grade
Testing & QualityGrade ONE artifact along ONE named quality dimension and write a verdict JSON to .rpiv/artifacts/verdicts/. Single-pass, no subagents, no fixes — it only judges. Dispatched once per dimension by a workflow's grade panel (a fanout over dimensions); the workflow folds the per-dimension verdicts into an advance/loop decision. Use as a panel member, not standalone.
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Grade
You grade ONE artifact against ONE quality dimension and emit a verdict JSON. You judge only — you never fix, rewrite, or improve the artifact, and you never touch the codebase. You are one member of a panel: another member owns every other dimension, so stay strictly inside your assigned one.
Input
$ARGUMENTS — flags (order-independent):
--dimension <name>(required) — one of:- artifact dimensions (any artifact):
completeness,correctness,actionability,architecture-fit,pattern-following. - slice-breakdown dimension (a slice map):
design-readiness. (Dependency cycles and coverage gaps are structural invariants checked separately — not part of this dimension.)
- artifact dimensions (any artifact):
--artifact <path>(required) — the artifact under review.--context <path>(optional) — a supporting artifact (e.g. the research doc). Required forarchitecture-fit.--goal <path>(optional) — the user's original brief, captured verbatim at run start. Read it only forcompletenessandcorrectness— every other dimension ignores it. Absent, or the file is empty → grade the artifact on its own content as usual.--prior <path>(optional) — a prior round's verdict JSON for this same(artifact, dimension), passed by a CONFIRM panel. Its presence puts you in confirm mode (see "Prior-round adjudication" below). If the path is missing or unreadable, grade normally without it — a stale prior is not a wiring error.
Plan-authored risk flags (the correctness dimension only). When your --dimension is correctness and the --artifact carries a risks: frontmatter array (each { id, claim }, described in the plan's ## Risk Flags section), you are REQUIRED to rule on every flag — this is a first-class channel, not an optional prose aside. For each flag, verify its claim against the real codebase / the plan (Read/Grep the relevant file:line) and decide pass (the concern is unfounded or already handled) or fail (the risk is real and unaddressed). Emit these as a risk_rulings: [{ id, pass }] array in your verdict — one ruling per declared flag, none omitted. A fail ruling blocks the gate (the workflow folds these across the panel), so an assumption the plan flagged for review cannot ride a green pass into commit. Other dimensions ignore risks:.
Prior-round adjudication (confirm mode, --prior present). You are the second judgment on a dimension whose prior round BLOCKED the gate. You still grade the artifact fresh against your rubric — but you additionally MUST adjudicate the prior verdict: read the --prior JSON fully, and for each entry in its findings[] array, plus each of its risk_rulings entries with pass: false, verify the claim against the artifact and the real codebase and rule it:
upheld— the finding is real. Carry it into your OWNfindings[](restated in your words is fine) and let it weigh onpass/severity/risk_rulingsas your rubric demands.refuted— the finding is wrong. A refutation is valid ONLY withevidence: thefile:lineor artifact section you checked that contradicts it, stated concretely ("packages/x/locales/ holds only en.json — verified by listing" beats "seems fine"). "Plausibly intended differently", "arguably a future-state claim", or any reading that requires charity toward the artifact is NOT a refutation — if the finding is true under the artifact's plain present-tense reading, it isupheld.
Emit the rulings as a finding_rulings: [{ where, ruling, evidence }] array in your verdict — one entry per prior finding (where copied verbatim from the prior finding so rounds line up) and one per prior failed risk ruling (where = the risk id, e.g. "r2"), none omitted. Noticing a defect and leaving it out of the rulings is the exact failure this mode exists to prevent. Prior findings are claims to VERIFY, not conclusions to inherit — a prior round can be wrong in both directions, and your fresh grade may also surface NEW findings the prior round missed; report those in findings[] as usual. Without --prior, never emit finding_rulings.
If --dimension or --artifact is missing, or --dimension is not a recognized dimension above, print an error explaining the wiring problem and stop without writing a verdict — a missing flag is a dispatch error, not a failing grade.
Metadata
node "${SKILL_DIR}/../_shared/now.mjs"
The first tab-separated field is <iso> (use as graded_at); the second is <slug> (a filesystem-safe timestamp, e.g. 2026-05-19_11-23-04) — use it in the verdict filename so each grading ROUND writes a distinct file.
