pm-verify-release-v1

Input is a shipped scope: the cycle's handoff package directory and the tier it is deployed on. Output is a scenario-by-scenario verdict table with receipts, an acceptance report prepared for the owner, and a feedback pack that makes the next cycle smarter.

Completion is not acceptance. This verb produces evidence. A named human owns the acceptance decision. This skill never marks anything accepted, never flips a gate, and never softens a verdict to make a release look accepted.

Posture: read-only everywhere. Behavioural probes look; analytics probes query; nothing is written to any tier, flag, dashboard or repository. Where an engineering toolchain is configured, its run records are inputs only, never authored, never edited, never re-minted.

Preflight (run first)

PKG_ROOT="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${PKG_ROOT:-}}"
[ -n "$PKG_ROOT" ] && [ -r "$PKG_ROOT/.claude-plugin/plugin.json" ] || { echo "STOP: set PKG_ROOT to this package's root directory, the one holding .claude-plugin/plugin.json, then re-run."; exit 2; }
bash "$PKG_ROOT/scripts/preflight.sh" pm-verify-release-v1 [--stack <keys>]

A miss on a required capability blocks the run and prints its exact one-time fix. Conditional keys are passed once the scenario scope is assembled: analytics-verification (any analytics-touch scenario in scope) · eng-handoff (the downstream registry, for deployed coordinates) · repo-state (change-request state reads). A selected-conditional miss blocks exactly like a required one, never silently degrade into a partial verification that reads like a full one.

Standalone vs supercharged. Standalone (python3 only): every pre-declared scenario graded against the deployed build via behavioural probes, plus the report and the feedback pack; analytics-touch receipts ride NEEDS-CONFIRMATION rows instead of measured values, and say so. Supercharged: analytics-verification executes the pre-declared measurement plan and compares receipts against the declared thresholds; eng-handoff resolves deployed coordinates from the registry instead of from an answer.

Hard rules

1. Grade only against what was pre-declared. The spec directory's acceptance scenarios are the only rubric, and the handoff's machine-actionable success-metrics section is the only query set, execute it, never re-derive its intent. A receipt produced from a query nobody pre-declared is INFERRED at best, and must say so. If the spec's scenario is wrong, that is a finding about the spec, not licence to invent a better scenario mid-verification.
2. The deployed build, not the repository. Every verdict is stamped tier + build. Web and API coordinates come from the registry when configured, otherwise from an explicit --url. Mobile builds are resolved live at probe time, build numbers are counters, never pinned in a report drafted earlier. Repository state, diffs and green CI are facts about a repository; by themselves they prove nothing about a deployed tier.
3. Never touch the building side's records. Run records, gate conclusions and handoff ledgers are read-only inputs.
4. Honesty over neatness. UNVERIFIED is a first-class verdict, never force one. A red blocker stays red until its owner reports it unblocked. A feature behind a flag is graded on the tier where the flag is ON, and the production precondition is listed as a follow-up rather than scored as a GAP. Quote fidelity as recorded: measured outranks inspected.
5. A missing input is a structured stop, not a guess. Record which input is absent, tag the affected scenarios NEEDS-CONFIRMATION, and proceed with the verifiable remainder only.
6. Analytics: aggregates and metadata only. Never user-level exports or profiles. Name the environment explicitly on every read, an unnamed project or property answers from whichever one is default, and that is the single most common source of a confidently wrong number. Budget any quota-limited query: enumerate the calls you need before making the first one. No secret is ever read or echoed; the config holds pointers only.
7. Reports are versioned, never overwritten. The owner-edited copy becomes the new canonical base.
8. No volume targets. Queue movement is recorded as a measured fact, never as a quota.
9. Artifacts land where the run said they land. Write every emitted file under the folder this run selected; with none selected, the session's already-authorized working path; with no authorized writable path at all, STOP and ask for one before any artifact is written. The harness enforces that boundary either way, the ask is what turns a refusal into a decision.

Inputs

Input	Required	What it is
spec-dir	yes	the handoff package directory: acceptance scenarios with their classifications, the measurement plan, rollout and flag notes
tier	yes	dev / staging / prod, plus an explicit url or build when it is off-registry
run record	when configured	the building side's record for this scope, read-only, joined to scenarios via each scenario's Trace line
scope filter	no	a subset of scenario ids or surfaces for a partial pass
prior report	no	re-verification after fixes: grade the delta, and carry every prior UNVERIFIED forward explicitly, never silently inherit a PASS

Arriving with just "verify the release" also works: elicit the three coordinates, then stop structured if they cannot be named.

