Owner-ratified 2026-07-20: architect, grounding-check, tdd-author and
debugger pin fable/xhigh — cycle-reach singleton gates whose miss
silently ratifies or poisons an entire cycle (drift verdict, autonomous
sign-off signature, RED executable-spec, root-cause). The set is
closed: extending it requires fresh owner ratification, no fable agent
ever runs per-task in a loop or in a parallel fan-out, and workflow
scripts stay fable-free (the implement-loop quality gate caps at opus).
Policy home: docs/agent-template.md $ model rule 1 (effort: fable
gates stay xhigh, not max); the workflow policy headers now point at
the exception instead of the former blanket ban.
Effort joins model as a mandatory pin: an omitted field inherits the
session effort, coupling every dispatch's thinking budget to whatever
the user happens to be chatting at (often xhigh) — the same
session-state coupling the model pin removes. The assignment follows
the model split:
- xhigh on every opus agent (judgement roles are the pipeline's
quality floor and must not degrade with the session);
- high on every sonnet agent (tightly-scoped plan execution gains
little from xhigh but pays its latency per dispatch, and these are
the per-task in-loop roles — wall-clock is the efficiency metric;
not lower than high, since re-loops cost more than saved thinking);
- medium inline in the workflow scripts for schema-bound
extraction/verification stages that author no code (preflight,
plan-extract, mini-verify, tree-check, finalize, build/suite
verify).
Workflow agent() calls pass effort explicitly on every call — whether
frontmatter effort propagates through an agentType dispatch is
undocumented, so the scripts do not rely on it. Policy documented in
docs/agent-template.md § effort, mirroring § model.
Agents and workflows previously carried no model field, so every
dispatch inherited the session model — including fable, which is
banned for all plugin agents and workflows by owner decree. Every
dispatch now pins opus or sonnet explicitly.
- opus (low-volume judgment gates whose misses silently poison
downstream work): architect, bencher, debugger, fieldtester,
grounding-check, plan-recon, quality-reviewer, spec-skeptic,
tdd-author
- sonnet (mechanical scope, in-loop or fanned out): docwriter,
glossary-extractor, implementer, spec-reviewer, synthetic-user,
tester
- workflows: all 13 agent() call sites pin a model — sonnet
everywhere except the quality-reviewer gate in implement-loop,
the loop's last correctness check (spec-reviewer only gates
task-text correspondence; real-bug finding is the documented
opus strength)
- docs/agent-template.md: model is now a mandatory frontmatter
field, with the assignment rule and the fable ban recorded
Step 5 emitted PASS on "all assumptions ratified", which is vacuously
true when the extraction yielded nothing. Under /boss a grounding PASS
IS the autonomous spec signature, so an under-extraction on a real spec
(zero assumptions -> PASS) would auto-sign an unread spec.
An empty assumption list is now a PASS only on a demonstrably trivial
spec (pure rename / doc-only / cosmetic, with the kind named as positive
evidence). An empty extraction over a spec that adds or changes
behaviour is an under-extraction -> BLOCK, which routes the spec to the
human sign-off pause it should have hit. Tightened consistently across
Step 5, the Iron Law, the trivial-spec clause, the Status protocol
table, and the Common Rationalisations.
closes#13
The fence-label -> parser fact, the specify/grounding-check/planner
parse gates, the parse-trace attestation, and all their cross-references
served a single real user (ailang). Convention over configuration: the
generic machinery is removed plugin-wide; the one consumer carries an
equivalent project-local directive in its own CLAUDE.md.
Archive under docs/plans and docs/specs left intact as time documents.
The profile was never parsed — it was prose the skill bodies told the model to read, so most slots were dead, constant across every project, or fiction (the whole pipeline block, including the "tdd is opt-in" claim, was enforced by nothing).
Split it in two: constants become fixed conventions named directly by the skills (new docs/conventions.md), and the few genuinely per-project facts move to each project's CLAUDE.md under '## Skills plugin: project facts'. tdd/fieldtest/docwriter are now always available; the only behavioural toggle left is spec auto-sign.
Delete docs/profile-schema.md and templates/project-profile.yml; add docs/conventions.md and a project-facts section to templates/CLAUDE.md.fragment; rewrite all SKILL/agent prose and the pipeline/design/migration/README/INSTALL docs accordingly.
Architect drift review (cycle 9e8b9ec..HEAD) returned drift_found. Three
cycle-introduced items, all repaired here as tidy edits:
- planner/SKILL.md: the cycle never touched it (recon never scoped it,
the feat commit body's "every pipeline rendering agrees" over-claimed).
