GOV 13 REVIEW LOOPS AND COMPLETION DISCIPLINE

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Governance: Review Loops and Completion Discipline

Implemented is not complete.

Governed agent work should close the loop through review, evidence, and feedback incorporation before claiming completion.

Commentary: Separates first-pass output from trustworthy completion.

Core Principle

• GOV-13-REV-001 A first-pass implementation is an intermediate state, not a trustworthy completion signal.
• GOV-13-REV-002 Completion requires explicit review of the produced change and its evidence, not only confidence in the act of producing it.
• GOV-13-REV-003 Review loops should be designed to strengthen correctness, maintainability, and harness learning.

Commentary: Defines review as a required control loop, not optional polish.

Required Review Loop

• GOV-13-REV-004 Before claiming a governed work unit complete, the agent should perform a targeted self-review against intent, scope, diff quality, evidence quality, and residual risk.
• GOV-13-REV-005 The review should ask at minimum:
  • does the change satisfy the intended requirement or issue,
  • does the diff stay inside scope,
  • is the evidence direct enough,
  • are docs/spec/traceability updated where required,
  • what remains unverified, blocked, or deferred.
• GOV-13-REV-006 If the review reveals material weakness, the agent should continue the loop rather than claiming done and hoping later review catches it.

Commentary: Makes internal review explicit and prevents premature completion claims.

Feedback Incorporation

• GOV-13-REV-007 Human, automated, or agent review feedback should be incorporated as part of the same governed work loop until the active review scope is honestly resolved, re-scoped, or blocked.
• GOV-13-REV-008 Responding to feedback should include updating affected evidence, docs, and traceability when those artifacts are impacted.
• GOV-13-REV-009 Repeated feedback themes should be considered candidates for governance or harness promotion.

Commentary: Turns review comments into an execution loop and a governance learning loop.

Feedback Assimilation and Self-Improvement

• GOV-13-REV-010 When approved or edited feedback reveals a reusable lesson, the agent should compare the original draft with the approved or edited version and identify the concrete pattern of change.
• GOV-13-REV-011 That pattern should be translated into a short future rule, drafting rule, governance rule, or harness adjustment when the lesson is durable enough to matter again.
• GOV-13-REV-012 Material feedback lessons should be persisted to the relevant governed artifact before long posting phases, long continuation phases, or likely context-loss transitions when practical.
• GOV-13-REV-013 New learned rules should be checked against existing rules for contradiction, overlap, or duplication and then merged or reconciled instead of appended blindly.

Commentary: Makes review-driven learning explicit so approved edits improve the future system, not just the current artifact.

Completion Semantics

• GOV-13-REV-014 Completion claims should distinguish clearly between implemented, verified, reviewed, and released states rather than collapsing them into one vague "done".
• GOV-13-REV-015 A governed work unit is not complete if review, evidence, or follow-up handling is still materially open.
• GOV-13-REV-016 If confidence is partial, the claimed state should say so explicitly, for example blocked, partial, scoped-complete, or awaiting review.

Commentary: Improves handoff clarity and reduces false certainty in progress reporting.

Escalation and Stop Conditions

• GOV-13-REV-017 When repeated review/fix loops stop producing clear progress, the agent should escalate the blocker, ambiguity, or missing capability instead of performing aimless churn.
• GOV-13-REV-018 When judgment is required beyond the current governance and evidence, the agent should make the decision boundary visible instead of silently guessing.

Commentary: Prevents endless churn loops and forces explicit escalation boundaries.

Anti-Patterns

Avoid these failure modes:

• equating implementation with completion
• claiming done immediately after the first passing check
• leaving review comments or feedback themes unincorporated without explicit state change
• treating approved edits as one-off fixes with no learning loop when they reveal a reusable pattern
• adding duplicate learned rules without contradiction checking
• using a summary as a substitute for a real review loop
• moving on while material review debt remains hidden

Commentary: Names the output-first behaviors this rule is meant to correct.