medium/high-risk changes.

Risk Rules

• Low: narrow copy, style, test-only, or isolated bug fix.
• Medium: user-visible behavior, business logic, data handling, CI, integrations, or multi-file behavior.
• High: auth, payments, permissions, secrets, migrations, deployment, infrastructure, tenant data, or irreversible operations.

Test Database Requirement

Follow system-level/core.md (Test Database Safety) for what counts as disposable/dedicated storage and when a staging backup is required. Verification commands named in step 3 of the workflow above must satisfy that rule before this skill is considered done.

Async/Stateful Contract Requirement

For medium/high-risk work that involves queue jobs, background workers, retries, or any record that tracks attempt/state transitions:

• State the retry limit and what happens on exhaustion (fail loudly, dead-letter, alert) — don't leave it implicit.
• Confirm the job or handler is idempotent on retry, or explicitly justify why it doesn't need to be.
• Write a test for at least one failure path (timeout, provider error, partial write), not only the happy path.
• Verify state transitions are correct under retry: a record re-attempted after a partial failure must not silently double-count, skip, or corrupt its tracked state.

Done Means

• Acceptance criteria satisfied.
• Relevant checks run and named.
• Tests added/updated, or a reason is recorded.
• Independent review completed for non-trivial work.
• Rollout/rollback notes present when risk warrants them.