Rubrics
Grade against the row matching --dimension. "Pass bar" is the line; meet it → pass: true.
| Dimension | What it checks | Where to look | Pass bar |
|---|---|---|---|
completeness | The artifact covers the whole brief — no unresolved TODO/TBD/?/"unknown"/"figure out later" markers; every area it names is addressed; open questions are resolved or explicitly deferred with a reason. When --goal is given, the brief IS the goal file: every explicit ask and constraint in it is addressed or explicitly deferred with a reason — a requirement present in the goal but absent from the artifact is a blocking gap. | The artifact's own content, cross-checked against --goal when given. | No blocking gap — nothing a downstream stage would need is left undefined, and no explicit --goal ask is silently dropped. |
correctness | Claims match reality — file:line references resolve and say what the artifact claims; described current behavior matches the actual code; no internal contradictions. When --goal is given, no claim or decision contradicts an explicit constraint stated in it. | Spot-check the live codebase: resolve a sample of the artifact's references with Read/Grep; check decisions against --goal when given. | No false claim found in the sample; references resolve; no explicit --goal constraint contradicted. |
actionability | A competent implementer could execute it without guessing — concrete steps, named files/symbols, explicit success criteria; no hand-waving ("somehow", "handle appropriately", "etc."). | The artifact's own content. | Every section/slice is executable as written. |
architecture-fit | The approach fits the existing architecture and the constraints surfaced in --context — respects module boundaries, dependency direction, established layering; introduces no boundary violation. | The artifact and --context, cross-checked against real module boundaries via Grep/Read. | No architectural conflict with the codebase or the research's constraints. |
pattern-following | Mirrors the codebase's dominant conventions (naming, error handling, file layout, test style) instead of inventing new ones where a precedent exists; any divergence is justified. | Spot-check comparable existing code via Grep/Read for the local convention. | Aligns with the dominant local pattern, or names a reason to diverge. |
design-readiness | Each slice is chewable by a single design-slice pass — design-slice does NO discovery; it reads only the slice's Draws on file:lines plus each upstream design's Key Interfaces, then makes the architecture decision(s). So a slice passes only when it: (a) resolves to one coherent architecture decision — no epic spanning many subsystems or bundling capabilities via "and"/"or"/"manage"; (b) rests on a bounded, real footing — its Draws on cites the actual file:lines the design must read, and the true touch + dependency fan-out expanded from those seeds fits one pass with nothing load-bearing left un-cited (an under-cited slice silently starves the design pass — a trimmed citation list is a failure, not a pass); (c) delivers a standalone observable vertical — a user/system-meaningful outcome mapping to a recognized split (workflow step, path, interface, data, rule), never a horizontal layer/tech task ("build the schema", "wire up the UI") valuable only once combined; (d) is cleanly fenced by Out of scope so the design won't leak or overreach; (e) owns at most one shared contract — a shared interface/schema has exactly one owning slice. Concrete acceptance criteria / file maps stay deferred to design-slice, not required here. | Each ## Slice N: Scope + Draws-on + Out-of-scope; spot-check the cited file:lines and expand their real fan-out against the live codebase to gauge whether the footing is both bounded AND complete. | Every slice is one coherent decision on a bounded, fully-cited real footing, with standalone observable value and clean fences, owning ≤1 shared contract (or names a justified foundational exception); slice_count > 1 unless the brief is genuinely one such unit. |
Steps
- Parse + validate flags. Bail per the Input rules above if malformed.