Flow

1. ASSEMBLE  inputs + the measurement plan + flag preconditions
      │       any piece missing → structured stop (rule 5)
2. PROBE     behavioural: drive each scenario's flow on the deployed tier and build
      │       telemetry:   execute the pre-declared queries, read-only
3. GRADE     one verdict per scenario, with a cause class and per-criterion evidence locators
4. PACK      acceptance report vN + feedback-pack.md
5. PASS      internal quality passes, floor · artifact manifest · honesty audit
6. ACCEPT    the owner rules: ACCEPT / ACCEPT-WITH-EDITS / REJECT. Their decision, recorded.

Pack inheritance: take the pack id from the artifacts consumed and echo it at step 1. No pack signal in the artifacts means generic mode, state that rather than guessing a pack.

Grading

Verdict	Means
PASS	every acceptance criterion observed on the deployed build; an analytics-touch scenario additionally returned the pre-declared signal inside its window
PARTIAL	the primary path works, and NAMED criteria are unmet, degraded or deferred, each named miss becomes a feedback item
GAP	not observable, failing, dark where it should be live, or uninstrumented, with a cause class: build-gap · flag-gap · data-gap · spec-gap
UNVERIFIED	could not be probed (a precondition, a flag, or access), carried explicitly, never forced into one of the above

spec-gap routes to the spec, not to the builders: an ambiguous or wrong scenario is a spec-side feedback item and a correction in the next cycle, never a defect ticket for somebody else.

The two artifacts

1. Acceptance report vN, the tier and build stamp · an attention header (ran clean / changed / needs judgment / stopped on a failed check / held: weak source) · a TL;DR · the verdict split with the open-items queue before and after · the scenario results table (id · surface · risk/money/analytics · verdict · evidence locator) · the executed receipts (tool · exact query · window · result against threshold) · blockers with owners and unblock criteria · a self-assessment close · and the acceptance block the owner fills in, left empty by this verb, always.
2. feedback-pack.md, the next cycle's input, in four sections: tag movements (new FOUND evidence with live locators; INFERRED → FOUND, → rejected as a typed entry, NEEDS-CONFIRMATION → resolved | still open, a shrinking open queue is the headline) · the PARTIAL/GAP register (cause class and owning side; a discovered gap becomes a candidate for /pm-portfolio-v1, never an auto-inserted backlog row) · gotchas harvested (one-liners routed to the skill that owns them) · gate health (accepted unedited / edited / rejected).

Internal passes before presenting

Floor pass, every verdict has an evidence locator; every receipt shows its query, window and value; every PARTIAL and GAP names its criteria and its owning side; every claim is tagged and every FOUND anchored (scripts/tag-lint.sh). Artifact manifest, the report and the feedback pack exist on disk as promised. Honesty audit, no softened red, no forced verdict, and no coverage claim that spans unprobed scenarios. No auto-retry on a failed pass: halt and surface.

The human gate

Present the brief (green/amber/red · TL;DR · verdict split · risks with mitigations · "decisions needed: options with a recommendation and a need-by date"; 200–300 words) over the scenario verdict table. The owner, and only the owner, rules ACCEPT / ACCEPT-WITH-EDITS (named) / REJECT (reason, recorded as a typed constraint), and rules every open NEEDS-CONFIRMATION. Record the gate-health field. Use the one-question convention for escalations; never fork a second thread.

Feed-forward: the accepted feedback pack is the first reading-list input of the next /pm-requirements-v1 P0. Its new FOUND evidence enters as [L1] citations with live locators, its still-open items seed the next queue, and its gap candidates wait for portfolio scoring.

Retro

Append what generalises to <report-dir>/retro.md; a run that learned nothing appends one dated line saying exactly that. One line lands in the local event log when the operator enabled it (scripts/telemetry.sh emit, silent no-op otherwise). Nothing leaves the machine.

References

File	Load when
../pm-requirements-v1/references/evidence-tags.md	tagging a finding · a tag dispute · the L-axis
../pm-requirements-v1/references/handoff-package.md	reading the spec kit and the measurement-plan format you are executing
../../references/eng-handoff-adapter.md	what the configured adapter does and does not make available

Gotchas

• The default-environment trap is the most common silent wrong answer: a query that does not name its project or property answers from whichever is default, and the number looks fine. Name it every time, and prefer a probe that resolves both environments from config over an ad-hoc read.
• Verifying staging is legal; extrapolating from it is not. Receipts are stamped with their tier and never generalise into production behaviour claims.
• Green CI is not deployed behaviour. It tells you where verification is possible; only the probe on the deployed tier produces a verdict.
• Never pin a mobile build number in a report drafted before probing. Re-resolve at probe time and stamp what was actually probed.
• An empty production dataset is a data-gap explanation, not a PASS. A metric that cannot yet exist has not been met.
• Re-verification is a new report version graded on the delta. A fixed GAP needs a fresh receipt, not a changelog line.
• Budget quota-limited queries first. Enumerate them, then spend them; running out halfway produces a partial pass that reads like a full one.