@antoneeo/kb-agentic-skill 1.18.0 → 1.19.0

package/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -2,14 +2,37 @@
 
 Every significant change to this skill is recorded here.
 
-## [1.18.0] - 2026-09-19
-
-### Added
-- F-057: shared project memory in every lens, no sibling installation required.
-  `index` catalogs original documents; `recall QUERY` searches live metadata.
-  KB integrity is shared; domain ownership and marketing numerical checks remain.
-  Vendored validators now require entry point + sdlc_core.py + knowledge.py.
-
+## [1.19.0] - 2026-09-25
+
+### Changed
+- **F-026 revised: a real doubt is asked when it emerges.** The question discipline
+  no longer sends doubts to the deliverable ("Default non-blocking" is gone). A real
+  doubt (a fact the search leaves open, or a choice whose pros and cons do not
+  settle it) is asked before the first write that would embed its answer, grouped,
+  with the pros and cons of each option. A choice that clearly wins the weighing is
+  taken without asking, and the weighing is written next to it — each rejected option
+  stated at its strongest; options that serve different needs, none good enough at
+  both, that nothing the user wrote ranks are a real doubt, however clear the
+  agent's own ranking. Reserved approvals
+  are always asked. A real doubt becomes a declared assumption only in unattended
+  or delegated work. `review.md` makes an unasked doubt a design-review finding; `dispatch.md`
+  tells a subagent to return its real doubts instead of deciding them.
+
+### Fixed
+- **`stale` no longer counts the audit plan against the area that holds it.**
+  Committing a hash mark of `ai_docs/` changed `ai_docs/audit/audit_plan.md` after
+  the recorded commit, so the area went stale again and every re-mark repeated the
+  loop. The plan's own edits are now excluded; any other change in the area still
+  counts.
+
+## [1.18.0] - 2026-09-19
+
+### Added
+- F-057: shared project memory in every lens, no sibling installation required.
+  `index` catalogs original documents; `recall QUERY` searches live metadata.
+  KB integrity is shared; domain ownership and marketing numerical checks remain.
+  Vendored validators now require entry point + sdlc_core.py + knowledge.py.
+
 
 ### Fixed
 - **F-056: `stale` no longer reports an area fresh when it cannot evaluate it.** An

package/README.md

@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ Deliberately absent: any per-node coverage or completion state. `gaps:` says wha
 - **Several people, one project**: the workstream registry (`audit/handoff.md`) is **generated** from one file per open workstream, so two people opening or closing two workstreams on two branches edit two different files and their merge is clean. Row-per-workstream alone was not enough — a file-global `Date:` header defeats row-level ownership — so the header is derived from the sources and no writer touches it. The generated view can still conflict; that conflict is resolved by re-running `index`, never by hand, and `validate` refuses CLEAN until the file matches its sources. The append-only review log gets `merge=union` (a built-in driver, no per-clone configuration). It all works with no VCS at all: it is files and a generator.
 - **Vision-guided governance**: Standalone projects use `ai_docs/vision/`; Hybrid projects use devPNT `M-VISION` as the milestone north star. `DRAFT` informs, `APPROVED` binds, promotion is the user's alone.
 - **Independent review, twice**: the design before it is implemented, the result before it is declared done — fresh-context subagent > one-shot run > a declared self-pass, 3 rounds max, one log line each, and a PASS is invalid on "found nothing".
-- **Question discipline**: a question is legal only when the agent searched first, names the search with its result, and names the decision it unblocks; otherwise it proceeds on a declared assumption, batched.
+- **Question discipline**: a real doubt is asked when it emerges, before its answer is written, with the pros and cons of each option; a choice whose pros clearly win is taken with the weighing written next to it. A question is legal only when the agent searched first, names the search with its result, and names the decision it unblocks.
 - **Operative guides + agent-global KB**: distil user-provided indications into source-faithful `GUIDE_*.md` (`source_kind: document`) — verbatim snapshot plus hash, so drift is detected mechanically.
 - **Mechanical checks**: `check`, `validate`, `index`, `graph`, `corpus`, `claim-id`, `anchor`, `export`, `import`, `stale` (spine staleness plus `## claims` -- superseded-cited documents, expired `valid` windows, superseded derivation chains), plus the spine's `mark`/`benefit`/`gate`/`plan`/`orient`/`migrate`. `benefit` reports what the review gates have already caught, beside what the doctrine costs to read; it always exits 0 and carries no verdict. The graph and corpus checks verify spans against the stored extraction, recompute every id, refuse cycles and unreachable nodes, and enforce `CONTESTED` symmetry.
 - **Installed support files**: Claude, Codex, Gemini and Google Antigravity receive the full skill folder — `SKILL.md`, `templates.md`, `taxonomy.md`, `distillation.md`, `reconciliation.md`, `guides.md`, `vision.md`, `elicitation.md`, `review.md`, `dispatch.md`, `routing.md`, `ENFORCEMENT.md`, `memory.md`, and the validator's three files, `scripts/sdlc_check.py` + `scripts/sdlc_core.py` + `scripts/knowledge.py` (copy all three) — plus the `LICENSE` and `NOTICE` it ships under.

package/gemini-extension.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "kb-agentic-skill",
-  "version": "1.18.0",
+  "version": "1.19.0",
   "description": "Knowledge-Base & Document-First protocol with risk triage, Vision governance, signal distillation and optional devPNT integration.",
   "author": "Antonio Pinto (https://github.com/Antoneeo)"
 }

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "@antoneeo/kb-agentic-skill",
-  "version": "1.18.0",
+  "version": "1.19.0",
   "description": "Knowledge-Base & Document-First protocol for Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Google Antigravity and Codex with risk triage, Vision governance, signal distillation and optional devPNT integration.",
   "keywords": [
     "claude-code",
@@ -39,9 +39,9 @@
     "skills/kb-agentic-skill/portability.md",
     "skills/kb-agentic-skill/ENFORCEMENT.md",
     "skills/kb-agentic-skill/scripts/sdlc_check.py",
-    "skills/kb-agentic-skill/scripts/sdlc_core.py",
-    "skills/kb-agentic-skill/scripts/knowledge.py",
-    "skills/kb-agentic-skill/memory.md",
+    "skills/kb-agentic-skill/scripts/sdlc_core.py",
+    "skills/kb-agentic-skill/scripts/knowledge.py",
+    "skills/kb-agentic-skill/memory.md",
     "skills/kb-agentic-skill/LICENSE",
     "skills/kb-agentic-skill/NOTICE",
     "gemini-extension.json",

package/skills/kb-agentic-skill/SKILL.md

@@ -1,43 +1,43 @@
----
-name: kb-agentic
-version: 1.18.0
-description: Knowledge-Base & Document-First protocol with risk-proportional triage, Vision as a guide, Signal Distillation, a complete Standalone mode and optional symbiosis with devPNT. Use for user documentation, knowledge extraction, SOPs, research notes, decision logs, knowledge management — and for answering project questions from the claim ledger and topic graph.
