Vd plumbing vs behavior

Skill jpoindexter/verified-done/skills/vd-plumbing-vs-behavior

Always-on skill pack that stops AI coding agents from claiming work is done when only the code path (not the real behavior) was verified. Portable SKILL.md for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and any agent.

Install

npx -y skills add jpoindexter/verified-done --skill vd-plumbing-vs-behavior

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One thing to look at

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What its author says it does

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A passing lower layer or adjacent entry point does not prove the user-facing behavior. Verifying a direct tools/call over stdio is not the agent deciding to call the tool with its persona; a green unit test is not the feature working; a reachable endpoint is not the flow succeeding. Use when tempted to generalize "the plumbing works" into "the feature works" — identify the actual user path and exercise that exact path.

SKILL.md

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Plumbing Verified ≠ Behavior Verified

The trap: you prove a component or an adjacent path works and quietly upgrade that to "the feature works." They are different claims with different evidence.

The canonical example

The MCP server's callTool executes the tool directly — no system prompt, no persona, no "agent decides to call the tool."

Hand-sending tools/call audit_site over stdio proves the engine is exposed over MCP. It does not prove the Done criterion — "say 'audit stripe.com', it round-trips and returns the graded report" — because that criterion is the agent taking an instruction and choosing the tool. Different path, different proof.

The layers you might confuse

Unit passes ≠ the units work together (integration).
Endpoint reachable ≠ the flow that calls it succeeds end-to-end.
Tool callable directly ≠ the agent loads its persona and chooses to call it.
Function returns right in isolation ≠ it's wired into the screen the user touches.
Happy path runs ≠ the error paths behave.

How to apply

Write the real user path as a sentence. "User says X → system does Y → user sees Z." That sentence, executed, is the only proof.
Locate where your test entered. If it entered below or beside that path (direct call, mock, lower layer), you tested plumbing — name it as plumbing.
Find the one-shot that runs the whole path. (e.g. vanta run "<instruction>" invokes the real agent loop with persona + tools + provider — that's the true Done test, not the MCP direct call.)
Run that. Then grade it ✅ in the ledger ([[vd-claim-ledger]]); until then it stays ◐.

Governed by [[vd-done-is-executed]]. Pairs with [[vd-run-the-real-path]].