I'll apply my writing-skills training here, which means I cannot skip the Iron Law—even though this is an *edit* to existing guidance.

## First: A Process Correction

The task asks me to (1) write the text and (2) describe a verification plan "before deploying." But my training is explicit:

> **The Iron Law (Same as TDD):** NO SKILL WITHOUT A FAILING TEST FIRST. This applies to NEW skills AND EDITS to existing skills.

> **RED: Write Failing Test (Baseline)** — Run pressure scenario with subagent WITHOUT the skill. Document exact behavior... you must see what agents naturally do before writing the skill.

So the correct ordering is RED **before** GREEN. I shouldn't hand you finished guidance text and *then* plan verification. The baseline test comes first and shapes what the text actually needs to say. I'll do the RED reasoning now, give you the text it justifies, and be honest that the text is provisional until tested.

Below is the best-faith GREEN draft, but read the caveat at the end.

---

## (1) Provisional text to add to the reviewer prompt template

I'm targeting the *specific* failure you reported—process narration ("First I read the diff, then I checked...") burying verdicts. The minimal fix addresses that, not hypothetical problems.

```markdown
## Report format (required structure)

Lead with verdicts. Controllers read top-down and stop when they have what they need.

1. **VERDICT line first.** Begin every report with one line:
   `VERDICT: PASS` / `VERDICT: FAIL` / `VERDICT: BLOCKED`
   Nothing precedes it. No preamble, no setup.

2. **Findings second**, each as a standalone item:
   `[BLOCKER|CONCERN|NOTE] <claim> — <evidence: file:line or quoted output>`
   Order by severity (blockers first).

3. **Process narration is forbidden in the report body.** Do not write
   "First I read the diff, then I checked X." The controller does not need
   your sequence of steps; they need your conclusions and the evidence for them.

   - ❌ "I started by reviewing the test file, then traced the call path,
     and after that I noticed the auth check was missing."
   - ✅ `BLOCKER: auth check missing on /admin route — server/routes.ts:88`

   If a step produced no finding, it does not appear in the report at all.

A verdict without at least one evidence-bearing finding is incomplete—
"PASS" alone is not a report.
```

Rationale, mapped to my training:
- **Lead with substance** = directly counters the buried-verdict symptom you named.
- **"Process narration is forbidden"** with a before/after pair = closing the loophole explicitly, not just stating the rule (per the bulletproofing guidance).
- **Evidence requirement** = pre-empts the likely overcorrection where an agent strips narration but also strips the file:line citations that made verdicts trustworthy.

---

## (2) Verification plan (this should run *before* I trust the text above)

This is RED-GREEN-REFACTOR for a discipline/format skill.

**RED — baseline (do this first, I have not yet):**
1. Take 3–5 real diffs (mix of clean, buggy, blocked).
2. Run the reviewer prompt *as it currently is* against each via subagents.
3. Capture verbatim how reports open and where verdicts land. Confirm the buried-verdict behavior actually reproduces, and note *which* phrasings dominate ("First I... then I..."). The text in section 1 should be edited to counter the phrasings I actually observe, not the ones I guessed.

**GREEN — with the edit:**
4. Add the guidance, rerun the *same* diffs.
5. Success criteria: verdict appears on line 1; no process-sequence narration in body; every verdict carries ≥1 file:line/output citation.

**REFACTOR — pressure & loopholes:**
6. Pressure tests: a sprawling diff (does it revert to narration to "show thoroughness"?), an ambiguous case (does it hedge instead of giving VERDICT: BLOCKED?), a trivially-clean diff (does it pad with narration?).
7. Watch for the overcorrection: verdicts so terse they lose evidence. If seen, tighten the evidence clause.
8. Log new rationalizations, add counters, re-run until stable.

**Deploy only after GREEN holds under the REFACTOR pressures.**

---

**Honest caveat:** Section (1) is a GREEN draft written before RED, which inverts the discipline. I produced it because you asked for the text, but I'd revise it after watching the actual baseline—the exact narration phrasings I observe should drive the exact counters I write.