-author: Antonio Pinto (https://github.com/Antoneeo)
-copyright: (c) 2026 Antonio Pinto
-license: Apache-2.0
----
-
-# KB Agentic
-
-**Why this skill exists:** to prevent *knowledge degradation and myopia* — acting from partial understanding, where new information contradicts un-indexed notes and hard-won knowledge evaporates between sessions. Triage, the Vision Gate, signal distillation, the documentation lifecycle, and operative guide routers are all one defense against that.
-
-This skill guides knowledge management and documentation with a Document-First process proportional to risk. It works fully even without devPNT. When devPNT is available and configured for the current project, the skill works in symbiosis with its governance: M-VISION, Master Plan, Action Plan and versioned artifacts become the authoritative frame for milestones and knowledge nodes.
-
-Support files in the skill directory:
-- `templates.md`: templates for Vision, Knowledge ANALYSIS, Research SPIKE, SOP GUIDE, audit plan, and handoff.
-- `portability.md`: carrying knowledge between projects — what a bundle is, why export is a closure rather than a selection, and the rule that knowledge crosses a project boundary while authority does not (`prov: IMPORTED`). Read before `export`/`import`.
-- `taxonomy.md`: placing a claim in the topic graph — descent over the generated index, the five verdicts (EXISTS / INADEQUATE / MISSING / GENERALIZES / UNPLACED), the sibling rule, guarded re-parenting, canonicalization — and the answer-mode descent (`§6`). Run at L3 before drafting.
-- `guides.md`: pipeline for distilling user-provided indications into `ai_docs/reference/GUIDE_[topic].md`.
-- `vision.md`: how to write a Vision a cold reviewer can actually apply — the properties that make a rule hold, the minimum operable sections, and the blind check.
-- `distillation.md`: from a source to claim rows — intake (content-addressed originals, stored canonical extraction, every provenance a real file), the claim table, extraction discipline, signal rules (symbiosis with `distill`).
-- `reconciliation.md`: what happens when two claims meet — five outcomes, detect-and-hold (the machine never decides), rulings with mandatory `basis:`, the claim state machine, the batched escalation form.
-- `review.md`: the review discipline — when a review is due, how to request one, how to receive findings, how to review.
-- `dispatch.md`: opt-in subagent execution of an approved plan, plus the family-wide delegation boundary (what may be delegated at all) — that part applies at any level.
-- `routing.md`: which lens owns this unit of work. Read ONLY when a sibling lens skill is installed alongside this one; a single-lens install never reads it.
+---
+name: kb-agentic
+version: 1.19.0
+description: Knowledge-Base & Document-First protocol with risk-proportional triage, Vision as a guide, Signal Distillation, a complete Standalone mode and optional symbiosis with devPNT. Use for user documentation, knowledge extraction, SOPs, research notes, decision logs, knowledge management — and for answering project questions from the claim ledger and topic graph.
+author: Antonio Pinto (https://github.com/Antoneeo)
+copyright: (c) 2026 Antonio Pinto
+license: Apache-2.0
+---
+
+# KB Agentic
+
+**Why this skill exists:** to prevent *knowledge degradation and myopia* — acting from partial understanding, where new information contradicts un-indexed notes and hard-won knowledge evaporates between sessions. Triage, the Vision Gate, signal distillation, the documentation lifecycle, and operative guide routers are all one defense against that.
+
+This skill guides knowledge management and documentation with a Document-First process proportional to risk. It works fully even without devPNT. When devPNT is available and configured for the current project, the skill works in symbiosis with its governance: M-VISION, Master Plan, Action Plan and versioned artifacts become the authoritative frame for milestones and knowledge nodes.
+
+Support files in the skill directory:
+- `templates.md`: templates for Vision, Knowledge ANALYSIS, Research SPIKE, SOP GUIDE, audit plan, and handoff.
+- `portability.md`: carrying knowledge between projects — what a bundle is, why export is a closure rather than a selection, and the rule that knowledge crosses a project boundary while authority does not (`prov: IMPORTED`). Read before `export`/`import`.
+- `taxonomy.md`: placing a claim in the topic graph — descent over the generated index, the five verdicts (EXISTS / INADEQUATE / MISSING / GENERALIZES / UNPLACED), the sibling rule, guarded re-parenting, canonicalization — and the answer-mode descent (`§6`). Run at L3 before drafting.
+- `guides.md`: pipeline for distilling user-provided indications into `ai_docs/reference/GUIDE_[topic].md`.
+- `vision.md`: how to write a Vision a cold reviewer can actually apply — the properties that make a rule hold, the minimum operable sections, and the blind check.
+- `distillation.md`: from a source to claim rows — intake (content-addressed originals, stored canonical extraction, every provenance a real file), the claim table, extraction discipline, signal rules (symbiosis with `distill`).
+- `reconciliation.md`: what happens when two claims meet — five outcomes, detect-and-hold (the machine never decides), rulings with mandatory `basis:`, the claim state machine, the batched escalation form.
+- `review.md`: the review discipline — when a review is due, how to request one, how to receive findings, how to review.
+- `dispatch.md`: opt-in subagent execution of an approved plan, plus the family-wide delegation boundary (what may be delegated at all) — that part applies at any level.
+- `routing.md`: which lens owns this unit of work. Read ONLY when a sibling lens skill is installed alongside this one; a single-lens install never reads it.
 - `scripts/sdlc_check.py` + `scripts/sdlc_core.py`: the mechanical validator for the docs root (`check`, `validate`, `index`, `mark`, `benefit`, `gate`, `plan`, `orient`, `migrate`, and the knowledge overlay: `graph`, `corpus`, `claim-id`, `anchor`, `export`, `import`, `stale` (spine staleness plus `## claims` -- the time cycle's consolidated view), plus `remind` — the opt-in per-turn one-line reminder, ENFORCEMENT §4).  Keep the entry point, `scripts/sdlc_core.py` and `scripts/knowledge.py` together; the last supplies common memory and KB integrity.
