Story Verification Skill

Story Verification Skill

Validate Stories/​Tasks with explicit GO/​NO-GO verdict, Readiness Score, and Anti-Hallucination verification.

Purpose & Scope

• Validate Story plus child Tasks against industry standards and project patterns
• Calculate Penalty Points for violations, then auto-fix to reach 0 points
• Delegate to ln-002-best-practices-researcher for creating documentation (guides, manuals, ADRs, research)
• Support Plan Mode: show audit results, wait for approval, then fix
• Approve Story after fixes (Backlog -> Todo) with tabular output summary

When to Use

• Reviewing Stories before approval (Backlog -> Todo)
• Validating implementation path across Story and Tasks
• Ensuring standards, architecture, and solution fit
• Optimizing or correcting proposed approaches

Penalty Points System

Goal: Quantitative assessment of Story/​Tasks quality. Target = 0 penalty points after fixes.

Workflow:

1. Audit: Calculate penalty points for all 17 criteria
2. Fix: Auto-fix and zero out points
3. Report: Total Before -> 0 After

Mode Detection

Detect operating mode at startup:

Plan Mode Active:

• Phase 1-2: Full audit (discovery + research + penalty calculation)
• Phase 3: Show results + fix plan -> WAIT for user approval
• Phase 4-5: After approval -> execute fixes

Normal Mode:

• Phase 1-5: Standard workflow without stopping
• Automatically fix and approve

Workflow Overview

Phase 1: Discovery & Loading

Step 1: Configuration & Metadata Loading

• Auto-discover configuration: Team ID (docs/​tasks/​kanban_board.md), project docs (CLAUDE.md), epic from Story.project
• Load metadata only: Story ID/​title/​status/​labels, child Task IDs/​titles/​status/​labels
• Expect 3-8 implementation tasks; record parentId for filtering
• Rationale: keep loading light; full descriptions arrive in Phase 2

Phase 2: Research & Audit

Always execute for every Story - no exceptions.

Step 1: Domain Extraction

• Extract technical domains from Story title + Technical Notes + Implementation Tasks
• Load pattern registry from references/​domain_patterns.md
• Scan Story content for pattern matches via keyword detection
• Build list of detected domains requiring documentation

Step 2: Documentation Delegation

• For EACH detected pattern, delegate to ln-002:

  Skill(skill="ln-002-best-practices-researcher",
        args="doc_type=[guide|manual|adr] topic='[pattern]'")
  

• Receive file paths to created documentation (docs/​guides/, docs/​manuals/, docs/​adrs/, docs/​research/)

Step 3: Research via MCP

• Query MCP Ref for industry standards: ref_search_documentation(query="[topic] RFC OWASP best practices 2025")
• Query Context7 for library versions: resolve-library-id + query-docs
• Extract: standards (RFC numbers, OWASP rules), library versions, patterns

Step 3.5: Anti-Hallucination Verification

• Scan Story/​Tasks for technical claims (RFC references, library versions, security requirements)
• Verify each claim has MCP Ref/​Context7 evidence
• Flag unverified claims for correction
• Status: VERIFIED (all sourced) or FLAGGED (list unverified)

Step 4: Penalty Points Calculation

• Evaluate all 17 criteria against Story/​Tasks
• Assign penalty points per violation (CRITICAL=10, HIGH=5, MEDIUM=3, LOW=1)
• Calculate total penalty points
• Build fix plan for each violation

Phase 3: Audit Results & Fix Plan

Display audit results:

• Penalty Points table (criterion, severity, points, description)
• Total: X penalty points
• Fix Plan: list of fixes for each criterion

Mode handling:

• IF Plan Mode: Show results + "After your approval, changes will be applied" -> WAIT
• ELSE (Normal Mode): Proceed to Phase 4 immediately

Phase 4: Auto-Fix

Execute fixes for ALL 19 criteria on the spot.

• Execution order (7 groups):
  1. Structural (#1-#4) — Story/​Tasks template compliance + AC completeness/​specificity
  2. Standards (#5) — RFC/​OWASP compliance FIRST (before YAGNI/​KISS!)
  3. Solution (#6) — Library versions
  4. Workflow (#7-#13) — Test strategy, docs integration, size, cleanup, YAGNI, KISS, task order, Database Creation
  5. Quality (#14-#15) — Documentation complete, hardcoded values
  6. Dependencies (#18-#19) — Story/​Task independence (no forward dependencies)
  7. Traceability (#16-#17) — Story-Task alignment, AC coverage quality (LAST, after all fixes)
• Use Auto-Fix Actions table below as authoritative checklist
• Zero out penalty points as fixes applied
• Test Strategy section must exist but remain empty (testing handled separately)

Phase 5: Approve & Notify

• Set Story + all Tasks to Todo (Linear); update kanban_board.md with APPROVED marker
• Add Linear comment with full validation summary:
  • Penalty Points table (Before -> After = 0)
  • Auto-Fixes Applied table
  • Documentation Created table (docs created via ln-002)
  • Standards Compliance Evidence table
• Display tabular output (Unicode box-drawing) to terminal
• Final: Total Penalty Points = 0
• Optional: If --execute flag provided, delegate to ln-400-story-executor to start execution immediately after approval