Its Handoff Contract still named `brainstorm → planner` and the bounce
`planner → brainstorm`; the Input-source cross-ref and two
rationalisation rows still pointed at brainstorm as the spec producer.
All repointed to specify (specify produces and owns the spec; brainstorm
is the optional discovery stage upstream of it). The skip rule now lists
specify in the design path tdd bypasses.
- specify/agents/grounding-check.md: the agent move left one stale pair —
"self-review (Step 7) and user-approval (Step 8)" were brainstorm's old
numbers; in specify they are Step 4 and Step 6.
- profile-schema + template: the `optional: true` per-phase key I
introduced in the plan was undocumented AND rested on a semantic error —
`brainstorm: { gates: [specify] }` reads as "specify cannot start until
brainstorm has run", which is false (specify enters directly from
sources). Corrected to `brainstorm: {}` (an active phase with no hard
gate of its own, like implement); specify keeps `gates: [planner]` as
the one real hard gate. The optional key is gone; brainstorm's
optionality lives in the skip rules and SKILL prose, where it belongs.
Why these escaped the cycle's own grep suite: the consistency greps used
`brainstorm *-> *planner`, which does not match the real renderings
`` `brainstorm` -> `planner` `` (backticks between the words). The same
filter-string blind spot recurred twice this session; the verification
greps here tolerate optional backticks.
Pre-existing debt (NOT cycle-introduced), filed as backlog Brummel/Skills
issue #5 rather than fixed here: docs/migration.md's layout tree and
README's migration-status both predate tdd/glossary/pseudo/issue/
postmortem and misdescribe the roster.
Verdict: cycle drift-clean after these repairs (carry-on). No regression
gate (prose repo, no scripts). Not a milestone close.
Add `specify` as a third co-equal entry path into the dev cycle: it
produces an approved spec from already-settled sources (an exhaustive
issue, a long in-context design discussion, or a design brainstorm just
ratified) with review but no interview. This is the producing half of a
deliberate deciding/producing split — `brainstorm` shrinks to optional
discovery, `specify` becomes the sole spec-production gate before
`planner`, mirroring the RED->GREEN split that keeps tdd/debug honest.
What moved:
- brainstorm/SKILL.md: stripped of the hard-gate, the acceptance
criterion, write-spec, self-review, grounding-check, user-review, and
planner-handoff steps; terminal state is now handing a ratified design
narrative to specify. Steps renumbered 1-5 (production steps left).
- specify/SKILL.md (new): the production core, with a precondition gate
(Step 1.5) that bounces to brainstorm the moment the sources do not
resolve a load-bearing decision — the same discipline tdd uses.
- The grounding-check agent moved brainstorm/agents/ -> specify/agents/
(no-orphan-agents: it lives under its dispatcher), refs repointed.
- boss/SKILL.md: Entry-path reflection is now three-way (tdd / specify /
brainstorm). specify dispatches autonomously (bounded, no interview)
and pauses at its user-review gate; only a fresh brainstorm cycle
stays a pre-dispatch bounce-back.
- pipeline.md, README, profile-schema, the profile template, and the
migration layout updated so every pipeline rendering agrees; specify
is a CORE node (not opt-in, unlike tdd) carrying gates: [planner].
Design alternative rejected: parallel sibling skills sharing a
docs/spec-production.md (extract-to-doc). Chosen extract-and-chain
instead — the shared surface is ~70%, so a shared doc would either
become the skill body or drift; chaining keeps one executed home for the
gates.
Verification (prose repo, no test suite): the spec's internal-
consistency grep suite (no two-path drift, no direct brainstorm->planner
edge, specify referenced in every rendering, grounding-check single home
under specify, specify structural completeness) all green. Orchestrator
inspection additionally fixed two dead step-refs the plan under-scoped
(a "(Step 4)" lift-validation pointer and a "Skipping Step 7
self-review" red flag, both pointing at steps brainstorm no longer has)
and corrected six pre-existing brainstorm->planner renderings in
pipeline.md and tdd that predated this cycle.
Known follow-ups (non-blocking): the committed spec writes
`skills/specify/` in places (typo; skill dirs are repo-top-level) — to
be corrected separately. The grounding-check hard-gate was degenerate
for this very cycle (this repo has no profile and no test suite); the
skip is documented in the spec and the session.
claude
Brummel