I'll design verification for this change following the writing-skills methodology. Let me first classify what kind of guidance this is, because that determines the test.

## Step 0: Classify the failure type

This guidance is a **positive recipe / contract** — it states what the dispatch IS (five ordered parts). Per "Match the Form to the Failure," recipes address a **wrong-shape output** failure, not a discipline failure. So the baseline failure I need to confirm is: *dispatches come out the wrong shape* (bloated, restate the brief instead of pointing to it, bury or omit the report path, omit cross-task interfaces).

Critically: **I have not yet watched this fail.** The Iron Law applies to edits. If a no-guidance control already produces well-shaped dispatches, there is nothing to fix and I should not ship the addition. The plan must be able to tell me "don't ship this."

## Step 1: Micro-test the wording first (fast gate)

Before any expensive pressure scenarios, I verify the wording itself.

**Method:** One API call per sample.
- **System prompt:** the realistic context — the *full SDD skill with this addition spliced in*, not the five lines in isolation. (Guidance behaves differently embedded than alone.)
- **User message:** a concrete task that tempts the failure — e.g. "Dispatch a subagent to implement task 3 (the auth-token refresh endpoint). Here is the plan, the brief for task 3, and the interfaces task 2 exposed." Provide real-ish materials so the agent is tempted to restate the brief inline rather than point to it.

**Variants (this is where the controls live):**

| Variant | Purpose |
|---|---|
| **A. No-guidance control** | Same skill *without* the addition. If A already produces good dispatches → STOP, don't ship. This is the mandatory baseline. |
| **B. The proposed addition** | The teammate's draft as written. |
| **C. Structural alternative** | The same five parts as a REQUIRED fill-in template/slot list, not prose. Tests whether prose-recipe vs. structural-slot matters for the omission failures. |

**Sample size:** 5+ reps per variant (single samples lie). So 15+ calls minimum for the micro-test round. Same task across variants so differences are attributable to wording.

## Step 2: Scoring

I score each dispatch on observable, per-part criteria — not a global "good/bad." For each rep:

1. **Brief framing** — Does it cite the brief *path* and frame it as the requirements ("read this first")? Or does it inline/restate the brief's contents? *(restating = fail; this is the core wrong-shape risk)*
2. **Report-file path present** — binary.
3. **Cross-task interfaces included** — present when the scenario has upstream interfaces; correctly absent when there are none.
4. **Ambiguity resolution stated** — present when the scenario seeds an ambiguity.
5. **Placement/where-it-fits line** — binary.
6. **Bloat** — word count, and presence of restated spec content the brief already holds.

**Manual reading is required.** I read every flagged match by hand. Template echoes (the agent quoting "read this first" back at me) and quoted counter-examples masquerade as hits; automated keyword counts overstate both success and failure. I may *also* score programmatically to triage, but the manual read is authoritative.

**Variance is a metric.** I record how much the five reps of variant B diverge in shape. If all five converge on the same five-part structure, the wording is binding. If they produce five different interpretations, the recipe isn't landing — tighten the form (likely move toward variant C's structural slots) before adding words.

## Step 3: Acceptance criteria

Ship the addition only if **all** hold:

1. **Control fails:** Variant A exhibits the target failures (restated briefs, missing report path, omitted interfaces) in a clear majority of reps. *If A passes, abort — there's no problem to solve.*
2. **Guidance fixes it:** The chosen variant (B or C) produces correctly-shaped dispatches on **≥ 4 of 5** reps for every scored part.
3. **No regression on bloat:** The fixed variant's dispatches are not *longer* / more spec-restating than control. (Recipes can backfire into bloat; I check this explicitly.)
4. **Low variance:** The five reps converge on the same shape. High variance = not binding = revise.
5. **Conditional parts behave conditionally:** I run at least one scenario *without* upstream interfaces and *without* ambiguity, and confirm the agent omits parts 3 and 4 rather than inventing them. (The draft lists them unconditionally; if agents fabricate interfaces to fill the slot, I rewrite those parts as conditionals keyed to an observable predicate — "if earlier tasks exposed interfaces…".)

## Step 4: Only then, the full scenario (if this skill carries discipline weight)

The micro-test gates the wording. If the SDD dispatch step also enforces *discipline* (e.g., agents skip writing a proper dispatch under time pressure), I add a small number of full pressure-scenario runs (time + sunk-cost) as the final gate — but for a pure shaping change, the micro-test rounds above are the substantive verification.

## Summary

| Phase | Samples | Control | Gate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micro-test | 5+/variant × 3 variants = 15+ | A: no-guidance (mandatory) | Control fails; chosen variant ≥4/5 per part; no bloat regression; low variance |
| Conditional check | ~5, no interfaces/ambiguity | — | Parts 3 & 4 correctly omitted, not fabricated |
| Pressure scenario | only if discipline is involved | no-skill baseline | Compliance under pressure |

The plan's most important property: it can return **"don't ship."** If the no-guidance control already produces well-shaped dispatches, I delete the addition rather than deploy documentation no one needs.