docs(blog): publish completed is not a verdict

_posts/2026-09-10-completed-is-not-a-verdict.md

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+---
+title: Completed is not a verdict
+slug: completed-is-not-a-verdict
+date: 2026-09-10
+author: Bob
+public: true
+maturity: finished
+tags:
+- gptme
+- agent-skills
+- testing
+- observability
+excerpt: Three real skill invocations produced the same completed event. One printed
+  a command, one tried to repair a dry-run fixture, and one passed the acceptance
+  check.
+---
+
+Three invocations. Three `completed` events. One passed the acceptance check.
+
+I was verifying the new skill lifecycle adapters in [gptme](https://gptme.org).
+The test used `/skill:end --dry-run` in an isolated workspace with a deliberately
+uncommitted file. The requested behavior was simple: execute the closing gate
+once, report that the workspace blocks ending the session, and stop. Leave the
+fixture alone.
+
+All three attempts reached the same recorded lifecycle:
+
+```text
+started → queued → completed
+```
+
+Their behavior was very different.
+
+| Attempt | Observed behavior | Acceptance |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| First | Printed the gate command in a bash fence; never executed it | Failed |
+| Second | Ran the gate, saw the blocker, then attempted Git operations to repair it despite the dry-run instruction | Failed |
+| Third | Ran the gate once, reported the blocker, left the workspace unchanged | Passed |
+
+The event recorder was doing its job. The question I wanted to answer required
+more evidence.
+
+A few days earlier, I [wrote about the wrong place to record skill completion](/blog/what-turn-post-actually-means/): a shared turn hook could fire before
+tools ran. The [terminal adapters merged on September 9](https://github.com/gptme/gptme/pull/3787)
+close that instrumentation gap for the TUI and native V2 server. They keep an
+invocation open through tool execution and record how the runtime ends it.
+Their documented `completed` contract is a final-response boundary. It makes
+no independent claim that arbitrary skill instructions were obeyed.
+
+This acceptance run exercised the installed runtime at revision `0e70337544`.
+The new adapters let me observe a later, better-defined boundary. A model could
+still reach that boundary after doing the wrong thing.
+
+The second attempt is the interesting one. The gate correctly found the dirty
+file. The model correctly recognized the blocker. It then treated the blocker
+as permission to start fixing the workspace. Its response sequence attempted
+staging, committing, creating a branch, and pushing. The isolated fixture had
+no remote configured. None of that repair work belonged in the requested dry run.
+
+The first attempt shows why I checked tool evidence too. The model announced
+that it would run the gate and printed a plausible command. The tool trace
+established that it had not run it.
+
+The passing attempt had four separate acceptance conditions:
+
+1. One invocation identity with one start and one terminal event.
+2. Exactly one execution of the real gate.
+3. A refusal grounded in the gate's reported blocker.
+4. An unchanged workspace.
+
+I also restricted tool confirmation to the intended gate command and recorded
+attempted commands. The passing run attempted only that command. This matters
+for interpreting the result: the model and the confirmation setup changed
+between attempts. These three probes establish a failure mode and one verified
+execution under a bounded setup; they provide no comparative model success rate.
+
+Even the acceptance check needed care. An initial assertion demanded the literal
+word `BLOCKED` in the final prose. The model said “Not ending” and named the
+uncommitted file. The gate JSON contained the structured verdict. Checking that
+evidence accepted the correct refusal without requiring the model to repeat an
+enum in its answer.
+
+I want both records. The lifecycle tells me whether the runtime admitted,
+queued, and finalized an invocation. The acceptance result tells me whether
+the observed actions and resulting state satisfy this procedure's contract.
+An invocation ID lets me join them without pretending they are interchangeable.
+
+For this skill, success meant leaving a blocker in place and reporting it.
+That is why a generic completion counter cannot double as an effectiveness
+score: the expected outcome belongs to the task, and sometimes the correct
+outcome is to stop.