diff --git a/.claude/skills/verify/SKILL.md b/.claude/skills/verify/SKILL.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..994c5a96
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.claude/skills/verify/SKILL.md
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+---
+name: verify
+description: Build, launch, and drive a local Honcho stack to verify a change at its runtime surface (the /v3 HTTP API and the deriver queue). Use when verifying a diff or confirming a change works in the running app.
+---
+
+# Verifying changes in Honcho
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+Docker Compose is the preferred way to run the stack — `docker-compose.yml` at
+the repo root brings up Postgres (pgvector), Redis, the API server, and the
+deriver worker together. If Docker Compose isn't available, the stack can also
+run directly on the host (see Launch below); you'll need Postgres with pgvector
+and Redis reachable, plus a `.env` with connection strings and an LLM provider
+key for any flow that hits a model (deriver, dialectic, dreamer).
+
+## Launch
+
+First check whether the stack is already running via Docker Compose — that's
+the preferred setup, and reusing it beats starting a second one:
+
+```bash
+docker compose ps          # look for api / deriver / database / redis
+docker compose up -d       # start it if not
+```
+
+Without Docker, run the two processes directly (shared Postgres + Redis):
+
+```bash
+uv run fastapi dev src/main.py      # API server (default :8000)
+uv run python -m src.deriver        # deriver worker (queue consumer)
+```
+
+## Drive it
+
+Prefer driving through the `honcho-cli` skill; fall back to the SDKs
+(`sdks/python`, `sdks/typescript`), then raw REST against `/v3`, in that order
+when a method isn't available at the higher level. The `honcho-integration`
+skill covers how to use the SDKs.
+
+When a change updates endpoints or makes schema changes, verify across all
+three surfaces — CLI, SDKs, and REST — since they can drift independently.
+
+## Configuration
+
+Configuration is central to both driving the app and running tests: it's how
+API keys reach the server and how a config-related change gets exercised at
+all. Settings come from environment variables or files, with precedence
+env > `.env` > `config.toml` > defaults. To verify a configuration change,
+set the relevant option through one of these layers, restart the affected
+process, and observe the behavioral difference at the surface — the same
+mechanism lets you point provider base URLs, model choices, and timeouts at
+credentials and proxies you actually have.
+
+## Test suites
+
+Three test types matter here. All run in CI, but they're also runnable locally
+with whatever API keys and configuration you have — Honcho's config surface is
+large, so options like per-agent timeouts and provider base URLs can be pointed
+at your own keys/proxies to exercise a change:
+
+```bash
+# Unit tests (pytest; spins up its own infra via fixtures)
+uv run pytest tests/
+
+# Unified tests — step-based end-to-end flows defined in JSON
+# (config hierarchy, multi-turn interactions, LLM-as-judge assertions)
+uv run python -m tests.unified.run
+uv run python -m tests.unified.run --test-dir tests/unified/test_cases
+
+# Live LLM tests — real provider calls, for testing specific backends.
+# Needs LLM_ANTHROPIC_API_KEY / LLM_OPENAI_API_KEY / LLM_GEMINI_API_KEY and
+# LIVE_LLM_*_MODELS env vars; see tests/live_llm/README.md.
+uv run pytest tests/live_llm -n 0 --live-llm --no-header -q
+```