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A finding is a problem an agent hit in the factory while working on an item, such as a flaky test or a wrong instruction. Agents record problems they hit in the factory so you can fix the cause before the next agent hits it. A problem in the agent’s own change is fixed, not recorded.

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Read them on the item page

The work item page lists its findings on the Findings tab. Each finding has exactly one category, and the tab groups them under these headings:
A work item page on its Findings tab, with one flaky-test finding and one tooling finding

The Findings tab groups each finding under its category.

Each row has three columns:
  • Finding: the one-sentence title, and the file and line it is about.
  • Rule it relates to: for a context finding, whether the instruction is wrong, broken or missing, and the quoted sentence.
  • Where: where the agent recorded it, such as “build session”.
The Context heading also names the repository the instructions came from, and its commit when the agent recorded one. An item with no findings shows No findings. Findings do not affect whether the work passes. No check, policy or merge gate reads them.

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Record one

An agent records one finding with outerlayer emit finding, or a batch from a JSON file with outerlayer emit findings. Each finding needs an id, a category, a title, a file and where it was recorded. The maintained reporting-findings skill tells agents when a problem is worth recording. outerlayer init installs it when you run init in a git repository.