Boss-dispatched fieldtest at milestone close. Agent authored 4 .ail
fixtures (factorial smoke + Show user-ADT + user-class Describe with
two instances + two-module workspace) from DESIGN.md + form_a.md only
(no compiler-source reads, no spec-of-milestone reads). All four
fixtures `ail check` ok and `ail run` produces expected stdout.
Findings (1 bug, 1 friction, 2 spec_gaps, 3 working):
- [bug] instance-method-body unbound-var bypasses `ail check` —
forma_3 first attempt called `str_concat` inside the instance
method body; `ail check` returned ok, `ail build` died with the
monomorphise_workspace "unknown identifier" diagnostic. Same
shape at fn-body level correctly fires `[unbound-var]` at check
time. Next: debug skill, RED-first against `ail check`.
- [friction] no `str_concat` primitive. Every realistic Show MyType
body wants string concatenation; the absence forced the agent to
shape examples around bare int_to_str / ctor-arity-1 patterns.
Next: small planner tidy iter wiring `str_concat` symmetric to
`str_clone` and `int_to_str`.
- [spec_gap] form_a.md has zero references to class, instance,
constraint, or method productions — pre-22 surface only. The
form-a-default-authoring milestone made .ail the authoring form,
but the form_a spec doc remains pre-typeclass.
- [spec_gap] form_a.md leaves the class-qualifier ambiguity in
`(instance (class X))` unspecified — bare-class-name vs canonical-
form rule from mq.1 is not documented at the surface level. The
agent picked the bare-name reading from the corpus; the canonical-
form reading is equally plausible from the schema.
Boss-side cleanup at commit time:
- Deleted 8 stale .ail.json sidecars in examples/fieldtest/ (4
forma_* derived by the fieldtester per old dual-form workflow + 4
pre-existing floats_* from the prior fieldtest milestone that
iter form-a.1 T8 missed because the bash deletion loop globbed
only examples/*.ail.json direct children).
- Updated skills/fieldtest/agents/ailang-fieldtester.md to remove
the now-obsolete "generate canonical JSON sidecar" step (Phase 3
rewritten + Iron Law + Reading list + Common Rationalisations +
Red Flags all aligned to the post-form-a single-form doctrine).
cargo test --workspace: 557 passed, 0 failed, 3 ignored (unchanged
from audit-form-a — the fieldtest fixtures are standalone, not
referenced by any test).
Findings deferred to follow-up iters; the milestone close itself is
still clean.
The surface-form file extension changes from .ailx to .ail. AILang's
authoring surface now uses the same .ail stem as its canonical JSON
form (.ail.json), giving the language a single coherent extension
family: .ail is the LLM-authored Form A, .ail.json is the canonical
JSON-AST Form B.
Scope (touched):
- 61 example renames examples/**/*.ailx → .ail (git mv)
- 1 rename experiments/.../rendered/ailx.md → ail.md
- 35 content-edited live-toolchain files (crates/, docs/DESIGN.md,
docs/roadmap.md, docs/PROSE_ROUNDTRIP.md, skills/, bench/reference/*.c,
experiment crates under experiments/.../{render,harness,master})
- Experiment-crate cohort rename Cohort::Ailx → Cohort::Ail,
Form::Ailx → Form::Ail, per_cohort/ailx → per_cohort/ail,
{form-only: ailx} → {form-only: ail}, ```ailx → ```ail
Out of scope (deliberately untouched, to preserve honest history):
- docs/journal-archive.md (content-frozen per CLAUDE.md)
- docs/journals/, docs/specs/, docs/plans/, bench/orchestrator-stats/
- experiments/.../runs/ (frozen LLM-output artefacts; models actually
saw .ailx — renaming would falsify the experimental record)
Verification: cargo build/test --workspace green; experiment crate
cargo test green; bench/check.py + compile_check.py + cross_lang.py
all 0-regressed; negative grep for ailx|Ailx|AILX outside the
out-of-scope paths returns zero matches.
Opens immediate follow-up: roadmap.md P2 todo `ail check`/build/run
accept .ail extension — after this rename, .ail is canonical
authoring surface but the CLI still produces a misleading JSON-parse
error on `ail check foo.ail`. That's the next iter.
Two project-wide rules are now explicit across every skill:
1. Only the Boss commits. No skill agent (implementer,
brainstormer, planner, debugger, fieldtester, docwriter,
architect, bencher) runs `git commit`. Agents write their
artefacts to the working tree as unstaged changes; the Boss
inspects, decides commit shape, and commits.
2. main HEAD is sacrosanct. No actor runs `git reset` or
`git revert` on main. Bad work stays in the working tree
where it is still discardable via `git checkout -- <paths>`.
Implement loses the `iter/<iter_id>` branch mechanic entirely;
Phase 0 of the orchestrator-agent now does a clean-tree check
and refuses to start on a dirty tree. Per-task agent commits
are removed everywhere; reviewers operate against
`git diff HEAD` instead of `pre_task_sha..head_sha`.
Motivation: 2026-05-11 iter 23.4 stranded prep2/prep3 commits on
an iter-branch that never integrated to main, then a corrected
spec falsely claimed those commits had shipped. Branch-per-iter
+ manual-Boss-merge + iter-stacking made the strand structurally
possible. See docs/journals/2026-05-11-iter-disc.1.md for the
full per-task notes and motivation.
Anthropic now reserves /plan as a UI command, so the Skill tool refuses to
dispatch it. Rename the project's plan skill to planner, update the symlink
under .claude/skills/, and adjust references in CLAUDE.md, DESIGN.md,
skills/README.md, and the cross-references between brainstorm / implement /
audit / fieldtest / fieldtester. Plan files themselves (docs/plans/*.md)
keep their name — only the skill ID changes.
The four-phase debug process and the five-phase fieldtest process
each lived twice — once in SKILL.md (orchestrator-facing) and once
in the dispatched agent's file (subagent-facing). The orchestrator
does not execute these phases; the subagent does. Duplicating them
in SKILL.md just bloated the orchestrator's main context with bytes
that only the subagent ever needs.
SKILL.md now carries only what the orchestrator must consult at
dispatch time: trigger gating, Iron Law as headline, the carrier
contract, the produced handoff, and cross-references. Iron Law in
operational form, full process, Common Rationalisations, Red Flags,
and (for fieldtest) the spec template now live solely in the agent
file. Net −160 LOC across the skills tree.
CLAUDE.md pointer for 'Bug fixes — TDD, always' updated to reflect
that the substantive discipline lives in the agent file, not the
skill file.
New skill that runs after a clean audit at milestone close. Picks
2-4 real-world programming tasks within the milestone's scope,
implements each in the AIL Surface form (.ailx), runs the binaries,
and writes a friction-and-bug spec to docs/specs/<date>-fieldtest-
<milestone>.md.
The dispatched agent (ailang-fieldtester) is restricted to DESIGN.md
plus the public examples/ corpus — crates/, runtime/, bench/ are
forbidden reads. This simulates a downstream LLM author who has only
the specification, which is the empirical complement to brainstorm's
prospective application of the LLM-utility criterion.
Findings classify as bug / friction / spec_gap / working, each with
a one-line downstream recommendation (debug / plan / ratify /
carry-on). The orchestrator dispatches the follow-ups; fieldtest
does not self-resolve.
Files:
- skills/fieldtest/SKILL.md
- skills/fieldtest/agents/ailang-fieldtester.md
- .claude/skills/fieldtest, .claude/agents/fieldtest (discovery
symlinks)
- skills/README.md updated (skill table → 6, pipeline ASCII,
agent roster, discovery list)
Brummel