---
description: self-review, feedback loops, and completion discipline for governed agent work
alwaysApply: true
---
# Governance: Review Loops and Completion Discipline

Implemented is not complete.

Governed agent work should close the loop through review, evidence, and feedback incorporation before claiming completion.

## Core Principle

- `GOV-13-REV-001` A first-pass implementation is an intermediate state, not a trustworthy completion signal.
- `GOV-13-REV-002` Completion requires explicit review of the produced change and its evidence, not only confidence in the act of producing it.
- `GOV-13-REV-003` Review loops should be designed to strengthen correctness, maintainability, and harness learning.

## Required Review Loop

- `GOV-13-REV-004` Before claiming a governed work unit complete, the agent should perform a targeted self-review against intent, scope, diff quality, evidence quality, and residual risk.
- `GOV-13-REV-005` The review should ask at minimum:
  - does the change satisfy the intended requirement or issue,
  - does the diff stay inside scope,
  - is the evidence direct enough,
  - are docs/spec/traceability updated where required,
  - what remains unverified, blocked, or deferred.
- `GOV-13-REV-006` If the review reveals material weakness, the agent should continue the loop rather than claiming done and hoping later review catches it.

## Feedback Incorporation

- `GOV-13-REV-007` Human, automated, or agent review feedback should be incorporated as part of the same governed work loop until the active review scope is honestly resolved, re-scoped, or blocked.
- `GOV-13-REV-008` Responding to feedback should include updating affected evidence, docs, and traceability when those artifacts are impacted.
- `GOV-13-REV-009` Repeated feedback themes should be considered candidates for governance or harness promotion.

## Feedback Assimilation and Self-Improvement

- `GOV-13-REV-010` When approved or edited feedback reveals a reusable lesson, the agent should compare the original draft with the approved or edited version and identify the concrete pattern of change.
- `GOV-13-REV-011` That pattern should be translated into a short future rule, drafting rule, governance rule, or harness adjustment when the lesson is durable enough to matter again.
- `GOV-13-REV-012` Material feedback lessons should be persisted to the relevant governed artifact before long posting phases, long continuation phases, or likely context-loss transitions when practical.
- `GOV-13-REV-013` New learned rules should be checked against existing rules for contradiction, overlap, or duplication and then merged or reconciled instead of appended blindly.

## Completion Semantics

- `GOV-13-REV-014` Completion claims should distinguish clearly between implemented, verified, reviewed, and released states rather than collapsing them into one vague "done".
- `GOV-13-REV-015` A governed work unit is not complete if review, evidence, or follow-up handling is still materially open.
- `GOV-13-REV-016` If confidence is partial, the claimed state should say so explicitly, for example blocked, partial, scoped-complete, or awaiting review.

## Escalation and Stop Conditions

- `GOV-13-REV-017` When repeated review/fix loops stop producing clear progress, the agent should escalate the blocker, ambiguity, or missing capability instead of performing aimless churn.
- `GOV-13-REV-018` When judgment is required beyond the current governance and evidence, the agent should make the decision boundary visible instead of silently guessing.

## Anti-Patterns

Avoid these failure modes:
- equating implementation with completion
- claiming done immediately after the first passing check
- leaving review comments or feedback themes unincorporated without explicit state change
- treating approved edits as one-off fixes with no learning loop when they reveal a reusable pattern
- adding duplicate learned rules without contradiction checking
- using a summary as a substitute for a real review loop
- moving on while material review debt remains hidden