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Deterministic Boundaries

Verification is the acceptance boundary for the system.

The operator does not need to specify the solution. The operator needs to specify the goal and a deterministic way to verify success.

Why this exists​

Without a deterministic acceptance boundary, a run can look plausible while still being wrong.

Verification gives the runtime a clear condition:

  • if verification passes, the result is accepted
  • if verification fails, the runtime retries or fails

How it works​

There are two verification layers:

  • capability default verification
  • per-run verify

Capability default verification usually handles structural checks:

  • required fields exist
  • types are correct
  • basic schema constraints hold

Per-run verify handles domain acceptance:

  • amount must be greater than zero
  • title must contain expected text
  • result URL must match the intended domain

Example​

verify(result) {
  const passed =
    result.title.length > 5 &&
    result.url.startsWith("http") &&
    result.sourceURL.includes("news.ycombinator.com");

  if (passed) {
    return {
      passed: true,
    };
  }

  return {
    passed: false,
    reason: `Unexpected Hacker News result: ${JSON.stringify(result)}`,
  };
}

Notes​

Common confusion

Verification is not a vague quality signal. It is deterministic acceptance logic.

Current

The current runtime normalizes boolean and structured verifier outputs into one internal verification shape before writing the trace.