-- `ENFORCEMENT.md`: optional setup for CI and hooks.
-
-Read these files only when needed. `SKILL.md` is the operating contract; the support files are progressive resources.
-
-## Knowledge Values
-
-- **Understand before writing/updating:** do not modify or create knowledge documents without checking root cause, user constraints, and existing notes — trust the primary sources and existing guides, not memory.
-- **Apply DRY and Single Source of Truth:** do not duplicate knowledge across files; extend existing notes (`ANALYSIS_[topic].md` or `GUIDE_[topic].md`).
-- **Signal & Distillation:** eliminate fluff, filler, and speculative statements; keep deterministic facts, constraints, decisions, and clear SOP steps (symbiosis with `distill`).
-- **Lifecycle & Freshness:** mark superseded knowledge (`status: SUPERSEDED` or `DEPRECATED`) so outdated information does not cause hallucination.
-- **Protect the Vision & User Style:** align all knowledge work with user strategic goals, operational preferences, and expected outcomes.
-- **Map-First Navigation:** rely on `ai_docs/README.md`, `INDEX.md`, and `reference/INDEX.md` router for targeted retrieval before creating new documents — and before *answering from model memory* on the project's domain (`## Topic Recall`).
-
+- `ENFORCEMENT.md`: optional setup for CI and hooks.
+
+Read these files only when needed. `SKILL.md` is the operating contract; the support files are progressive resources.
+
+## Knowledge Values
+
+- **Understand before writing/updating:** do not modify or create knowledge documents without checking root cause, user constraints, and existing notes — trust the primary sources and existing guides, not memory.
+- **Apply DRY and Single Source of Truth:** do not duplicate knowledge across files; extend existing notes (`ANALYSIS_[topic].md` or `GUIDE_[topic].md`).
+- **Signal & Distillation:** eliminate fluff, filler, and speculative statements; keep deterministic facts, constraints, decisions, and clear SOP steps (symbiosis with `distill`).
+- **Lifecycle & Freshness:** mark superseded knowledge (`status: SUPERSEDED` or `DEPRECATED`) so outdated information does not cause hallucination.
+- **Protect the Vision & User Style:** align all knowledge work with user strategic goals, operational preferences, and expected outcomes.
+- **Map-First Navigation:** rely on `ai_docs/README.md`, `INDEX.md`, and `reference/INDEX.md` router for targeted retrieval before creating new documents — and before *answering from model memory* on the project's domain (`## Topic Recall`).
+
 ## Shared project memory
 
 Project memory is available by default, independently of installed sibling lenses.
@@ -47,257 +47,257 @@ plans and decisions without copying them. One owner still governs each unit.
 The validator now ships as three files: entry point, `sdlc_core.py`, `knowledge.py`.
 
 ## Rule Zero: Triage
-
-Always classify the request before choosing the process. Declare the chosen level to the user when you start operational work.
-
-**Declare the level WITH the router verdict** (one line, for L2, L3 and Spike — L1 declares the level alone): the result of the guide-router lookup described under `## Operative Guides`, i.e. `Level: L2 · router: no match` or `Level: L3 · router: GUIDE_release_sop.md → read`. Name the guide you matched, or `no match`.
-
-| Level | Criteria | Required process |
-|---|---|---|
-| **L1 - Quick Fact / Snippet** | One claim row added to an existing topic; a typo; a preference update. No node created, no source entering the corpus, no frontmatter change. | Implement edit directly in existing note. No new documents. |
-| **L2 - Propagation of settled knowledge** | The fact is **already settled** in the corpus and the work carries it into existing documents — restating, correcting a stale copy, updating an SOP that quotes it. No node created or superseded, no hierarchy change, no node frontmatter change, no new source ingested. | Mini-analysis in message: objective, impact, sources, validation. Update existing document (full re-read per `## Revision`) or create single SOP/note. |
-| **L3 - New knowledge unit / Corpus** | A source enters the corpus; a topic node is created or superseded; the hierarchy moves; a conflict must be reconciled; or what a claim asserts changes. | Full workflow: Vision Gate, Spec Elicitation, Taxonomy Pass, Knowledge Analysis, Distillation, Review, Indexing. |
-| **Spike - Exploration** | Time-boxed exploratory research or draft without merging into official KB. | Outcome in `ai_docs/solutions/SPIKE_[topic].md`. |
-
-Cross-cutting rules:
-- **The unit of measure here is knowledge, never file count.** In this domain risk is
-  knowledge-shaped: carrying one settled fact into eight documents is small, and one
-  claim that re-parents a node is not. Do not import the code lens's file thresholds —
-  a level is chosen by what the change does to the corpus and the graph. What keeps
-  this from becoming an escape hatch is the trigger list below, which overrides the
-  level whatever the size, plus one limit: **propagation that changes what a claim
-  asserts is not propagation** — it is a new knowledge unit, so L3.
-- **Domain routing (multi-lens installs only).** After the level is set, and only when a sibling lens skill of this family is installed (`agentic-sdlc`, `mkt-agentic-sdlc`), run the router in `routing.md` for every L2, L3 and Spike: it decides which lens's method and validation rules govern this unit of work. L1 never reaches it, and a single-lens install never reads the file — detection fails open. In such a project, never refer to a document whose meaning differs by lens ("threat model", "vision", `principles.md`, `handoff.md`) by its bare name: qualify it with its domain, or name its path.
-- Personal data, credentials, security-sensitive processes, authN/authZ specs are high-risk: never L1.
-- **Escalation triggers — ANY of these makes it L3, whatever the file count:** the change touches the topic hierarchy (`parents:`, a `GENERALIZES` verdict, a re-parent); it touches more than one node's frontmatter; it creates or supersedes a node other nodes reference. Re-shaping the graph is a unit of change, never a side effect of placing one claim.
-- Adding one claim row to an existing topic is L1: the `id` may be left empty (the validator fills it — `claim-id --fill`), and no check errors on a hand-written row.
-- If a bigger impact emerges during L1/L2 work, stop, reclassify and declare it.
-- When in doubt, pick the higher level.
-- **No useless questions.** Every question to the practitioner passes the legality test of the question discipline (`elicitation.md`): searched first with the search named, and the blocked decision named. Claim-conflict escalations additionally carry their own mandated form and are batched at run end (`reconciliation.md` §4).
-
-## Write Triggers
-
-Triage decides IF documentation is due; this table decides WHICH document each event produces, and when. **One event, one destination:** when the trigger fires and the document does not exist, create it; when it exists, update it — never duplicate it.
