Objective: To evaluate the clinical validity of the critical view of quality (CVQ) as a measure of lymphadenectomy quality in minimally invasive distal gastrectomy and to develop a computer vision model for automated CVQ assessment. Background: Objective intraoperative assessment of lymphadenectomy quality in gastric cancer surgery remains limited, relying largely on postoperative surrogate markers such as lymph node yield. Methods: This retrospective study included 260 patients who underwent la