milestone-closelisted

# Skill — Milestone-close checkpoint > The checkpoint with the longest memory and the least sympathy. Its question is not *"was the work > done well?"* — two earlier checkpoints already asked that — but *"is each clause of this criterion > **demonstrated**, from the merged tree, by someone re-deriving it rather than being shown it?"* > _(Part of the `checkpoints` ritual pack — see [`../../README.md`](../../README.md) for the verdict > vocabulary in full and for what this pack cannot enforce.)_ ## When to use it Before a milestone, epic, or release is marked done — after its work has merged, and in a context that implemented none of it. **A milestone is never self-certified**: the session that built it is the one context that cannot supply this verdict. ## The pass 1. **Run the forward-reference sweep — before grading anything else.** Search the doctrine and the workspace's own memory for this milestone's number. _Moved to the front of the pass, and the reason is a measurement rather than a preference. On the workspace that authored this pack the promised-but-unowned class has recurred **three times**, twice naming the same milestone — and every one was found by a human reading sideways, never by this step, because a close that grades the row first has already formed its verdict by the time it gets here. This is the one check that finds obligations **the criterion itself does not list**, so a close graded only against the row cannot see them. Run it