--- name: maintain-verification-skill description: "Periodic pass that keeps a project's verification skill and feature map honest: parallel source readers per feature, one live session driving every feature, proven corrections, with at most one PR when explicitly authorized. Use for /maintain-verification-skill or \"audit the verify skill\"." --- # Maintain a verification skill A feature map rots the moment the app changes. This skill is the upkeep loop for a skill generated by `/create-verification-skill` (or any project-local verification skill with a feature map). The unit of rigor is the feature, not every sentence: cover every feature file from source and exercise every feature live, without terminalising every bullet. Follow applicable project instructions for storage, builds, GUI/browser tools, and authorization. Use disposable local fixtures or capture-only services for mutations. This skill does not authorize production changes, external messages, deployments, or destructive actions. Do not schedule recurring runs unless explicitly requested. Report unavailable live tooling or required access as blocked; source inspection alone cannot establish a clean outcome. ## Outcomes Pick one, and say which: - **clean** — every feature got source and live coverage; nothing worth shipping. No branch, no PR. - **changed** — proven doc, harness, or map corrections are ready locally, or shipped through one PR when explicitly authorized. State which. - **blocked** — coverage could not finish or a proven fix could not ship safely. Say exactly what blocked it. ## Edit scope Only edit the verification skill's own directory (its SKILL.md, features/, and any harness scripts it owns). Never edit product code during a run: a behavior the map describes that the app no longer does is either doc drift (fix the map) or a product regression (report it, don't paper over it in docs). ## Pass 0. **Locate the target.** Find the verification skill to maintain: the project-local skill whose body has launch/drive sections and a feature map (usually `.agents/skills/verify-*/`; also inspect any project-designated skill location, including existing `.cursor/skills/verify-*/`). Several candidates → ask which one; none → stop and point at `/create-verification-skill` instead of inventing a target. 1. **Index hygiene.** Read the feature map README and glob its sibling files. Fix missing, extra, duplicate, or dead entries. Lightweight; no generated inventory. 2. **Source wave.** Use the host’s available subagent tools for one read-only source reader per feature file, batching concurrent readers within host limits. Inherit the parent model unless the user or applicable project instructions specify otherwise. If subagents are unavailable or prohibited, perform the same source review sequentially in the current agent and report that limitation. Each explains "how does this user-facing feature work?" from source, flags likely doc drift with citations, and returns one concise live-verification recipe. Children never drive the app and never edit files. Return shape: feature summary / source entry points / likely drift or none / one recipe. 3. **Reconcile.** Every feature file has a returned summary. Merge overlapping recipes into as few app states as practical. Spot-check cited drift; don't re-prove clean claims. Sweep recent churn for user-facing surfaces missing from the map — require a concrete source path before calling one missing. 4. **Live pass.** Required even when source looks clean. The coordinator owns all driving; follow the verification skill's own launch model — one long-lived instance driven serially for servers and UIs, or a fresh isolated session per drive for short-lived CLIs (the skill's Launch section decides, not this one). Exercise every feature at least once, and hold three invariants the whole pass, whatever the failure: (1) never drive an instance you haven't health-checked since it last did something surprising — doctor before first drive, doctor on each fresh session where sessions are the unit, doctor again after any failed drive, and where doctor can't see the failure (a wedged UI state on a healthy process), reset to a known state or relaunch rather than hoping; (2) evidence captured so far survives every cleanup, checked at its named location, not assumed; (3) nothing a drive started outlives that drive's usefulness — failed-iteration residue is cleaned whether the session is stuck, exited, or shared (for a shared instance, clean the residue, not the instance). A doctor failure caused by skill drift is drift: fix it under edit scope and retry once — restart whatever the fix invalidated, nothing more — before calling the pass `blocked`. A feature that can't be reached is `verified-unreachable` only with the concrete prerequisite (auth, entitlement, OS, external state) and the route attempted; if the map omits that prerequisite, that's drift. Any harness fix from triage gets re-driven live before it ships. Final teardown happens after the last drive of the run — including those re-proofs — so nothing outlives the run (evidence stays, per the skill). 5. **Triage.** Wrong or missing user-POV description → doc drift, fix it. Working behavior the harness can't drive → harness gap, fix it; a harness fix follows the same helpers rule as generation (scripts executable, invocation documented in the skill body). App behavior that's actually broken → product gap; record it for the user, keep it out of these verification corrections. 6. **Ship or stop.** Re-read every changed file and re-drive affected behavior before handing off proven corrections. Create or update at most one PR only when the user explicitly authorizes it; otherwise leave the corrections locally for review and report that status. Commits and pushes also require applicable user authorization. For clean or blocked: no PR, report the outcome and the coverage honestly. Keep concise run notes (features covered, unreachable prerequisites, confirmed drift, outcome) in a scratch location; don't commit them.