maintain-verification-skill git:20260712.e42d29fA

Immutable. This exact content is served forever at /api/v1/blob/ec6eb4457b133240.

---
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, at most one PR of proven corrections. Use for /maintain-verification-skill or \"audit the verify skill\"."
disable-model-invocation: true
---

# 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.

## Outcomes

Pick one, and say which:

- **clean** — every feature got source and live coverage; nothing worth shipping. No branch, no PR.
- **changed** — one PR ships proven doc, harness, or map corrections.
- **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 `.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.** One read-only subagent per feature file, launched concurrently. 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). Health-check at the skill's own granularity: doctor before driving a long-lived instance, and per session where sessions are the unit. Never drive past a failing doctor — but a doctor that fails because the *skill* drifted is itself drift: fix it under edit scope, retry once, and only then call the pass `blocked`. Exercise every feature at least once, cleaning up any failed drive immediately so a stuck session can't poison the rest of the pass. 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 this PR.

6. **Ship or stop.** For changed: one PR of proven corrections, re-read every changed file first. 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.