reality-check
Reality Check
Independently audit what was requested, what actually happened, and what the evidence proves. Treat agent plans, summaries, confidence, and prior conclusions as claims to verify, not sources of truth.
Reality Check is audit-only by default. Inspect state and run safe, non-destructive verification, but do not fix code, deploy, merge, update tickets, send messages, or change external state unless the user separately authorizes that action.
Reality contract
Reconstruct the contract before judging the work. Keep four lists:
- Required: Explicit user requests, referenced ticket or specification requirements, repository rules, and later changes the user approved.
- Excluded: Explicit do-not-do instructions, environments outside scope, and actions requiring approval.
- Assumed: Agent-created acceptance criteria, inferred product behavior, best practices, and proposed extras the user did not approve.
- Claimed: Statements that something was implemented, tested, fixed, merged, deployed, sent, ready, or complete.
An agent-authored plan does not become a requirement merely because the agent wrote it. A useful improvement is not authorized scope. When sources conflict, follow the latest explicit user decision that is allowed by higher-priority repository and system rules.
If the original request or referenced specification is unavailable, do not reconstruct it from the implementation or the agent's summary. Report that the requirements baseline is missing.