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Excellent 0.1.0 is on npm.Read the changelog

Independent verification of AI-agent work

Your agent says it's done. Excellent finds out, and shows you how it knows.

~/ops · zsh
~/opsexcellent run --agent finance --task 2814
attempt 1 · correlationId 6f1c2a9e
task Pay invoice INV-20931, $4,820.00
agent done: payment ready to send
checks read the bank API and the ledger
✓ amount-matches-invoice PASS $4,820.00
✓ payee-on-approved-list PASS
✓ within-approval-limit PASS under $5,000
✓ no-duplicate-payment PASS
Verified · receipt kept on this machine
~/ops
Runs on your machineModel calls go to your provider
Receipt attempt 1Verified

Pay invoice INV-20931

financetask 28144 of 4 checks passed

Every check held. The receipt binds the task, the checks, the evidence and the verdict, and stays on this machine.

  • amount-matches-invoice$4,820.00
  • payee-on-approved-listPass
  • within-approval-limitPass
  • no-duplicate-paymentNone found

Why Excellent goes to look, and one refund it checked

AI agents can produce more work than people can carefully review. Asking another model whether the first one did a good job does not close that gap.

So Excellent treats every “done” as a claim and goes to look. The repo, the tests, the build and the browser can each tell us something real about the result. What holds up leaves a receipt. What does not goes back to the agent with the reason. Software comes first because it leaves unusually good evidence.

Receipt · Attempt 2Verified

Refund order 58213

supporttask 3107correlationId 0b7d93c4

  • Agent version
  • Model
  • Instructions
  • Tools
  • Repo state
  • Task

Every attempt starts on the record, with its agent, model, task and repo captured before the work begins.

Claim · checks read the order and the payment API

done: refund ready, $48.00

  • order-foundPass
  • refund-to-original-methodPass
  • amount-matches-items$48.00
  • within-refund-windowPass

The check reads where the work landed, the order and the payment API, not the agent's report.

How checks decide

History

Attempt 1Returnedamount-matches-items: expected $48.00, observed $96.00
Attempt 2VerifiedLinks back to attempt 1. Both stay on the record.

Wrong work comes back with the reason: the unmet check, what was expected and what was observed.

This receipt

Signed: Ed25519 over a canonical hashAppend-onlyKept in ~/.excellent

Accepted work leaves a receipt, signed, append-only and kept on your machine.

Open a real receipt

Opened by

Claude Code, through MCP ~/.claude.json

Excellent lives inside the agent you already use, as one MCP entry in each agent's own config.

Every agent and its config file
Team · early access

Compare agent setups on held-out work

How promotion works

Open a real receipt and read every field, with what it binds

This is the sample receipt from the Excellent docs: genuine output of the receipt pipeline, with a genuine signature, made from synthetic release evidence. Its verdict is FAIL. Point at any line to see what it binds.

sample-receipt.jsonReal, from the docs
  1. {
  2. "schemaVersion": 1,
  3. "serviceVersion": "2026-08-16.v1",
  4. "receipt": {
  5. "schemaVersion": 1,
  6. "id": "receipt_v0_release_4df3dd89b3e4d0a0",
  7. "tenantId": "tenant_v0_release",
  8. "runId": "run_v0_release_e44941560b9f",
  9. "parentReceiptId": null,
  10. "status": "FAIL",
  11. "checkResultIds": ["G00:PASS", "G01:FAILING", … 13 more],
  12. "evidenceHashes": ["sha256:437284d4…", … 4 more],
  13. "policyVersionRefs": ["policy_v0_release@2026.08"],
  14. "engineVersion": "v0-release@1",
  15. "issuedAt": "2026-09-16T12:37:22.257Z",
  16. "signature": { "algorithm": "ed25519", … 2 more }
  17. },
  18. "binding": {
  19. "predicate": "excellent.verification.agent-work-receipt.v1",
  20. "workItemId": "work_cand_9b618ed027764ef4bccf2a64_df-001",
  21. "workSnapshotId": "wsnap_work_cand_9b618ed027764ef4bccf2a64_df-001",
  22. "attemptId": "promo_23247c38c4574c96893c2036:release",
  23. "contractId": "verification-api/2026-08-16.v1",
  24. "evidenceSnapshotId": "evsnap_v0_release_4df3dd89b3e4d0a0",
  25. … 2 more fields
  26. "evaluatorRefs": ["evaluator:evidence-integrity", … 2 more],
  27. … 8 more fields
  28. "subject": { "treeHash": "git-tree:fcd3f669…", … 6 more },
  29. … 22 more fields
  30. },
  31. "payloadHash": "sha256:ea48ebc0c…",
  32. "signature": { "algorithm": "ed25519", "value": "ed25519:COSk…", … 1 more },
  33. "publicVerification": { "receiptId": "receipt_v0_rel…", … 8 more }
  34. }
Folded where a value runs long or the docs do not explain a field. Every field is in the viewer below.
Receipt…4df3dd89b3e4d0a0
Issued2026-09-16
SignedEd25519
VerdictFail
Looking atreceipt.status
On the receiptline 10

What it binds

One of the six verification states (PASS, MISMATCH, FAIL, UNKNOWN, NOT_RUN, PENDING). Here: FAIL.

