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Write the Tests Before the Code, Then Review Them Like an Adversary
Why ACCORD pushes decisions left: tests written from the spec alone, an adversarial review before any production code exists, and three layers of protection that keep most checks off your attention.
This is the second part of the ACCORD story. Part one covers why a chain of dev-* skills wasn’t enough and why the contract moved into typed artifacts. This part covers what that buys you: decisions pushed as far left as they will go, three layers of protection, and what /dev actually does on a real ticket.
The cheapest place to fix a misunderstanding is before the tests go green, and the cheapest place to catch a weak test is before any production code exists.
Shift left: adversarial tests before code
The cheapest place to fix a misunderstanding is before implementation. The second-cheapest is before the tests go green. ACCORD tries to push decisions left along a chain (brief → spec → plan → tests → code → verify) so “that’s not what I meant” surfaces early, when fixing it costs minutes instead of a re-read of the whole PR.
