auto-verify

name: auto-verify description: Verify completed plan against acceptance criteria. Use after all slices are executed. metadata: stage: verify

Verification gate. Independent audit of a completed plan; runs once, not per-slice.

First action: run node .agent/.automaton/scripts/get-context.mjs from the project root.

Preamble

Independent audit. Re-read the plan, run proof commands, and compare fresh results to acceptance criteria. It does not trust execute's self-assessment or fix what it finds. When continuing inline from execute, re-derive from fresh command output; execute's reasoning is context, not evidence.

Loading discipline: one PLAN.md read + verification commands per criterion. Read source files when verifying correctness requires inspecting the actual changes, not just command output.

Quality Gate

Before writing the verification report:

Tie every result to fresh command output or direct observation.
Name skipped checks explicitly. Omission is not a pass.
Treat partial evidence as FAIL for the plan.
Read references/quality.md when the report sounds confident without proof.

Do

Load State

Read the canonical PLAN.md. Load only linked slices/slice-NNN.md files and referenced requirement IDs from spec/*.md; Linked detail file and traceability IDs are normative, and an unlinked supplemental file is not verification context. For prose slices, read references/content-verification.md.

Mark Verify Stage

After PLAN.md resolves and before running commands, run node .agent/.automaton/scripts/sync-status.mjs --stage verify from the project root.

Collect Acceptance Criteria

Gather every acceptance criterion and verification command from every slice in PLAN.md. Build a checklist: slice name → criterion → command. This is a plan-level audit.

Do NOT modify source code, tests, or project artifacts during verification. Verify reads and runs commands; it does not fix.

Do NOT run any git write command (commit, amend, reset, rebase, branch, checkout, push). The commit rhythm is owned by auto-execute. Markdown writes that verify produces (VERIFY-GAP blocks on FAIL, the ROADMAP phase update on PASS) sit in the working tree; auto-execute sweeps them up on re-entry, or the user closes them after a terminal pass.

Run Verification

Execute verification commands for each criterion. Mark each PASS, FAIL, or PARTIAL. If a criterion lacks a command, derive one from the acceptance criterion and document what you ran. For content slices, verify audience, thesis, voice, content anti-goals, channel, source policy, factual risk, format, and anti-slop scan with evidence.

Evaluate

Binary: the plan passes only when every criterion across all slices passes. One FAIL means the plan fails.

Report

Build the full criterion checklist internally. Use references/verification-template.md for report shape. Summarize passing criteria by slice; expand failures, skipped checks, derived commands, PARTIAL results, or small 1-2 criterion plans.

On Pass

Run node .agent/.automaton/scripts/sync-status.mjs --stage verified from the project root.
If .agent/steering/ROADMAP.md exists, mark the matching change: phase status: done per .agent/.automaton/references/ROADMAP-CONTRACT.md; skip empty or non-matching phases. The ROADMAP edit lands in the working tree as a markdown leftover; do not commit it. The user closes it in their own rhythm.
End the report with Change status: complete and a separate New objective line pointing to auto-office-hours for future work. Do not print a Next: line on PASS. Use auto-resume only for later re-entry or recovery.

On Fail

Annotate failed slices in PLAN.md with structured gap blocks, then run node .agent/.automaton/scripts/sync-status.mjs --stage execute from the project root so re-entry resumes gap fixing. Each gap block needs VERIFY-GAP, evidence, and a fix objective. Apply append-replace discipline from .agent/.automaton/references/ARTIFACT-LIFECYCLE.md: replace prior VERIFY-GAP blocks for the same slice rather than stacking. Hand off with Next: auto-execute; it reads these annotations on re-entry.

Output

Inline verification report; PLAN.md annotated with VERIFY-GAP blocks on failure
State recorded in current.json through sync-status.mjs: stage: verify when verification starts, stage: verified on pass, or stage: execute on fail
.agent/steering/ROADMAP.md phase marked done on pass when applicable
Warning-level findings surface to the verification report.
PASS closeout: report Change status: complete and New objective: use auto-office-hours; no Next: line
FAIL closeout: Next: auto-execute, gap-fix re-enters code.

Rules

Fresh evidence only. Do not rely on execution-session memory or prior verification results.
Binary evaluation. Partial evidence is FAIL for the plan.
Verify the full plan: all slices, all criteria. Derive missing commands from acceptance criteria and document them.
Verify what the plan requires; flag an unmentioned common gap (input validation, concurrency, security, etc.) only when obviously critical to the change.
No git writes. auto-verify never runs git commit or any history-modifying command; markdown writes (VERIFY-GAP, ROADMAP phase update) sit in the working tree until auto-execute re-entry sweeps them up on FAIL or the user closes them on PASS.
Do not print a long pass transcript. Expand only failures, skipped checks, derived commands, or user-requested detail.