verify-ui-change

Verify the change in the running app

You edited something a user can see. Nothing is proven until the real app has done it and something other than the DOM agrees.

This uses Reticle, which embeds a dev-only SDK in the user's running app and exposes it as reticle_* MCP tools. No screenshots, no browser download for the verify loop, no dev server of its own.

1. Are the tools here?

reticle_session({ action: "list" })

• A session comes back → go to step 2.
• Tools do not exist → Reticle is not installed. Ask the user first: init changes package.json, the lockfile and the build config. If they agree, run RETICLE_INSTALL_SOURCE=npx_skill npx @reticlehq/server@latest init, then keep going without the tools: fix every ⚠ it printed, start the project's own dev script in the background if nothing is serving the app, and open it with npx @reticlehq/server open <the url the dev server is serving>. Only once the app is running and connected, ask for the one thing you cannot do yourself: a client restart, so it picks up the MCP server. Stopping at the init command leaves the user with config files and an uninstrumented page. Full setup is in the reticle skill.
• Tools exist, list is empty → read next_step first if it is there: it asks the consent question for init, and names the zero-install lease when an app is running. Otherwise read the why field on the response. It distinguishes "no app running" from "an app is running that never dialled this daemon" from "a tab was here and closed", and each has a different fix. If no app is running, start the project's own dev script from package.json in the background yourself and tell the user in one line that it is running and how to stop it: never a second one, never a guessed command, never kill anything, and the permission prompt is your host's. If one IS running, the app is not the missing piece and the SDK is; do not send the user to start what they already started.

2. Name the consequence BEFORE you act

This is the whole method. An expectation written after you see the result can be talked into agreeing with whatever happened; one written before cannot.

reticle_look({ action: "page", sessionId, mode: "interactive" })   // controls only, with refs

reticle_act_and_wait({ sessionId, ref, action: "click", until: { kind: "allOf", predicates: [
  { kind: "net",     method: "POST", urlContains: "/api/...", status: 200 },
  { kind: "element", query: { testid: "..." } },
  { kind: "console", level: "error", absent: true },
]}})

Multi-step journey? Drive it in one call with reticle_act { steps: [...] }, then assert the outcome once. Do not act → snapshot → act → snapshot: it proves the same thing at several times the cost.

Verdicts come from reticle_act_and_wait, reticle_assert, and reticle_act { steps } when a step declares expect. A bare reticle_act, look, navigate and observe move or read the app and prove nothing. A drive that ends without a verdict has no result, however many calls it made.

3. Read the verdict honestly

verified	means	do
yes	the consequence you named happened	report it, with the evidence
no	it did not happen, or a channel contradicted the UI	a real finding: report it with because
unknown	Reticle drove the app and could not tell	not a pass. Say unknown and say why

On unknown / unsettled, re-assert rather than re-driving: reticle_assert({ predicate, since, timeout_ms: 8000 }) using the since from the act result. Re-driving repeats a side effect that already happened.

Never weaken a check to turn a verdict green. An assertion edited until it passes proves nothing.

4. Check what you did not touch

reticle_run({ tool: "reticle_verify", sessionId, args: { action: "coverage" } })   // { total, exercised, untouched }

If untouched still holds controls your change affects, the drive is unfinished. One call, and it is the cheapest guard against reporting a pass over the half you never opened.

5. Report

State what you drove, what the verdict was, and the evidence: the request and status, the state that changed, the app's own signal. If something failed, reticle_look({ action: "element", sessionId, ref }) on the failing element gives the file:line: put it in the report.

Then reticle_session({ action: "yield", mode: "waiting" }) so the human's panel stops reading "live".

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More detail, fetchable one page at a time: curl https://docs.reticle.sh/llms.txt for the index, then the single page you need (https://docs.reticle.sh/tools/act-and-wait.md, https://docs.reticle.sh/predicates.md, https://docs.reticle.sh/troubleshooting.md). If Reticle itself misbehaves, file it with reticle_session { action: "feedback" }: one call, then carry on.