Overview › 9Verification › a.Checking externally

Checking externally

Check work against sound external signals. 2 optimizations.

i.

Feed back a sound external verifier's verdict; never the model's own critique

Run a check the model cannot fool on its output (compiler, tests, schema validation, execution, EXPLAIN on generated SQL, a solver) and feed the verdict back; a pass/fail verdict is enough, and resampling until the check accepts works about as well as detailed feedback.

Better qualityHigher costSlower

Tier 2 · reliability · changes control flow · any agent · 31 sources, 17 measured
ii.

Verify citations claim by claim for factual support

Extract claim-citation pairs deterministically, then check each: the link resolves, the source is relevant, and the source actually supports the claim.

Better qualityLower cost

Tier 3 · tuning · changes control flow, knowledge access · web research, retrieval agents · 8 sources, 5 measured

Try it for yourself

Paste this into Claude Code, or any coding agent, in your agent's repo to check it for these optimizations.

Read these agent optimizations (Verification: Checking externally), each with the signs that it applies:
- 9.a.i Feed back a sound external verifier's verdict; never the model's own critique: https://mahalsystems.ai/aot/optimizations/external-verifier-feedback.md
- 9.a.ii Verify citations claim by claim for factual support: https://mahalsystems.ai/aot/optimizations/verify-citations.md
Then check whether any of them applies to the agent in this repository. Look for each one's signs under "When it applies" in its code, prompts and tools, and in any traces or eval results you can find. Tell me which apply, strongest first, with what you found for each. Don't change anything yet.

Checking externally

Feed back a sound external verifier's verdict; never the model's own critique

Verify citations claim by claim for factual support

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