-
-| Document | Write trigger | Phase |
-|---|---|---|
-| `solutions/ANALYSIS_[topic].md` | Every L3, after elicitation and before any drafting. On topic match with an existing analysis, update that one instead of a new file. | 3 |
-| `solutions/SPIKE_[topic].md` | Closing any Spike — including a negative outcome. | — |
-| `vision/features/VISION_[feature].md` | Multi-milestone topic at analysis time, or retroactive trigger (second ANALYSIS on same theme). | 3 |
-| `audit/handoff.md` (workstream registry) | **Never by hand — generated by `sdlc_check.py index` from the `HANDOFF_*.md` sources**, and `validate` errors when the two disagree. Regenerate at every L3 closure and at session end; the `Date:` header is derived, so no writer touches it. Inventory for lookup, never a work board. | 5 / session end |
-| `audit/HANDOFF_[topic].md` | **One per OPEN workstream, with or without volatile state** — it is the authored home of that workstream's registry row (frontmatter `workstream`/`level`/`branch`/`status`/`since`/`next`/`details`/`updated`), so no file means no row. Carries the resume logistics too; the ANALYSIS Diary keeps the durable narrative (DRY). DELETED at closure — deleting it *is* removing the row. | 4 / 5 / session end |
-| `audit/project_notes.md` | A note true for the whole project rather than one workstream. Appended verbatim to the generated registry, so regenerating cannot destroy notes that belong to no workstream. | 5 / session end |
-| `audit/handoff.md` — converting an existing project | **Lazily, at the first write — and then ALL AT ONCE.** Converting one row at a time is the state that loses the others, so `index` refuses to write while anything in the file is unaccounted for and names it. Until the first source exists nothing generates and nothing errors. | 5 / session end |
-| `audit/audit_plan.md` (Standalone) | Bootstrap, and whenever a mapped area changes state (`sdlc_check.py mark`). | 1 |
-| `reference/GUIDE_[topic].md` (`source_kind: document`) | Origin+purpose test (`guides.md`), or a proactive proposal accepted by user. | 4 / 5 |
-| `reference/GUIDE_[topic].md` (`source_kind: code`/`domain`) | Recognized high-complexity domain/concept with no CURRENT guide $\rightarrow$ duty to write autonomously. | 4 / 5 |
-| `audit/reviews/REVIEW_LOG.md` | Every completed review — recorded in log. | 3 / 5 |
-| ADR / Decision Log — `architecture/` or devPNT DB | A strategic decision was taken (pattern, policy, structural change): record before DONE. | 5 |
-| `strategic/architecture.md`, `strategic/existing_features.md` | Bootstrap; update at closure when the knowledge catalog actually changed. | 1 / 5 |
-| `vision/project_vision.md`, `roadmap.md`, `principles.md` | Bootstrap as `Status: DRAFT`; promoted to APPROVED only by explicit user confirmation. | 1 / 2 |
-| `topics/<slug>.md` | A placement verdict creates it (MISSING/INADEQUATE-child, `taxonomy.md`); reconciliation updates its claim rows. One node per topic — a similar-but-distinct concept is a sibling with `related:` + a written distinction, never a merge and never a duplicate. Merged/renamed nodes become tombstones (`status: SUPERSEDED` + `redirect_to:`), never deleted. | 4 |
-| a KB bundle (`export`) | Knowledge must leave this project. Export is L1 — it writes nothing into the corpus. **Importing one is L3**: a source enters the corpus and nodes are created, and a bundle is external input, so never L1 whatever its size (`portability.md`). | — |
-| `corpus/given/*` + sidecar | A source arrives: it becomes a content-addressed artifact with a sidecar carrying digest/date/`supersedes:`. A text source is copied verbatim. A non-text source yields its stored canonical extraction — copied **beside** the original when that is small enough to keep, or **instead of it** on a large binary corpus, where the original stays where it lives and is recorded as `original_path:`/`original_sha256:` (`distillation.md` §1, which owns this rule). Never edited after ingest — the digest check on whatever `given/` holds is what enforces it. | 4 |
-| `corpus/notes/*` | Something is said (`origin: elicited`), synthesised (`derived_from:`), or ruled (`basis:`). A note with none of the three is refused by the validator. | 4 / 5 |
-| the day's decisions, at a user-signed closing (the Capture Moment sweep) | Verification that the phase-4 notes/claims exist; NEW `corpus/notes/*` + claim rows only for what the sweep surfaces un-captured. The event is the CLOSING, disjoint from the row above (which fires when something is SAID). | 5 / session end |
-| `solutions/PLAN_[topic].md` + its ledger | A source too long for one context is ingested: **one task per reading window** (30 pages by default; the plan states the window used), each ending at a declared `extracted_through:`. That ledger is the register the ingestion resumes from across sessions — ingestion never builds a second one (`distillation.md` §3, `templates.md`). | 4 |
-| `corpus/given/*.meta.md` — `extracted_through:` | Every reading window closes by advancing it (`p=<n>`, `L<n>`, `complete`). Required once any claim cites the artifact: unstated, "I am finished" cannot be falsified, which is how a sampled 200-page manual passes for an ingested one. | 4 |
-| `INDEX.md`, `reference/INDEX.md`, `topics/INDEX.md`, `corpus/INDEX.md` | Regenerated by `sdlc_check.py index` at closure — never by hand; `validate` fails on a hand-edited one. | 5 |
-
-## Operating Modes
-
-### Full Standalone
-Use this mode when devPNT is unavailable, not configured for the current project, or the user explicitly asks for a filesystem-only workflow.
-- Source of truth: `ai_docs/` (`vision/`, `solutions/`, `reference/`, `audit/`, `strategic/`).
-
-### Hybrid in symbiosis with devPNT
-Use this mode when `devpnt_*` tools are available and point at the current project.
-- devPNT governs `M-VISION`, Master Plan, Action Plan, and versioned artifacts.
-- Local `ai_docs/` serves as readable context, Standalone fallback, local handoff, or shadow copy.
-- **Never auto-accept a devPNT proposal**: present the preview and wait for the user's explicit confirmation. This is a human-approval guarantee, not a convenience — an agent that resolves its own proposal has removed the only step where a person can refuse.
-
-## L3 Workflow
-
-### 1. Audit and Alignment
-- Read `ai_docs/audit/handoff.md` (workstream registry) to see active topics.
