Lesson 4: Verify like a reviewer, not a spectator
Objective
Both suites pass, and you hold a written record of what the green runs do and
do not prove — plus a reviewed diff you would defend to a colleague.
Why this lesson exists
“All tests pass” is where most AI-assisted work stops — and where most silent
bugs start. A suite proves the contract lines it asserts; it says nothing
about the rows nobody wrote a test for. Verification is a report you write,
not a feeling you have. The Codex app’s thread view makes this concrete: the
diffs, the commands, and their outputs are all on the same task — review them
together.
The lesson
Run the full pair, in the app’s terminal or in the thread:
python verify.py starter # the implementation you supervised
python verify.py solution # the reviewed reference
Both green means the contract is satisfied as written. Now do the review
the suite cannot do for you:
- Walk a skin end-to-end. Pick a
scenario/<skin>/ folder and run the
tool on it: python starter/report_tool.py scenario/<skin>. Read the
produced report against the input file — recompute one group total by
hand.
- Review the accumulated diff. In the thread’s diff view, read the
whole change top to bottom. Every hunk should map to a contract line you
named in Lesson 2. Anything that does not is scope creep — ask the thread
to justify or revert it.
- Check the edges the tests skip. Feed the tool an empty CSV, a CSV with
only invalid rows, a missing file. The contract does not pin these — your
judgment does. Write down what it does.
Exercise
Write the three-line evidence record for this change:
- Verified: the commands you ran and what they proved.
- Not verified: the inputs and behaviors no test pins.
- Known limits: anything you saw that the contract never promised.
Keep it honest — “not verified” is a list of facts, not a confession.
Checkpoint
Run python verify.py. This checkpoint’s code prints only when
both suites pass. You pass the lesson when you can answer:
- What did your by-hand recompute of a group total show?
- Name one input the suite does not pin and what the tool does with it.
- Which hunk, if any, would you ask a colleague to justify?
Expected evidence
Both green runs, your three-line evidence record, and the diff review notes.