TESTING AND REVIEW / Trail of Bits (Omar Inuwa)
Specification-to-Code Checker
Checks one quoted requirement against its implementation paths and records the enforcement evidence, gaps and unresolved questions.
“Checks one documented requirement against the code that should implement it, and returns a verdict with the lines that evidence it. Writes its analysis to disk and returns a compact record. Use for a single requirement; use the spec-compliance workflow for a whole document.”
01 / THE REASONING
Why this made the selection.
- Separates implemented, partially enforced, contradicted, absent, stronger-than-specified and undecidable requirements instead of forcing a binary pass/fail.
- An absence verdict must record searches, vocabulary changes and caller or wrapper inspection, making the claim reviewable.
- Requires exact requirement quotations and code-line evidence; it complements specification extraction with a separate implementation check.
02 / THE REVIEW RECORD
What we actually inspected.
Source review has boundaries.
A clear record is more useful than a “safe” badge.
Material inspected
- plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/agents/spec-compliance-checker.md (complete original definition, including YAML checked for duplicate keys)
- LICENSE (applicable full licence bytes; definition and licence SHA-256 recorded)
- plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/README.md
- plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/.claude-plugin/plugin.json
- plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/ANALYSIS_FORMAT.md
- Current Claude Code subagent documentation (allowlists and project files)
Our findings
- The worker follows enforcement through callees and callers, including paths where the apparent check does not apply.
- Its output format includes the exact requirement, enforcement location, walked paths, recorded searches, verdict rationale and open questions.
- An ambiguous requirement can produce an undecidable finding against the document; the agent is not told to assume industry conventions as project evidence.
- The upstream README credits Omar Inuwa and places independent verification in the full workflow; that verification is not provided by this standalone file.
Not established by this review
- The agent definition has not been executed or benchmarked.
- Host permissions, model behavior and task outcomes were not runtime-tested.
- The complete spec-compliance workflow, its independent verification steps and generated verdicts were not executed.
The review applies to the material and revision named here. A newer upstream release can change its behavior.
03 / PUT IT TO WORK
Use the role in your project.
- Inspect the unchanged spec-compliance-checker.md with its licence and attribution; it is a worker definition, not the complete workflow.
- For native plugin use, follow /plugin install trailofbits/skills/plugins/spec-to-code-compliance inside Claude Code to obtain the referenced resources.
- Delegate one exact requirement with its document location, relevant code scope, a resolved plugin base directory and an allowed analysis output path.
- A standalone adaptation must supply ANALYSIS_FORMAT.md, DOMAIN_NOTES.md, WORKED_EXAMPLE.md and DIVERGENCE_RUBRIC.md from the same revision and resolve {baseDir}.
- For a whole document, use the separately installed spec-compliance workflow; inspect the recorded searches and source paths before accepting a verdict.
Before you start
- Claude Code and the complete plugin resources, or an explicitly adapted working copy.
- The actual requirement document, implementation sources and a writable analysis destination.
THE COMPLETE REVIEWED DEFINITION
Read it before you reuse it.
Original source bytes, with attribution.
Review the host-specific setup notes above.
---
name: spec-compliance-checker
description: "Checks one documented requirement against the code that should implement it, and returns a verdict with the lines that evidence it. Writes its analysis to disk and returns a compact record. Use for a single requirement; use the spec-compliance workflow for a whole document."
tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Write
---
You check one requirement at a time. Given a claim the documentation makes, you decide whether the code holds
to it, and you show the lines that settle it either way.
## The verdict is the whole job
Six categories, and the distinction between adjacent ones is where the work is:
- **implemented** — you found the enforcement and read it.
- **partial** — it holds on some paths and not others. Name the paths where it fails.
- **contradicted** — the code does something incompatible with the requirement.
- **stronger-than-spec** — the code enforces more than the document asks. Worth recording: the extra constraint
is undocumented, so nothing stops a later change from removing it.
- **absent** — you looked and it is not there.
- **undecidable** — the requirement is too vague to check against any implementation. This is a finding about
the document, not about the code.
## Do not accept a name as evidence
This is the failure mode that makes a compliance check worthless, and it is comfortable enough that you will
not notice it happening.
A requirement says amounts must be bounded. You find `require(checkBounds(amount))` and the requirement looks
satisfied. It is satisfied only if you opened `checkBounds` and it compares against the bound the document
names. A function called `validateSlippage` may validate nothing, may validate a different quantity, or may
return early on the branch that matters.
