The finish contract

The conditions majordomus finish evaluates before it accepts work, what each one proves, and what happens when one of them fails.

"Done" is the most expensive word in AI-assisted work, because it is usually free to say. A worker that has finished and a worker that believes it has finished produce the same sentence. The contract below is what replaces that sentence: conditions, written down before the work starts, evaluated afterwards by something that was not doing the work.

Turn any line off below and watch what the command does. It does not warn. It refuses, names the line, and tells you the command that reproduces the failure.

Try refusing it

Each row is one line of the contract. Switch one off and the verdict below changes — as it would in a terminal, for the same reason.

scope

policy key scope_respected

met

OK scope t-<id> — 1 touched file(s), all within scope
verification

policy key verification_ran

met

FAIL verification t-<id> — sh test/parse.sh — exit 1, <s>s [reproduce: sh test/parse.sh]
state

policy key state_updated

met

OK state t-<id> — exact (head <head>)
blockers

policy key no_open_blockers

met

OK blockers t-<id> — none open
note

policy key note_present

met

OK note t-<id> — <time>--main--<head>--<hash>.md

the verdict

all 5 met → finish: accepted, outcome completed, exit 0

any unmet → finish: refused, n unmet, exit 10

On refusal nothing is written: the task stays active, no outcome is set, and no completion note is filed. Each failing line is named, with the command that reproduces it.

On acceptance the outcome is recorded, the verification command and its exit code are appended to the ledger, and the note is filed under the completed records.

There is no flag that turns a refusal into a warning.

and if the work did not finish

completed
partial
blocked
no_match
failed

A closed vocabulary, not prose. no_match means the thing sought does not exist; failed means the work could not be done. They read alike in a transcript and are different facts.

What the transcript actually looks like

real output, from README.md

$ majordomus finish --outcome completed --verify-command 'sh test/parse.sh'
OK   blockers    t-<id> — none open
OK   note        t-<id> — <time>--main--<head>--<hash>.md
OK   scope       t-<id> — 1 touched file(s), all within scope
OK   state       t-<id> — exact (head <head>)
FAIL verification t-<id> — sh test/parse.sh — exit 1, <s>s  [reproduce: sh test/parse.sh]
finish: refused, 1 unmet

The finish contract

Try refusing it

What the transcript actually looks like

What is guaranteed here, and what proves it