Verification before completion

Verification Before Completion Skill

Never mark a task as complete without thorough verification. This skill ensures quality gates are passed before any agent reports success upward. The commands below assume a TypeScript/Node monorepo with Vitest or Jest; the discipline is stack-agnostic and every level maps cleanly onto any compiled language or test runner.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill:

• Before marking any work package as COMPLETE
• Before committing code changes
• Before reporting success to a supervisor or orchestrator agent
• Before moving to the next task

The Verification Protocol

Level 1: Compilation Verification

# TypeScript compilation
npx tsc --noEmit

# Schema tool generation (if the data model changed)
# [CUSTOMIZE: replace with your ORM or codegen command, e.g. prisma generate, drizzle-kit generate, graphql-codegen]
<your-schema-tool> generate

# Service-specific build
npm run build --workspace=apps/<service-name>

Pass Criteria:

• Zero TypeScript errors (or zero compiler errors in your language)
• Zero schema-generation errors
• Build completes successfully

Level 2: Static Analysis

# Linting
npm run lint

# Type coverage (if configured)
npm run type-coverage

Pass Criteria:

• No new linting errors introduced
• Type coverage maintained or improved

Level 3: Unit Tests

# Run unit tests for affected files
npm test -- --testPathPattern="<affected_file>"

# Run full service tests
npm test -- --projects=<service-name>

Pass Criteria:

• All existing tests pass
• New tests added for new functionality
• No test regressions

Level 4: Integration Verification

# Start service locally
npm run start:dev --workspace=apps/<service-name>

# Health check
curl http://localhost:<PORT>/health

Pass Criteria:

• Service starts without errors
• Health check returns 200 OK
• No runtime errors in logs

Level 5: Functional Verification

For specific changes, verify the actual functionality:

## Functional Test Checklist

### Change: [description of change]

- [ ] Primary functionality works
- [ ] Edge cases handled
- [ ] Error scenarios handled
- [ ] Related functionality not broken

Verification Matrix

Change Type	L1	L2	L3	L4	L5
Schema change	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Service code	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Utility function	✓	✓	✓	-	-
Type definition	✓	✓	-	-	-
Comment/docs	✓	-	-	-	-

Pre-Commit Checklist

Before running /commit:

## Pre-Commit Verification

### Code Quality
- [ ] No TODO/FIXME added without a tracked ticket
- [ ] No console.log in production code
- [ ] No hardcoded secrets
- [ ] No commented-out code blocks

### TypeScript
- [ ] `npx tsc --noEmit` passes
- [ ] No `any` types introduced
- [ ] All new functions have return types

### Tests
- [ ] Unit tests pass
- [ ] New tests for new code
- [ ] No test files skipped

### Documentation
- [ ] Work record updated
- [ ] API changes documented
- [ ] Breaking changes noted

Verification Report Format

When reporting to a supervisor agent:

{
  "workPackage": "WP-XX",
  "status": "VERIFIED | FAILED",
  "levels": {
    "L1_compilation": "PASS",
    "L2_static": "PASS",
    "L3_unit": "PASS",
    "L4_integration": "PASS",
    "L5_functional": "PASS"
  },
  "issues": [],
  "filesModified": ["path/to/file.ts"],
  "testsRun": 15,
  "testsPassed": 15,
  "coverageChange": "+2%"
}

Failure Handling

If any verification level fails:

## Verification Failure Report

### Level Failed: L3 - Unit Tests

### Error Details
[test output]

### Analysis
[What caused the failure]

### Next Steps
- [ ] Fix the issue
- [ ] Re-run verification from L1
- [ ] Do not proceed until all levels pass

Integration with Multi-Agent System

The tester agent uses this skill for every work package:

supervisor -> tester: "Verify WP-03 completion"

tester -> [runs all verification levels]

tester -> supervisor: {
  "workPackage": "WP-03",
  "status": "VERIFIED",
  "levels": { ... },
  "recommendation": "PROCEED | FIX_REQUIRED"
}

Quick Verification Commands

# Full verification suite (if a verify script is configured)
npm run verify

# Or manually:
# [CUSTOMIZE: replace the schema-tool line with your own codegen command]
<your-schema-tool> generate && \
npx tsc --noEmit && \
npm run lint && \
npm test

# For a specific service:
cd apps/<service-name> && \
npx tsc --noEmit && \
npm test

Anti-Patterns

DON'T:

• Skip verification "because the change is small"
• Ignore failing tests
• Suppress linting errors
• Mark as complete before verification
• Assume it works without testing

DO:

• Run full verification for every change
• Fix failures before proceeding
• Document verification results
• Update tests when behavior changes
• Report honest status