Sprint Contract

The evaluator's leverage collapses when "done" is defined after the code exists. The generator ships something, the evaluator finds it plausible, the fuzzy spec silently reshapes to match what got built. Premature victory, dressed up.

Fix the timing: write the contract before the generator writes a line of code. The evaluator's job for the sprint is then mechanical — hold the artifact against the contract, no re-negotiation mid-flight.

Inspired by the planner/generator/evaluator split in Prithvi's March 2026 post on multi-agent harnesses.

When to apply

• You're about to start a chunk of work (one feature, one refactor, one bug fix) with an evaluator or reviewer persona in the loop.
• The planner output or upstream spec is ambiguous — you can imagine two reasonable implementations that both "satisfy" it.
• A session just rehydrated from shift-notes / a progress file and needs a concrete acceptance target before it picks up the keyboard.

Procedure