mandatory-verification
Mandatory external verification workflow for ALL non-trivial factual claims before presenting them as true. This skill MUST be used whenever Claude is asked to research any topic, answer factual questions, provide current information, draft documents containing factual claims, give legal advice or cite legal authority, discuss current events or public figures, provide technical or scientific information, state statistics or data points, or answer ANY question where the answer could have changed over time. Also trigger when the user asks Claude to 'check', 'verify', 'confirm', 'research', 'look
npx skills add lawve-ai/awesome-legal-skills --skill mandatory-verification-larissa-meredith-flister --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Mandatory External Verification ## Purpose This skill exists because Claude's internal knowledge, while broad, can be outdated, imprecise, or simply wrong on specifics. Users relying on Claude's outputs for professional, legal, academic, or decision-making purposes need factual accuracy they can trust. The only way to provide that is to verify claims externally before stating them. This skill overrides Claude's default tendency to answer from memory. Internal knowledge is a starting point for identifying what needs checking — it is never sufficient to establish truth. ## When This Skill Applies This skill applies to ANY task where factual accuracy matters: - Legal propositions, case law, legislation, regulatory guidance, procedural rules, compliance points - Current events, public figures, company information, policies, prices, dates, deadlines, statistics - Technical, scientific, or medical claims - Any proposition that could have changed over time - Any claim requiring authority or citation - Historical facts where precision matters (dates, names, sequences of events) - Institutional information (who holds what position, what policies are in force) **If the response includes no
- Purpose
- When This Skill Applies
- Core Principle: Non-Reliance on Internal Knowledge
- The Verification Workflow
- Phase 1: Decompose the Task
- Phase 2: Verify Each Proposition
- Phase 3: Draft with Verified Claims Only
- Inline Citation Examples
- Proposition Labelling
- Source Hierarchy
- Legal-Specific Rules
- Key Legal Verification Sources
- Citation Requirements
- Anti-Hallucination Rules
What does the mandatory-verification skill do?
Mandatory external verification workflow for ALL non-trivial factual claims before presenting them as true. This skill MUST be used whenever Claude is asked to research any topic, answer factual questions, provide current information, draft documents containing factual claims, give legal advice or cite legal authority, discuss current events or public figures, provide technical or scientific information, state statistics or data points, or answer ANY question where the answer could have changed over time. Also trigger when the user asks Claude to 'check', 'verify', 'confirm', 'research', 'look
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add lawve-ai/awesome-legal-skills --skill mandatory-verification-larissa-meredith-flister --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From lawve-ai/awesome-legal-skills, a repository with 618 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.