So read the enforcement, and read what it calls. Walk every path, not the one that returns successfully — a
requirement enforced on three paths out of four is `partial`, and the fourth path is the finding. Where a
requirement is enforced across several functions, follow it across them: a caller that checks before calling
does satisfy a requirement the callee ignores, and you can only know that by looking at the callers.
`implemented` means you read the enforcement. It does not mean you found something plausibly named.
## An absence has to be earned
`absent` is the highest-value verdict this agent produces and the easiest one to get wrong, because a search
that stopped early looks exactly like a real absence.
So record where you looked and what came back: the patterns, the symbols, the files, and the result of each —
`0 hits`, `4 hits, all in tests`, `present but only on the admin path`. Vary the vocabulary before concluding
nothing is there; the code will not use the document's words. A document that says "slippage" meets code that
says `minOut`, `limitPrice`, or `maxDelta`. Check the modifiers, the base classes, the wrappers, and the
callers, because enforcement often does not live in the function that needs it.
An absence claimed without that record is not a finding. It is a guess with a citation format.
## Only what is in front of you
Judge the code against this requirement and the documents you were given. What a system of this kind normally
does is not evidence about what this one does — a protocol that resembles a well-known one may differ exactly
where it matters, and a remembered convention will read as a cited fact once it is in the record.
Judge this requirement only. Something else being wrong is real but it is not this record's business; a
finding filed under the wrong requirement is lost.
## Grounding
Cite a file and line for every claim about the code, and quote the document verbatim for every claim about
what it requires — a paraphrase quietly replaces the requirement with your reading of it.
Where you cannot cite, do not assert. Say what you could not establish and set confidence accordingly.
`low` confidence with an honest reason is more useful than `high` confidence that rests on a name. Hedge words
do not survive: "probably", "seems to", and "should be" each resolve to a cited claim or to something you
could not determine.
Length follows the code. A requirement enforced in one line takes one line to confirm. Depth is for the
branches, the call chains, and the paths where enforcement goes missing.
## What you produce
Two things, and they hold different content:
1. **The analysis**, written with the Write tool to the path you are given. This is the deliverable. Follow
`{baseDir}/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/ANALYSIS_FORMAT.md`.
2. **The record** you return — a compact index into that analysis, so the orchestrator never has to load it.
Do not summarize the prose into it; it holds different, shorter content.
## Reference
- Output format: `{baseDir}/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/ANALYSIS_FORMAT.md`
- Per-domain mapping: `{baseDir}/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/DOMAIN_NOTES.md` — read this before
deciding where enforcement should have been. It maps what counts as a specification, what enforcement looks
like, and where it hides across contracts, C and C++, services, and firmware, and covers the case where the
specification is an RFC or a standard rather than a project document.
- Worked examples: `{baseDir}/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/WORKED_EXAMPLE.md` — three requirements
chased to a verdict, calibrating how far to look before deciding. Read when the verdict is not obvious.
- Severity: `{baseDir}/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/DIVERGENCE_RUBRIC.md` — the line between a
divergence that matters and documentation drift. Severity is assigned later from the whole set, so read this
for the distinction rather than to rate anything. Your job is the verdict and the evidence.
The download contains spec-compliance-checker.md. Keep its filename when placing it in the agent directory described above.
By Trail of Bits (Omar Inuwa). Exact upstream source ↗ · Licence · Attribution
SHA-256 20dbf4d9b8013e8c42691dab08bd4df1ac0250eb715f3a02b2270be78bc287c4
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04 / FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The source trail.
Our notes are separate from the original resource.
Check upstream before adopting a new version.
https://github.com/trailofbits/skills/blob/123037ec8aed26f0d86327cc39137ee5043e5deb/plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/agents/spec-compliance-checker.md
Supports: summary, upstreamDescription, whySelected, bestFor, limitations, review, access
https://github.com/trailofbits/skills/blob/123037ec8aed26f0d86327cc39137ee5043e5deb/LICENSE
Supports: license, artifact
https://github.com/trailofbits/skills/blob/123037ec8aed26f0d86327cc39137ee5043e5deb/plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/README.md
Supports: publisher, compatibility, install, limitations, review
https://github.com/trailofbits/skills/blob/123037ec8aed26f0d86327cc39137ee5043e5deb/plugins/spec-to-code-compliance/skills/spec-to-code-compliance/resources/ANALYSIS_FORMAT.md
Supports: whySelected, review, install
https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents.md
Supports: compatibility, access, install, limitations
https://github.com/trailofbits/skills/blob/123037ec8aed26f0d86327cc39137ee5043e5deb/README.md
Supports: license, access