Acceptance criteria

What it is

Acceptance criteria are a checklist written into a task before an agent starts coding. Each line states one condition the finished work must meet. An agent reads the list to know what to build; a reviewer reads the same list to know what to check.

Why it matters to you

A task with no acceptance criteria gets judged by guesswork. A task with a clear checklist gives the agent, and whoever checks the result, one shared answer to the question "is this done?" Writing this list well is the highest-leverage skill for anyone filing work they can't code themselves.

How it works in CodeHerder

CodeHerder stores acceptance criteria as a real checklist field, written as ticked or unticked lines. A story can't leave the plan stage until the field is filled, and every line has to be ticked before the task can reach merge or done. Ticking a line is how a criterion gets signed off.

• Verification →
• Writing tasks an agent can build →

What people get wrong

A vague line, such as "the feature works," reads like a criterion but checks nothing. Write each line so it could be marked wrong: a specific behavior, a specific error message, a specific outcome. An item that could pass without solving the real problem isn't doing its job.