Bugs Are Innocent Until Reproduced: Building Verdict, an Evidence-First Agent Harness

Description and use

Verdict transforms a GitHub issue into a structured investigation, logging every reproduction attempt and requiring evidence before proposing a patch.

Problem

Flaky bug reports often end as "cannot reproduce" or patches that cannot be verified, making it hard to confirm fixes.

Outcome

Verdict produced a reproducible record for TrueForge issue #417, demonstrating that the bug could be reliably reproduced under a specific condition and providing a clear regression plan.

Workflow

• 1. Create a GitHub issue for the bug.
• 2. Verdict’s Hunter searches approved conditions and runs the command under budgeted constraints, logging all outcomes.
• 3. Verdict’s Surgeon narrows the reproduced condition to the minimal suspect range based on evidence.
• 4. Verdict’s Insurance converts the reproduction into a regression plan and drafts a pull request only after maintainer approval.
• 5. Maintainer reviews the evidence and PR, then merges if satisfied.

Evidence

Verdict turns a GitHub issue into a bounded investigation. It runs an approved command repeatedly under approved conditions, keeps every observation and refuses to claim a reproduction unless the evidence crosses a deterministic threshold.

Source

Verdict reproduced TrueForge issue #417, where snapshot registration can wait indefinitely when an upstream request never resolves.

Source