Status: Accepted Date: 2026-05-20

Agents rationalise skipping quality checks (“tests are already comprehensive”, “this is too simple to need design”). Without a visible, named stop condition, agents proceed through gates silently. Prose instructions like “make sure to review” are ignored under time pressure.

Every skill that has a critical transition point must include a > **HARD GATE** blockquote immediately before that transition. The blockquote names the condition that must be true before proceeding and uses a → verify: shell command to make it testable.

> **HARD GATE** — Do not proceed until all tests pass.
>
> → verify: `npm test 2>&1 | tail -5`

Skipping a HARD GATE requires the agent to name the rationalisation explicitly in STATE.md.

• Agents cannot silently skip gates — the skip must be logged.
• Skills are slightly longer (gate blockquotes add 3–5 lines each).
• Hard gates are scannable at a glance — reviewers can audit gate coverage in audit-code.
• The superpowers benchmark feature passes on this criterion.