Auto-Fix Actions Reference

Structural (#1-#4)

Standards (#5)

Solution (#6)

Workflow (#7-#13)

Quality (#14-#15)

Traceability (#16-#17)

Dependencies (#18-#19)

Maximum Penalty: 60 points

Final Assessment Model

Outputs after all fixes applied:

Readiness Score Calculation

Readiness Score = 10 - (Penalty Points / 5)

Anti-Hallucination Verification

Verify technical claims have evidence:

Status: VERIFIED (all claims sourced) or FLAGGED (unverified claims listed)

Task-AC Coverage Matrix

Output explicit mapping:

| AC | Task(s) | Coverage |
|----|---------|----------|
| AC1: Given/​When/​Then | T-001, T-002 | ✅ |
| AC2: Given/​When/​Then | T-003 | ✅ |
| AC3: Given/​When/​Then | — | ❌ UNCOVERED |

Coverage: {covered}/​{total} ACs (target: 100%)

Self-Audit Protocol (Mandatory)

Before marking any criterion as complete, provide concrete evidence (doc path, MCP result, Linear update).

Definition of Done

• Phase 1: Auto-discovery done; Story + Tasks metadata loaded; task count checked
• Phase 2: Domain extraction complete; ln-002 delegated for docs; MCP research done; Anti-Hallucination verification done; Penalty Points calculated
• Phase 3: Audit results shown; IF Plan Mode: user approved
• Phase 4: All 17 criteria auto-fixed; Penalty Points = 0; Test Strategy empty; test tasks removed
• Phase 5: Final Assessment output:

  gate: GO | NO-GO
  readiness_score: {1-10}
  penalty_points: 0 (was {N})
  anti_hallucination: VERIFIED | FLAGGED
  ac_coverage: "{N}/​{M} (100%)"
  ac_matrix:
    - ac: "AC1"
      tasks: ["T-001", "T-002"]
      status: covered
  

• Story/​Tasks set to Todo; kanban_board.md updated; Linear comment with Final Assessment added
• Optional: If --execute flag, ln-400-story-executor invoked after approval

Example Workflow

Story: "Create user management API with rate limiting"

1. Phase 1: Load metadata (5 Tasks, status Backlog)
2. Phase 2:
   • Domain extraction: REST API, Rate Limiting
   • Delegate ln-002: creates Guide-05 (REST patterns), Guide-06 (Rate Limiting)
   • MCP Ref: RFC 7231 compliance, OWASP API Security
   • Context7: Express v4.19 (current v4.17)
   • Penalty Points: 18 total (version=5, missing docs=5, structure=3, standards=5)
3. Phase 3:
   • Show Penalty Points table
   • IF Plan Mode: "18 penalty points found. Fix plan ready. Approve?"
4. Phase 4:
   • Fix #6: Update Express v4.17 -> v4.19
   • Fix #5: Add RFC 7231 compliance notes
   • Fix #13: Add Guide-05, Guide-06 references
   • Fix #17: Docs already created by ln-002
   • All fixes applied, Penalty Points = 0
5. Phase 5: Story -> Todo, tabular report

Template Loading

Templates: story_template.md, task_template_implementation.md

Loading Logic:

1. Check if docs/​templates/​{template}.md exists in target project
2. IF NOT EXISTS: a. Create docs/​templates/ directory if missing b. Copy shared/​templates/​{template}.md → docs/​templates/​{template}.md c. Replace placeholders in the LOCAL copy:
   • {{TEAM_ID}} → from docs/​tasks/​kanban_board.md
   • {{DOCS_PATH}} → "docs" (standard)
3. Use LOCAL copy (docs/​templates/​{template}.md) for all validation operations

Rationale: Templates are copied to target project on first use, ensuring:

• Project independence (no dependency on skills repository)
• Customization possible (project can modify local templates)
• Placeholder replacement happens once at copy time

Reference Files

• Final Assessment: references/​readiness_scoring.md (GO/​NO-GO rules, Readiness Score calculation)
• Templates (centralized): shared/​templates/​story_template.md, shared/​templates/​task_template_implementation.md
• Local copies: docs/​templates/ (in target project)
• Validation Checklists (Progressive Disclosure):
  • references/​verification_checklist_template.md (overview of 7 categories)
  • references/​structural_validation.md (criteria #1-#4)
  • references/​standards_validation.md (criterion #5)
  • references/​solution_validation.md (criterion #6)
  • references/​workflow_validation.md (criteria #7-#13)
  • references/​quality_validation.md (criteria #14-#15)
  • references/​dependency_validation.md (criteria #18-#19)
  • references/​traceability_validation.md (criteria #16-#17)
  • references/​domain_patterns.md (pattern registry for ln-002 delegation)
  • references/​penalty_points.md (penalty system details)
• Linear integration: ../​shared/​templates/​linear_integration.md

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Version: 7.0.0 (BREAKING: Added 2 new criteria #18-#19 for Story/​Task dependencies per BMAD Method. Expanded criterion #4 with AC completeness/​specificity, #9 with Database Creation Principle, #13 with forward dependency checks, #17 with STRONG/​WEAK/​MISSING coverage quality. Total 19 criteria, max 60 penalty points.) Last Updated: 2026-02-03