verify

Verify PR $ARGUMENTS — six-phase loop with anti-rubber-stamp gate

One skill, one PR, one decision: APPROVED / REROLL / ESCALATE. Never merges. Merge is always the human's or the orchestrator's call.

When to use

• Orchestrator Phase 6 (per-ticket verification before merge).
• Any time an author wants a full-depth check on a single PR before asking for merge.
• Do NOT use for quick sanity — use /review or /review-pr directly.

Invariants

• Runs on exactly one PR.
• Two gate rounds maximum. Third round is forbidden — escalate instead.
• Never calls gh pr merge. The verdict is structured output; the caller decides.
• The fix loop between rounds makes commits on the PR branch; no changes to other branches.
• --force-approve is supported for explicit human override; it is logged loudly in the PR comments and the skill transcript.

Phases

1. Setup

• gh pr checkout $ARGUMENTS into an isolated worktree. Abort if the PR is not mergeable or if there are open merge conflicts.
• Collect:
  • The ticket file referenced in the PR title or body (tickets/*.erg).
  • PR body, full diff, all existing review comments, all inline comments, all commit messages on the branch.
• If any of these cannot be located, ESCALATE with a clear message. Do not proceed.

2–4. Read-only review fan-out (parallel)

Launch in a single message, as background agents:

• /verify-adherence <branch> — mechanical-first rule check.
• /review (built-in) — standard review.
• /review-pr or /review-pr-prose — file-type heuristic: if any *.qmd changed → prose; else code.

Wait for all three to complete. Collect their outputs.

5. Simplify (sequential)

After 2–4 land their comments, run /simplify <pr-number>. This phase may commit fixes to the PR branch. Wait for its fixes (if any) to land before the gate reads state.

6. Gate (the non-rubber-stamp step)

Invoke /verify-gate <pr-number>. It returns a structured verdict:

verdict: APPROVED | REROLL | ESCALATE
per_exit_criterion: [...]
unresolved_review_comments: [...]
unresolved_simplify_findings: [...]
unresolved_adherence_violations: [...]
rationale: <paragraph>
round: 1 | 2

Branch on verdict

• APPROVED → post a "verify: approved" comment on the PR summarising the evidence. End the skill. The caller merges.
• REROLL, round 1 → spawn a fix subagent with isolation: "worktree", feeding it the unresolved lists as input. Fix agent gets ≤10 min. On push, re-enter phase 6 with round=2.
• REROLL, round 2 → upgrade to ESCALATE (no third round). Post a PR comment with the still-unresolved items and the gate's rationale. End the skill.
• ESCALATE → post a PR comment tagged /verify stopped: listing what needs human judgment. End the skill.

Fix-agent contract

The subagent spawned on REROLL receives:

• Worktree path (PR branch already checked out).
• Unresolved lists from the gate verdict (review comments, simplify findings, adherence violations, per-exit-criterion gaps).
• Strict rule: only the listed items. No scope creep. No "while I'm here" edits.
• TDD discipline still applies: add a failing test for any behavioural fix before coding.

Push commits to the PR branch; do not open new PRs. Trigger re-entry into phase 6.

Circuit breakers

• Setup step cannot find ticket file → ESCALATE.
• Any of phases 2–5 errors or times out → ESCALATE (do not silently skip).
• Fix agent timeout (10 min) → ESCALATE.
• Gate disagrees with phase 2–5 on a must-fix finding → ESCALATE (no silent resolution).
• Two REROLL rounds reached → ESCALATE.

--force-approve

Explicit human override. Usage: /verify <pr-number> --force-approve <reason>.

• Skips phase 6 gate.
• Posts a loud PR comment: /verify: force-approved — reason: <reason>. Includes the outputs of phases 2–5 so reviewers see what was waived.
• Logs the override in the skill transcript.
• Still does not merge.

Not in scope

• Wave-level integration review. Verify one PR at a time. Use a separate /verify-wave (not yet drafted) for post-merge integration testing of a batch.
• Merging. Ever. That is the caller's job.

Output shape

Post a single top-level PR comment at end of skill. Template:

/verify round=<n> verdict=<V>

Exit criteria:
- <criterion 1>: ADDRESSED — <evidence>
- <criterion 2>: MISSING — <gap>
...

Unresolved review comments: [list or "none"]
Unresolved simplify: [list or "none"]
Adherence: PASS | FAIL (<count>)

Rationale:
<paragraph>