-- Read `ai_docs/README.md`, `ai_docs/INDEX.md` and `ai_docs/reference/INDEX.md` (the guide router) before exploring notes. The router is a mandatory read, not an optional one: it is the only orientation step that tells you a guide already governs the work you are about to do.
-- If `ai_docs/` is missing, create the bootstrap set: `README.md`, `vision/` docs, `strategic/` docs, and `audit/audit_plan.md`, then run `sdlc_check.py index`.
-
-### 2. Vision Gate
-- Read `project_vision.md`, `roadmap.md`, `principles.md` (or devPNT `M-VISION`).
-- Verify request aligns with expected benefits, user goals, and success signals.
-
-### 3. Request Analysis & Taxonomy Pass
-
-**Before authoring, know which tier is authoring.** Authoring an analysis, a taxonomy or a claim ledger is a **deep-floor role** — its output is judgement and nothing downstream scores it — and `review.md` §The capability floor owns the rule: where this session can determine that it is below that floor, say so once, before drafting, rather than producing a confident artifact nobody flags. Where it cannot determine its own tier it owes nothing. The reliably working half of that rule is addressed to the user, in the package README.
-
-- Run spec elicitation round (`elicitation.md`) before drafting analysis.
-- Run taxonomy pass (`taxonomy.md`): verify whether topics, categories, or SOPs already exist in `ai_docs/`. Avoid duplication.
-- Create or update `ai_docs/solutions/ANALYSIS_[topic].md`.
-- **Design review gate (end of Phase 3, before any drafting):** the analysis is reviewed by somebody other than its author — a subagent with fresh context, or a declared self-pass when no higher rung is usable — a permission-gated rung is asked about, never silently skipped (`review.md`). Follow `review.md`; log the outcome in `audit/reviews/REVIEW_LOG.md`. A knowledge structure reviewed only by the person who chose it is not reviewed.
-
-### 4. Knowledge Processing & Distillation
-- **Isolate the work (Branch/worktree hygiene).** Distillation rewrites existing notes — full re-read per `## Revision` — and does it on a branch or a worktree, never directly on the shared corpus, so a half-finished reconciliation is never what the next reader finds.
-- Before drafting (L2/L3; L1 exempt), **consult the guide router** for a guide covering the task and read it first (the consult trigger, `guides.md` §0). A targeted description match, not a blanket read. Its result is the router verdict already declared with the triage level (Rule Zero).
-- Execute knowledge extraction using **Signal Distillation** (`distillation.md`).
-- **Opt-in subagent execution**: for an L3 with an approved analysis, the work MAY be executed via subagents per `dispatch.md`; default stays same-session. `dispatch.md` also carries the family-wide **delegation boundary** (what may be delegated at all, and what never may) — that section is not gated by the opt-in trigger and applies at any level, dispatch or no dispatch.
-- Handle conflicting or outdated information via **Reconciliation** (`reconciliation.md`). Mark obsolete files `status: SUPERSEDED`.
-
-### 5. Closure & Indexing
-- Run verification checks (`sdlc_check.py check --root <project_root>`).
-- If the session recorded any supersession, run `sdlc_check.py stale`: its
-  `## claims` section is the revision worklist (superseded-cited documents,
-  expired windows, superseded derivation chains), worked per `## Revision`
-  -- one document, one full re-read.
-- If the work was governed by user-provided indications and is reusable, **PROPOSE distilling a guide** (proactive trigger, `guides.md` §1) — a proposal for the user, never a silent write, never from model knowledge.
-- Update `audit/handoff.md`.
-- Regenerate manifests: `python <skill_dir>/scripts/sdlc_check.py index --root <project_root>`.
-- Mark output clean and complete.
-
-## Operative Guides & Router
-Guides are consulted, created, and distilled per `guides.md`.
-- **Consult (before acting)**: check `ai_docs/reference/INDEX.md` — the guide router — and declare the verdict with the triage level.
-- **Propose proactively**: when the user hands over indications that will govern future work, propose distilling them into a guide. A proposal, never a silent write, and never from model knowledge — a guide's whole value is that every claim traces to what the user actually provided.
-- Distill from user instructions into `ai_docs/reference/GUIDE_[topic].md`.
-
-## Topic Recall — the answer-side consult
-
-The graph is only a second brain if it is READ when answering, not only written when
-distilling. The descent (`taxonomy.md`) fires here with a new trigger — the answer-side
-twin of the guide consult above.
-
-- **Trigger — unconditional scan on domain assertions.** Whenever the reply would assert
-  facts about the PROJECT'S domain (its topics, decisions, sources, constraints), scan
-  `topics/INDEX.md`. Plausibility of coverage is judged ON the scanned top rows, never
-  before them — "the KB probably doesn't have this" is model memory talking, the exact
-  judgement this reflex removes. Exempt: pure mechanics (running a command, editing per
-  explicit instruction), general knowledge outside the project's domain, L1 gestures.
-- **Once per topic per SESSION.** The dedup key is the matched slug (known ex post); a
-  question plainly within an already-descended branch reuses that consult, and a
-  placement descent already run this session counts. A compaction starts a new session.
-- **The act.** Descend per `taxonomy.md` §6 (same doctrine, answer mode). On claims,
-  answer FROM them citing claim ids; a claim whose `state` is `SUPERSEDED <id>` is never
-  cited without naming its successor.
-- **The declared verdict — only when the recall ran**, never a per-turn ritual. Four
-  legal values:
-  - `kb: <slug>[, <slug> …] → N claims cited` — **every** slug the descent opened, not
-    only the one that answered. The descent is multi-branch by mandate (`taxonomy.md`
-    §1: follow every parent, open the final candidates), so a single-slug form cannot
-    state what a correct descent did: the agent either under-reports the branches it
-    read or invents a shape for them, and both make a thorough descent
-    indistinguishable from a lucky one. Which branches were opened is the part of this
-    verdict a reader can actually check.
-  - `kb: <slug>[, <slug> …] → node matched, no claims` — surface the node's `gaps:` when
-    it answers the question: "the KB knows it doesn't know" is a first-class answer.
-  - `kb: no coverage` — index read, nothing fits.
-  - `kb: index absent — regenerate (sdlc_check.py index)` — the INDEX is missing, not
-    necessarily the graph (nodes routinely exist while the index lags); regenerate and
-    rescan.
-  Never fake the verdict: an always-"no coverage" verdict certifies a lookup that did
-  not happen. The `router:` and `kb:` verdicts are independent and may co-occur, one
-  line each — a how-to question can match a guide AND carry claims.
