ALEF-PAT-004

verifier-source-mismatch

verify × reads-wrong-state-file · severity 7 · confidence 0.88 · ref: auditor_must_not_match_own_source (ALEF)

A verifier agent declares pass/fail based on State File A, while the actual decisions are made against State File B. The verifier becomes decorative — never catches real failures.

diagnosed in the wild

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healed by ALEF

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cited in posts

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observable signature

{
  "code_regex": "readFile.*.json)s*[\n;].*ifs*(.*pass|verify.*(success|ok)s*===?s*true",
  "structural_signal": "verifier checks file X but the workflow that writes the verdict writes to file Y",
  "behavioral_signal": "verifier reports pass for 30+ runs while downstream consumers report failures"
}

fix archetypes

re-query-at-verify-timecost: small
late-tail verifier MUST re-query ground truth; do not trust intermediate flags
single-canonical-status-linecost: tiny
emit one final canonical status at exit; downstream reads only that

cite as

# In a PR description / issue / RFC:
fixes pattern ALEF-PAT-004 (verifier-source-mismatch)
ref: https://n50.io/patterns/004

# Machine query:
GET https://n50.io/api/patterns/004

# Scan your repo for this pattern:
npx @alef-prime/audit-agent-system . --pattern=004