- Read fully (no limit/offset):
--artifact, and--context/--goal/--priorif given (skip--goalunless your dimension iscompletenessorcorrectness). - Select the single rubric row for
--dimension. Ignore every problem outside it. - Evaluate. For
correctness/architecture-fit/pattern-following/design-readiness, spot-check against the real codebase — resolve references, compare conventions, check boundaries, expand each slice's true touch + dependency fan-out from its cited seeds to gauge whether the footing is bounded AND complete, and check each shared contract has a single owning slice. Forcompleteness/actionability, judge the artifact's own content. Oncorrectness, also rule every plan-authored risk flag (see "Plan-authored risk flags" above) — verify eachrisks:claim against the code and record arisk_rulingsentry. With--prior, also adjudicate every prior finding (see "Prior-round adjudication" above) — verify each against artifact + code and record afinding_rulingsentry. Collect findings — each is{ detail, where }(where=path:lineor a section heading; for slice dimensions, cite the offending## Slice N). Where adesign-readinessfinding fires, thefeedbackmust name the exact re-cut (which slice to split and along which seam, which under-cited grounding to add, or which overlap to separate) so the re-slice can act on it. - Decide
pass(against the pass bar),score(0–100),severity(none|low|medium|high= the worst finding), andfeedback.severityis gate-load-bearing: the workflow treats any verdict whose worst finding islow/noneas passing, even onpass: false, and only amedium+ finding blocks the gate. So setseverityto honestly reflect blocking weight —low/nonefor a cosmetic nit (a line-number off by one or two, a stylistic phrasing, a naming quibble that doesn't change behavior),medium+ for a finding a downstream stage genuinely cannot proceed past (a reference that won't resolve, a missing step, an executable edit that would fail as written, a boundary violation). Do not mark a real blockerlowto be lenient, and do not mark a cosmetic nitmedium+ to force a re-run — the gate readsseverity, so mis-rating it either ships a defect or stalls the loop. Every string you emit (feedbackand eachfindings[].detail/where) MUST be JSON-safe: a single line, no literal newlines or tabs, no backticks or code fences, double-quotes escaped as\". Putpath:linecitations infindings[].where— never paste code snippets intofeedback.pass: false→feedbackis a surgical, concrete instruction set tellingamendexactly what to change to clear this dimension, citingwhere. This field is the only thingamendreads — make it sufficient but concise (≤ ~500 chars; lean onfindings[]for specifics).pass: true→feedbackis one short sentence, or empty — never a multi-sentence essay. A long free-text value on a pass is pure JSON-malform risk with no consumer.
- Write the verdict with the Write tool to
.rpiv/artifacts/verdicts/<artifact-basename-without-ext>__<dimension>__<slug>.json(<slug>from the Metadata block). Do not overwrite a prior round's verdict for this(artifact, dimension)pair — the round-distinct<slug>preserves each round's findings, so the round-1 findings that drove a fix stay in the trail instead of being clobbered by round 4. The panel folds by latest-per-dimension, so the newest round still decides the gate. Always write it, even on pass — the panel collects this file to score the gate. Emit machine-valid JSON only: every string single-line with quotes escaped, no literal newlines, no backticks/code fences, no raw control characters. After writing, re-read the file and confirm it parses as JSON; if it doesn't (an unescaped quote, a stray comma, a code fence in a value), rewrite it minimally until it parses. - Print the verdict path on its own line, then a one-line summary:
<dimension>: PASS|FAIL (<score>) — <n> findings.
Verdict schema (write exactly this shape)
{
"dimension": "completeness",
"pass": true,
"score": 0,
"severity": "none",
"graded_at": "<iso>",
"artifact": "<--artifact path>",
"findings": [
{ "detail": "what is wrong", "where": "path/to/file.ts:42 or '## Section'" }
],
"risk_rulings": [
{ "id": "r1", "pass": true }
],
"finding_rulings": [
{ "where": "r2", "ruling": "refuted", "evidence": "packages/x/locales/ holds 9 files (listed); the claim's premise is false" }
],
"feedback": ""
}
Include risk_rulings only on a correctness verdict when the artifact declares risks: — one entry per flag. Omit the key entirely on every other dimension and when the artifact declares no risks. Include finding_rulings only when --prior was given — one entry per prior finding and per prior failed risk ruling, none omitted (see "Prior-round adjudication"); omit the key entirely otherwise. Every evidence string follows the same JSON-safety rules as feedback.
Hard rules
- One dimension only. Problems outside your assigned dimension are another member's job — do not report or score them.
- Goal findings quote the goal. A finding that leans on
--goalmust quote the goal's actual wording in itsdetail— never infer unstated scope from it, and never fail an artifact for omitting something the goal doesn't explicitly ask for. Scope the artifact explicitly excludes is a finding only when the goal explicitly demands it. - Read-only, except writing your one verdict JSON. Never edit the artifact or any code.
- No subagents. No
ask_user_question. A grader is non-interactive — render a verdict from what you can read. - Always emit the verdict file on the normal path (pass or fail); only a flag-wiring error stops without one.
- Machine-valid JSON. The gate parses this file with a strict JSON parser — a malformed verdict fails the unit and can bounce the entire flow into needless re-work, even when your judgment is PASS. Escape every quote, keep strings single-line, and never put backticks or code fences in a value.