# Verifying behavior-shaping guidance

The verification branch of [`writing-for-agents`](SKILL.md). Read it when the document is meant to
**change what an agent does**: a rule expected to hold under pressure, or wording meant to change the
shape of an output.

Reference skills do not need this. A vocabulary, an API guide, or a list of definitions is verified
by reading it back against the ladder and the pruning rules. Running this method on reference is
ceremony that buys nothing.

## Establish the baseline first

You cannot fix a failure you have not watched happen. Before writing the guidance, run the task
**without** it in a fresh context and record what the agent actually does, in its own words.

**The control decides whether to write anything at all.** If the no-guidance run does not exhibit the
failure, there is nothing to fix: stop, and do not author the guidance. Most guidance that turns out
to be a no-op would have died here. This step removes more work than it adds.

Where the failure does appear, capture the rationalizations verbatim. They are the raw material: a
discipline rule works by answering the specific excuse the agent reached for, not the excuse you
imagined it would.

## Micro-test the wording

Full scenario runs are the final gate, but they are slow per iteration. Test the wording itself
first:

1. **One fresh-context sample per call.** The system prompt is the realistic context the guidance
   will live in, meaning the whole skill, not the guidance in isolation. The user message is a task
   that tempts the failure.
2. **Always run the no-guidance control alongside.** Same rule as above: no failure in the control,
   no guidance needed.
3. **Five or more reps per variant.** Single samples lie.
4. **Read every flagged match yourself.** Score programmatically if you like, but template echoes and
   quoted counter-examples masquerade as hits, and automated counts overstate both failure and
   success.
5. **Treat variance as a metric.** When guidance lands, the reps converge on the same shape. Five
   different interpretations across five reps means the wording is not binding: tighten the form
   before adding words.

Micro-tests verify wording. They do not replace a real run for a rule that has to survive pressure.

## Pressure-test a discipline rule

A rule an agent follows when nothing is at stake is untested. Combine pressures in one scenario:

- **Time**: the change is urgent, something is broken in production.
- **Sunk cost**: the work is nearly done and the rule would discard it.
- **Authority**: someone senior said to skip it.
- **Exhaustion**: it is the eighth iteration of a long loop.

Success is the agent following the rule with all of them stacked. Each new rationalization it
invents is the next thing to close.

## Close the loopholes

Do not just state the rule; forbid the specific workaround the baseline produced. "Delete it" invites
"I'll keep it as reference"; "Delete it. Not as reference, not to adapt while rewriting. Delete means
delete" does not.

Two structures earn their place in a discipline skill, and only there:

- **A rationalization table**, one row per excuse from the baseline runs, each answered:

  | Excuse | Reality |
  |---|---|
  | "Too simple to test" | Simple code breaks. The test takes 30 seconds. |

- **A red-flags list** of the thoughts that mean the agent is mid-rationalization, so it can catch
  itself: *"this is different because..."*, *"I already checked it manually"*.

Add the foundational line early, because it closes a whole class of argument at once:
**violating the letter of the rule is violating its spirit.**

Both structures are the row-one form from `SKILL.md`. Reaching for them on a shaping failure makes
the output worse, so confirm the failure is discipline before writing either.

## Done when

- A no-guidance control was run, and it exhibited the failure the guidance addresses.
- The guidance answers rationalizations observed in that run, not invented ones.
- Reps with the guidance converge on one shape rather than five.
- For a discipline rule: it holds with time, sunk cost, and authority pressure stacked.