-- **Anti-echo — the re-touch rule.** When a DERIVED claim grounds a decision the user is
-  about to take, walk its chain to non-DERIVED ground — a GIVEN artifact, an ELICITED or
-  RULING note — and cite that ground beside the claim id; re-opening only the immediate
-  target may re-read the agent's own synthesis, which is the echo chamber itself. If the
-  ground does not resolve (imported bundle without originals, external `original_path:`,
-  tombstone): say so beside the claim id and treat the claim as **unverified for
-  decision-grounding** — surfaced, never silently cited. Per-provenance stance: GIVEN's
-  source column is already the direct citation; ELICITED/RULING carry the practitioner's
-  own authority; an IMPORTED claim grounding a decision is named as un-re-ratified
-  foreign authority.
-- **Citation scope — the row's test is scope, not fidelity.** Before citing a claim in
-  an answer or a document, verify every part of the row belongs to the question: a row
-  can be atomic as provenance and plural as meaning (`distillation.md` §3), and a
-  faithful quote of the whole row then asserts what the source did not — a capability
-  borrowed across subjects, another actor's surface, a silently switched referent.
-  If part of the row is out of scope, **cite the part and say where the rest
-  belongs** — never cite the whole row on the grounds that it "says what I quoted",
-  and never silently drop the off-topic part (that loses an assertion — the other
-  half of the north star). A row that keeps forcing this test is a split candidate
-  (`reconciliation.md` §Splitting a bundled row).
-- **The trace persists.** When the decision is recorded (a ruling note, a diary entry),
-  that record cites the claim id AND the re-touched ground — the trace survives in the
-  corpus, not in ephemeral chat.
-- **Under dispatch**, recall is an orchestrator concern: the orchestrator runs the
-  descent itself; a context-free subagent never runs its own. The task schema has no
-  claims field today, so until a dispatch-focused unit adds one, the orchestrator
-  inlines the cited claim rows in the task's free text — an explicit interim.
-
-## The Capture Moment — the day's decisions reach the ledger
-
-Capture today is what makes recall honest tomorrow: a captured elicited or ruled note
-is exactly the non-DERIVED ground the re-touch rule above walks to. The rails all
-exist — this section adds only the MOMENT.
-
-- **When — user-signed closings, once per session.** Phase 5 of a governed unit, or
-  any closing signal from the user in an un-governed session ("chiudiamo", "we're
-  done"); the session-end pass that updates `handoff.md`/`project_notes.md` then runs
-  at that same closing. Never per-turn, never a standing interruption. **Declared
-  residual**: an unsignaled end (the user simply stops writing) captures nothing —
-  the phase-4 duty (a decision stated mid-session owes its note WHEN SAID) is the
-  protection for sessions that never close, and the orient's recency line makes the
-  miss visible next time. That line measures NOTES recency, not full ledger
-  freshness, and trusts frontmatter `date:` over file mtimes — mtimes lie after a
-  clone or worktree.
-- **The sweep question.** At the closing, ONE question, carrying its own search
-  result inline: "today I recorded: [what the sweep found already on the rails] —
-  any other decisions from today to record?". Scoped to TODAY, so it reaches
-  decisions taken outside the session (a meeting, a call) that no transcript search
-  could find — facts only the practitioner owns. This is a **scheduled elicitation**
-  in the same family as the phase-3 round, not a blocking question (nothing stalls;
-  the session is ending), so the blocking form does not attach; the inline result
-  satisfies the search-first duty. "Niente" ends it.
-- **The sweep is idempotent.** It verifies the day's decisions are on the rails; a
-  decision already noted at phase 4 is verified, never re-captured — no second note,
-  no duplicate claim row. The moment closes gaps; the phase-4 row stays the primary
-  channel.
-- **What counts as a decision**: domain choices made or confirmed today — a value, a
-  threshold, a rule, a stated preference, a rejected alternative with its reason.
-  NOT mechanics (commands run, files edited), NOT process state (the handoff's job).
-- **The channeling — existing rails, explicit provenance.**
-  - The user's words → `corpus/notes/*` with `origin: elicited` and a `date:`; a
-    claim row distilled from it carries `prov: ELICITED`, source = that note with a
-    legal `L<a>-<b>` locator.
-  - A synthesis of the day's discussion → a note with `derived_from:` → claim
-    `prov: DERIVED`.
-  - **RULING only when the decision resolves an existing contested set** — then
-    `reconciliation.md` §2 applies in full (mandatory `basis:`, supersession of the
-    whole prior set). A fresh conflict-free decision is captured elicited: a preference
-    is not a fact, and `basis:` is reserved for the fact the corpus lacks.
-  - A fact on an existing topic → claim row, L1 (`id` empty; `claim-id --fill`).
-  - No owning topic → the note is written NOW and the placement is declared as the
-    next kb unit. Capture never smuggles an L3 hierarchy change, and
-    `topics/unplaced.md` is never a decision park — UNPLACED is for topic-less
-    scraps and is invisible to recall.
-- **Reconciliation is wired.** A captured claim meeting an existing claim on the
-  node classifies per `reconciliation.md` — capture can confirm, refine, coexist or
-  CONTEST, never silently overwrite.
-- **Silence stays legal where no one signed off**: no closing signal → no question,
-  no ritual line.
-
-## Revision — the full re-read
-
-Incorporating new knowledge into an existing document is a rewrite, not an
-append: anchored edits are each correct while the global invariant — the body
-reads as CURRENT state — is never re-verified. The gesture:
-- Re-read the WHOLE document before editing; then rewrite the body so it reads
-  as written today — new knowledge fused, never quarantined in dated
-  sections — never append a delta.
-- History goes to the Diary/notes, never an inline chronicle — and past Diary
-  entries are never rewritten: a correction is a new entry.
-- A SUPERSEDED banner is a tombstone, never a revision device in a living doc.
-- Claim tables are EXEMPT (rows move only per `reconciliation.md`) and node
-  frontmatter moves only per `taxonomy.md` — a revision never re-parents; the
-  rewrite governs prose, never the ledger or the graph edges.
-- A multi-document pass re-reads PER DOCUMENT; set coverage is not integrity.
-- The re-read raises the probability of catching a false premise; it cannot
-  guarantee it — domain judgment stays the human's.
-
-## Mechanical Enforcement
-- `scripts/sdlc_check.py index`: updates `ai_docs/INDEX.md` and `ai_docs/reference/INDEX.md`.
