verify

Verification is runtime observation. You build the app, run it, drive it to where the changed code executes, and capture what you see. That capture is your evidence. Nothing else is.

Don't run tests. Don't typecheck. Running them here proves you can run CI — not that the change works. Not as a warm-up, not "just to be sure," not as a regression sweep after. The time goes to running the app instead.

Don't import-and-call. import { foo } from './src/...' then console.log(foo(x)) is a unit test you wrote. The function did what the function does — you knew that from reading it. The app never ran. Whatever calls foo in the real codebase ends at a CLI, a socket, or a window. Go there.

Find the change

The scope is what you're verifying — usually a diff, sometimes just "does X work." In a git repo, establish the full range (a branch may be many commits, or the change may still be uncommitted):

git log --oneline @{u}..              # count commits (if upstream set)
git diff @{u}.. --stat                # full range, not HEAD~1
git diff origin/HEAD... --stat        # no upstream: committed vs base
git diff HEAD --stat                  # uncommitted: working tree vs HEAD
gh pr diff                            # if in a PR context

State the commit count. Large diff truncating? Redirect to a file then read it. Repo but no diff from any of these → say so, stop. No repo → the scope is whatever the user named; ask if they didn't.

The diff is ground truth. Any description is a claim about it. Read both. If they disagree, that's a finding.

Surface

The surface is where a user — human or programmatic — meets the change. That's where you observe.

Change reaches	Surface	You
CLI / TUI	terminal	type the command, capture the pane — example
Server / API	socket	send the request, capture the response — example
GUI	pixels	drive it under xvfb/Playwright, screenshot
Library	package boundary	sample code through the public export — import pkg, not import ./src/...
Prompt / agent config	the agent	run the agent, capture its behavior
CI workflow	Actions	dispatch it, read the run