verification-before-completion

name	verification-before-completion
description	Use before claiming any work is complete, fixed, or passing. Use before every "done", "fixed", "tests pass", or "it's working" statement.

Verification Before Completion

Core Rule

NO COMPLETION CLAIMS WITHOUT FRESH VERIFICATION EVIDENCE.

"Should work", "probably passes", and "looks good" are not verification. Run the command. Show the output.

The Verification Gate

Before any completion claim, you must:

1. Identify the exact command that proves the claim
2. Run it fresh — not a cached result, not a result from earlier in the session
3. Show the full output — not a summary, not selected lines
4. Confirm it supports the claim — check the exit code, specific output, and absence of unexpected warnings

Then state your conclusion with the evidence attached.

Prohibited Language

Stop immediately if you catch yourself writing any of these:

• "This should fix..."
• "The tests probably pass..."
• "It looks like it's working..."
• "I believe this is correct..."
• "This ought to..."

These phrases signal you are about to make an unverified claim. Run the verification first.

What Counts as Verification

Claim	Required Evidence
"Tests pass"	Run the test suite, show full output and exit code
"Bug is fixed"	Reproduce the original failure, show it no longer occurs
"Build succeeds"	Run the build, show successful completion
"No lint errors"	Run the linter, show clean output
"Feature works"	Exercise it against the actual requirement, show the result
"All tests pass"	Run the project's full CI or test suite command (not a single file), show output and exit code

What Does Not Count

• A test run from earlier in the session
• An agent's report that it passed
• Reading the code and judging it correct
• A passing linter when the claim is about runtime behavior
• Partial output that shows only selected lines

Each claim requires its own fresh verification run.

CI / Full Suite Verification

When the claim involves overall project health ("tests pass", "everything works", "ready to commit"), verification must include the project's CI or full test suite — not just the tests you wrote or modified this session.

Discover the CI command via: bin/ci → CLAUDE.md → auto-discover from project files (package.json, Makefile, Cargo.toml, etc.). If no CI command is found, run the broadest test command available.

Running a single test file that passes does not verify that other tests weren't broken.