Value

"FAIL"

What it binds is the docs’ own text, from “What each part is for”. A field the docs do not explain says so.

Point at a line, tap it, or tab to the receipt and use ↑ ↓.

Real receipt

Real receipt from the Excellent docs. Synthetic release evidence, genuine signature. Verdict: FAIL. A valid signature proves the receipt was not altered. It does not make the verdict good. Source

Open every field in the receipt viewerReal receipt · all fields
release-receipt.jsonReal, from the docs
  1. {
  2. "schemaVersion": 1,
  3. "serviceVersion": "2026-08-16.v1",
  4. "receipt": {
  5. "schemaVersion": 1,
  6. "id": "receipt_v0_release_4df3dd89b3e4d0a0",
  7. "tenantId": "tenant_v0_release",
  8. "runId": "run_v0_release_e44941560b9f",
  9. "parentReceiptId": null,
  10. "status": "FAIL",
  11. "checkResultIds": [
  12. "G00:PASS",
  13. "G01:FAILING",
  14. "G02:FAILING",
  15. "G03:PASS",
  16. "G04:PASS",
  17. "G05:PASS",
  18. "G06:PASS",
  19. "G07:PASS",
  20. "G08:PASS",
  21. "G09:RUNNING",
  22. "G10:PASS",
  23. "G11:PASS",
  24. "G12:BLOCKED_EXTERNAL",
  25. "G13:FAILING",
  26. "G14:PASS"
  27. ],
  28. "evidenceHashes": [ … ],5 items
  29. "policyVersionRefs": [ … ],1 item
  30. "engineVersion": "v0-release@1",
  31. "issuedAt": "2026-09-16T12:37:22.257Z",
  32. "signature": { … }3 fields
  33. },
  34. "binding": { … },40 fields
  35. "payloadHash": "sha256:ea48ebc0c36dced1cefd90ae750220594dd2e3124cc67c6ecb9ac524a2b55ca9",
  36. "signature": { … },3 fields
  37. "publicVerification": { … }9 fields
  38. }
Folded lines open with a click or EnterEvery field as published
Receipt…4df3dd89b3e4d0a0
Issued2026-09-16
SignedEd25519
VerdictFail

Fifteen checks: ten pass, three failing, one running, one blocked outside the run. One unresolved check sinks the set, so the receipt says FAIL.

Looking atreceipt.status
On the receiptline 10

What it binds

One of the six verification states (PASS, MISMATCH, FAIL, UNKNOWN, NOT_RUN, PENDING). Here: FAIL.

Value

"FAIL"

See also

What it binds is the docs’ own text, from “What each part is for”. A field the docs do not explain says so.

Point at a line, tap it, or tab to the receipt and use ↑ ↓. Enter opens a folded line.

Questions people ask first

What is Excellent?

A verification system for agentic tasks. It runs beside the agent you already use, checks the work with independent evidence, and leaves a receipt you can inspect later.

Is Excellent another agent?

No. Your agent does the work. Excellent starts the attempt, records what happened, checks the result against your repo and tools, and compares different ways of running it.

Which agents does it work with?

The one you already use: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Cline, Gemini, OpenCode, or any other agent that does work you can check. Excellent observes the run instead of replacing it.

What does it actually check?

Whatever can prove the task: the git tree, tests, lint, the build, browser behavior, API responses, CI, and the deployment. When a check cannot run, Excellent says so instead of implying a pass.

What happens when the agent is wrong?

The attempt is returned with the exact failure, expected behavior and observed behavior, and sent back to the agent. The original context and the retry history are kept on the receipt.

Does my code leave my machine?

None of it reaches us. Excellent keeps your repository, attempts, evidence, and receipts in a local database on your machine, and sends none of it to Excellent. Model calls are the exception worth naming: they go from your machine to the provider you chose, on your own account, the same traffic your agent already makes. The security page has both paths in full.

Is it really free?

Yes, for individuals. You install it and run it on your own machine, with no seats to buy and nothing metered for local verification. Team features are in early access; contact us to join.

Has this made your agent better yet?

We are building Excellent with Excellent, and the results page shows where that stands.

More answers in the docs

Check your agent's next task

Paste one line into your terminal to install Excellent, then run a task and read what it found.

curl -fsSL https://excellent.so/install.sh | sh
Read the quickstart