-- `scripts/sdlc_check.py validate`: validates YAML frontmatter (`status`, `description`).
-- `scripts/sdlc_check.py check`: checks dirty closures and missing indexes.
-- `scripts/sdlc_check.py stale`: spine staleness plus `## claims` --
-  superseded-cited documents, expired `valid` windows, superseded
-  derivation chains (the time cycle's consolidated view).
+
+Always classify the request before choosing the process. Declare the chosen level to the user when you start operational work.
+
+**Declare the level WITH the router verdict** (one line, for L2, L3 and Spike — L1 declares the level alone): the result of the guide-router lookup described under `## Operative Guides`, i.e. `Level: L2 · router: no match` or `Level: L3 · router: GUIDE_release_sop.md → read`. Name the guide you matched, or `no match`.
+
+| Level | Criteria | Required process |
+|---|---|---|
+| **L1 - Quick Fact / Snippet** | One claim row added to an existing topic; a typo; a preference update. No node created, no source entering the corpus, no frontmatter change. | Implement edit directly in existing note. No new documents. |
+| **L2 - Propagation of settled knowledge** | The fact is **already settled** in the corpus and the work carries it into existing documents — restating, correcting a stale copy, updating an SOP that quotes it. No node created or superseded, no hierarchy change, no node frontmatter change, no new source ingested. | Mini-analysis in message: objective, impact, sources, validation. Update existing document (full re-read per `## Revision`) or create single SOP/note. |
+| **L3 - New knowledge unit / Corpus** | A source enters the corpus; a topic node is created or superseded; the hierarchy moves; a conflict must be reconciled; or what a claim asserts changes. | Full workflow: Vision Gate, Spec Elicitation, Taxonomy Pass, Knowledge Analysis, Distillation, Review, Indexing. |
+| **Spike - Exploration** | Time-boxed exploratory research or draft without merging into official KB. | Outcome in `ai_docs/solutions/SPIKE_[topic].md`. |
+
+Cross-cutting rules:
+- **The unit of measure here is knowledge, never file count.** In this domain risk is
+  knowledge-shaped: carrying one settled fact into eight documents is small, and one
+  claim that re-parents a node is not. Do not import the code lens's file thresholds —
+  a level is chosen by what the change does to the corpus and the graph. What keeps
+  this from becoming an escape hatch is the trigger list below, which overrides the
+  level whatever the size, plus one limit: **propagation that changes what a claim
+  asserts is not propagation** — it is a new knowledge unit, so L3.
+- **Domain routing (multi-lens installs only).** After the level is set, and only when a sibling lens skill of this family is installed (`agentic-sdlc`, `mkt-agentic-sdlc`), run the router in `routing.md` for every L2, L3 and Spike: it decides which lens's method and validation rules govern this unit of work. L1 never reaches it, and a single-lens install never reads the file — detection fails open. In such a project, never refer to a document whose meaning differs by lens ("threat model", "vision", `principles.md`, `handoff.md`) by its bare name: qualify it with its domain, or name its path.
+- Personal data, credentials, security-sensitive processes, authN/authZ specs are high-risk: never L1.
+- **Escalation triggers — ANY of these makes it L3, whatever the file count:** the change touches the topic hierarchy (`parents:`, a `GENERALIZES` verdict, a re-parent); it touches more than one node's frontmatter; it creates or supersedes a node other nodes reference. Re-shaping the graph is a unit of change, never a side effect of placing one claim.
+- Adding one claim row to an existing topic is L1: the `id` may be left empty (the validator fills it — `claim-id --fill`), and no check errors on a hand-written row.
+- If a bigger impact emerges during L1/L2 work, stop, reclassify and declare it.
+- When in doubt, pick the higher level.
+- **Doubts asked, questions legal.** A real doubt is asked when it emerges, before its answer is written; every question passes the legality test of the question discipline (`elicitation.md`): searched first with the search named, and the blocked decision named. Claim-conflict escalations additionally carry their own mandated form and are batched at run end (`reconciliation.md` §4).
+
+## Write Triggers
+
+Triage decides IF documentation is due; this table decides WHICH document each event produces, and when. **One event, one destination:** when the trigger fires and the document does not exist, create it; when it exists, update it — never duplicate it.
+
+| Document | Write trigger | Phase |
+|---|---|---|
+| `solutions/ANALYSIS_[topic].md` | Every L3, after elicitation and before any drafting. On topic match with an existing analysis, update that one instead of a new file. | 3 |
+| `solutions/SPIKE_[topic].md` | Closing any Spike — including a negative outcome. | — |
+| `vision/features/VISION_[feature].md` | Multi-milestone topic at analysis time, or retroactive trigger (second ANALYSIS on same theme). | 3 |
+| `audit/handoff.md` (workstream registry) | **Never by hand — generated by `sdlc_check.py index` from the `HANDOFF_*.md` sources**, and `validate` errors when the two disagree. Regenerate at every L3 closure and at session end; the `Date:` header is derived, so no writer touches it. Inventory for lookup, never a work board. | 5 / session end |
+| `audit/HANDOFF_[topic].md` | **One per OPEN workstream, with or without volatile state** — it is the authored home of that workstream's registry row (frontmatter `workstream`/`level`/`branch`/`status`/`since`/`next`/`details`/`updated`), so no file means no row. Carries the resume logistics too; the ANALYSIS Diary keeps the durable narrative (DRY). DELETED at closure — deleting it *is* removing the row. | 4 / 5 / session end |
+| `audit/project_notes.md` | A note true for the whole project rather than one workstream. Appended verbatim to the generated registry, so regenerating cannot destroy notes that belong to no workstream. | 5 / session end |
+| `audit/handoff.md` — converting an existing project | **Lazily, at the first write — and then ALL AT ONCE.** Converting one row at a time is the state that loses the others, so `index` refuses to write while anything in the file is unaccounted for and names it. Until the first source exists nothing generates and nothing errors. | 5 / session end |
+| `audit/audit_plan.md` (Standalone) | Bootstrap, and whenever a mapped area changes state (`sdlc_check.py mark`). | 1 |
+| `reference/GUIDE_[topic].md` (`source_kind: document`) | Origin+purpose test (`guides.md`), or a proactive proposal accepted by user. | 4 / 5 |
