Verify every task output by checking the real thing directly. Do not infer from proxies, self-reports, or "it compiles."
Why: Unverified work has unknown correctness. Indirect verification (file mtimes, output freshness, agent self-reports, cached screenshots) feels cheaper than direct observation. Acting on a wrong inference costs far more than checking the source.
Pattern: After completing any task, ask: "how do I prove this actually works?"
Check the real thing, not a proxy:
- Check process liveness directly, not indirectly through derived state
- Read the actual value, not a cached or derived representation
- When verification fails, suspect the observation method before suspecting the system
Code and features:
- Build it (necessary but not sufficient)
- Run it and exercise the actual feature path
- Check the full chain: does data flow from input to output?
- For integrations, test the full communication path end-to-end
Delegation: trust artifacts, not self-reports. When verifying delegated work, inspect the actual output artifact (git diff, file contents, runtime behavior), not the delegate's summary. Agents report what they intended, not always what happened.