Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance criteria in Jig follow the Structured Acceptance Protocol (SAP): every criterion that can be checked mechanically is defined with enough information that a machine can grade it without human judgment.

The structured format

Each criterion has five required fields:

Field	Description	Example
description	Human-readable summary	”Auth client file exists”
subject	What to check	src/auth/client.ts
property	What about it	file_exists
expected	The right answer	true
method	How to verify	{ type: "shell", command: "test -f src/auth/client.ts", expect: "exit 0" }

Property types

Property	Checks
file_exists	Whether a file exists at the subject path
contains_string	Whether the subject contains the expected string
not_contains	Whether the subject does not contain the expected string
http_status	Whether a URL returns the expected HTTP status code
output_matches	Whether a command’s output matches the expected pattern
column_exists	Whether a database table contains the expected column
count_gte	Whether a count is greater than or equal to expected
schema_matches	Whether a schema matches the expected structure

Method types

Method	How it runs
shell	Executes a shell command; checks exit code and output
sql	Runs a SQL query against the database
http	Makes an HTTP request; checks status and response body
playwright	Runs Playwright browser automation steps

Example

A task for creating an auth client might have these criteria:

criteria:
  - description: "Auth client module exists"
    subject: "src/auth/client.ts"
    property: file_exists
    expected: "true"
    method:
      type: shell
      command: "test -f src/auth/client.ts && echo exists"
      expect: "exists"

  - description: "Auth client exports createClient function"
    subject: "src/auth/client.ts"
    property: contains_string
    expected: "export function createClient"
    method:
      type: shell
      command: "grep 'export function createClient' src/auth/client.ts"
      expect: "export function createClient"

  - description: "Health endpoint returns 200"
    subject: "https://staging.example.com/api/health"
    property: http_status
    expected: "200"
    method:
      type: http
      command: "https://staging.example.com/api/health"
      expect: "200"
    environment: staging

Environment scoping

Each criterion can be scoped to an environment:

Environment	When it runs	Typical checks
local (default)	jig test <task>	File existence, typecheck, unit tests
staging	jig test <task> --staging	Browser tests, API integration, E2E
production	jig test <task> --production	Health checks, smoke tests, migration verification

A task with only local criteria reaches local-verified when they pass. A task with production criteria only reaches passed when those also pass after deployment.

Managing criteria

Add, list, and remove criteria from the CLI:

# Add a criterion interactively
jig criteria add <task>

# Add with inline JSON
jig criteria add <task> --json '{"description": "...", "subject": "...", "property": "file_exists", "expected": "true", "method": {"type": "shell", "command": "test -f src/foo.ts", "expect": "exit 0"}}'

# List all criteria for a task
jig criteria list <task>

# Remove a criterion by ID
jig criteria remove <task> <criterion-id>

Running criteria

Execute all structured criteria for a task:

# Run local criteria
jig test <task>

# Run staging criteria
jig test <task> --staging

# Run production criteria
jig test <task> --production

# Run all environments
jig test <task> --all

# Batch run staging criteria for all eligible tasks
jig test --staging --wave

Each criterion is graded independently. The task passes only if every criterion in the targeted environment passes.

Plain English criteria

Not everything is mechanically verifiable. For items requiring human judgment — “the UI feels responsive,” “the error message is helpful” — use plain English acceptance criteria in the task’s acceptance_criteria array. These are reviewed by humans, not machines.

The rule of thumb: if you can write a shell command to check it, make it a structured criterion. If you cannot, write it in plain English.

CLI commands

See CLI Reference for full details on criteria add, criteria list, criteria remove, and test.