Two verification chains from the same task that stay identical for three steps and then part company. Flip the scenario to 'wrong' and only the external chain turns rose and blocks — the self-review chain is byte-for-byte unchanged and still accepts.
Who is allowed to say the work is done.
Self-review
the agent checks its own work
the task
what was asked
the agent
one context window
the output
a diff, an answer, a plan
the same agent reads it
same weights, same window
it looks correct
generated, not measured
accepted
on the strength of a sentence
a second opinion from the same source
drawn from the same context that produced the output
External check
something outside decides
the task
what was asked
the agent
one context window
the output
a diff, an answer, a plan
a test runs
it never reads the output
pass or fail
the suite came back green
accepted
on the strength of a signal
evidence the agent cannot write
it ran, and it came back green