Principle Prove It Works

---
name: principle-prove-it-works
description: "Apply when the actual candidate and observable result still need verification."
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: jstack-maintainers
  source: michael-denyer/pstack-claude
  source-version: "0.9.30"
  source-commit: 45f768349a6d7d7e71509fee3f5bccfad54b3bad
  owner: software-factory
  risk: low
  capabilities: jstack,engineering-principle
user-invocable: false
---

# Prove It Works

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:
1. Build it (necessary but not sufficient)
2. Run it and exercise the actual feature path
3. Check the full chain: does data flow from input to output?
4. For integrations, test the full communication path end-to-end

Verify the process as well as the outcome. A correct result can rest on a broken process, and a review that checks results passes it: a clause reconstructed from the user's paste instead of the durable record, a constraint honored by chance from a file never read. For each fact you relied on, name the record it came from and confirm that record is the one the project's rules point at.

Red is a colour, not a measurement. A failing check proves the instrument only when the failure content is the disagreement you predicted. An exception, an empty collection against a non-empty literal, and a real mismatch all print red, so quote the assertion's diff (`Extra items in the right set`), never the assertion (`assert {...} == {...}`). A convergence probe keys on behavior only the new artifact can produce, never an identity field the old one also emits; a same-SHA restart lets old code report the new commit SHA.

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.

## Script the check when you can

The strongest proof is a deterministic script that re-runs the same comparison, not a one-time eyeball. Write the script, run it, and keep its output as an artifact a reviewer can re-run instead of trusting your word.

Keep the artifact visible for the human. Commit it only for large or complex work where the trail has to be auditable later, like a big port or migration (the **show-me-your-work** skill).