Verification Before Completion

Overview

Claiming work is complete without verification is dishonesty, not efficiency.

Core principle: Evidence before claims.

This rule serves shipping — it is not a ritual that outranks it. It governs one thing: claims that a verifiable result holds ("tests pass", "build succeeds", "bug fixed") — have evidence for the result before you assert it, and scale the check to the stakes (a one-line copy tweak is not a test-suite ceremony). Don't dodge it with synonyms; equally, don't inflate it into a tax on the word "done" or a reason to keep re-proving instead of shipping the working thing.

The Rule

Before claiming a verifiable result, inspect evidence that supports that result for the candidate and environment you name. Use an existing result while its relevant inputs and assumptions still hold; rerun the affected check when they change or are uncertain. State whether you ran the check or inspected another owner's evidence. A source read, syntax check or partial test supports only its stated scope. Ordinary progress reports, delegation and moving to another task do not require a new test run. Required project checks still apply.

A completed run is not automatically current, and unchanged source does not establish unchanged live state.

For a claim about performance, also read references/performance-claims.md.

Common Failures