+| `reference/GUIDE_[topic].md` (`source_kind: code`/`domain`) | Recognized high-complexity domain/concept with no CURRENT guide $\rightarrow$ duty to write autonomously. | 4 / 5 |
+| `audit/reviews/REVIEW_LOG.md` | Every completed review — recorded in log. | 3 / 5 |
+| ADR / Decision Log — `architecture/` or devPNT DB | A strategic decision was taken (pattern, policy, structural change): record before DONE. | 5 |
+| `strategic/architecture.md`, `strategic/existing_features.md` | Bootstrap; update at closure when the knowledge catalog actually changed. | 1 / 5 |
+| `vision/project_vision.md`, `roadmap.md`, `principles.md` | Bootstrap as `Status: DRAFT`; promoted to APPROVED only by explicit user confirmation. | 1 / 2 |
+| `topics/<slug>.md` | A placement verdict creates it (MISSING/INADEQUATE-child, `taxonomy.md`); reconciliation updates its claim rows. One node per topic — a similar-but-distinct concept is a sibling with `related:` + a written distinction, never a merge and never a duplicate. Merged/renamed nodes become tombstones (`status: SUPERSEDED` + `redirect_to:`), never deleted. | 4 |
+| a KB bundle (`export`) | Knowledge must leave this project. Export is L1 — it writes nothing into the corpus. **Importing one is L3**: a source enters the corpus and nodes are created, and a bundle is external input, so never L1 whatever its size (`portability.md`). | — |
+| `corpus/given/*` + sidecar | A source arrives: it becomes a content-addressed artifact with a sidecar carrying digest/date/`supersedes:`. A text source is copied verbatim. A non-text source yields its stored canonical extraction — copied **beside** the original when that is small enough to keep, or **instead of it** on a large binary corpus, where the original stays where it lives and is recorded as `original_path:`/`original_sha256:` (`distillation.md` §1, which owns this rule). Never edited after ingest — the digest check on whatever `given/` holds is what enforces it. | 4 |
+| `corpus/notes/*` | Something is said (`origin: elicited`), synthesised (`derived_from:`), or ruled (`basis:`). A note with none of the three is refused by the validator. | 4 / 5 |
+| the day's decisions, at a user-signed closing (the Capture Moment sweep) | Verification that the phase-4 notes/claims exist; NEW `corpus/notes/*` + claim rows only for what the sweep surfaces un-captured. The event is the CLOSING, disjoint from the row above (which fires when something is SAID). | 5 / session end |
+| `solutions/PLAN_[topic].md` + its ledger | A source too long for one context is ingested: **one task per reading window** (30 pages by default; the plan states the window used), each ending at a declared `extracted_through:`. That ledger is the register the ingestion resumes from across sessions — ingestion never builds a second one (`distillation.md` §3, `templates.md`). | 4 |
+| `corpus/given/*.meta.md` — `extracted_through:` | Every reading window closes by advancing it (`p=<n>`, `L<n>`, `complete`). Required once any claim cites the artifact: unstated, "I am finished" cannot be falsified, which is how a sampled 200-page manual passes for an ingested one. | 4 |
+| `INDEX.md`, `reference/INDEX.md`, `topics/INDEX.md`, `corpus/INDEX.md` | Regenerated by `sdlc_check.py index` at closure — never by hand; `validate` fails on a hand-edited one. | 5 |
+
+## Operating Modes
+
+### Full Standalone
+Use this mode when devPNT is unavailable, not configured for the current project, or the user explicitly asks for a filesystem-only workflow.
+- Source of truth: `ai_docs/` (`vision/`, `solutions/`, `reference/`, `audit/`, `strategic/`).
+
+### Hybrid in symbiosis with devPNT
+Use this mode when `devpnt_*` tools are available and point at the current project.
+- devPNT governs `M-VISION`, Master Plan, Action Plan, and versioned artifacts.
+- Local `ai_docs/` serves as readable context, Standalone fallback, local handoff, or shadow copy.
+- **Never auto-accept a devPNT proposal**: present the preview and wait for the user's explicit confirmation. This is a human-approval guarantee, not a convenience — an agent that resolves its own proposal has removed the only step where a person can refuse.
+
+## L3 Workflow
+
+### 1. Audit and Alignment
+- Read `ai_docs/audit/handoff.md` (workstream registry) to see active topics.
+- Read `ai_docs/README.md`, `ai_docs/INDEX.md` and `ai_docs/reference/INDEX.md` (the guide router) before exploring notes. The router is a mandatory read, not an optional one: it is the only orientation step that tells you a guide already governs the work you are about to do.
+- If `ai_docs/` is missing, create the bootstrap set: `README.md`, `vision/` docs, `strategic/` docs, and `audit/audit_plan.md`, then run `sdlc_check.py index`.
+
+### 2. Vision Gate
+- Read `project_vision.md`, `roadmap.md`, `principles.md` (or devPNT `M-VISION`).
+- Verify request aligns with expected benefits, user goals, and success signals.
+
+### 3. Request Analysis & Taxonomy Pass
+
+**Before authoring, know which tier is authoring.** Authoring an analysis, a taxonomy or a claim ledger is a **deep-floor role** — its output is judgement and nothing downstream scores it — and `review.md` §The capability floor owns the rule: where this session can determine that it is below that floor, say so once, before drafting, rather than producing a confident artifact nobody flags. Where it cannot determine its own tier it owes nothing. The reliably working half of that rule is addressed to the user, in the package README.
+
+- Run spec elicitation round (`elicitation.md`) before drafting analysis.
+- Run taxonomy pass (`taxonomy.md`): verify whether topics, categories, or SOPs already exist in `ai_docs/`. Avoid duplication.
+- Create or update `ai_docs/solutions/ANALYSIS_[topic].md`.
+- **Design review gate (end of Phase 3, before any drafting):** the analysis is reviewed by somebody other than its author — a subagent with fresh context, or a declared self-pass when no higher rung is usable — a permission-gated rung is asked about, never silently skipped (`review.md`). Follow `review.md`; log the outcome in `audit/reviews/REVIEW_LOG.md`. A knowledge structure reviewed only by the person who chose it is not reviewed.
+
+### 4. Knowledge Processing & Distillation
+- **Isolate the work (Branch/worktree hygiene).** Distillation rewrites existing notes — full re-read per `## Revision` — and does it on a branch or a worktree, never directly on the shared corpus, so a half-finished reconciliation is never what the next reader finds.
+- Before drafting (L2/L3; L1 exempt), **consult the guide router** for a guide covering the task and read it first (the consult trigger, `guides.md` §0). A targeted description match, not a blanket read. Its result is the router verdict already declared with the triage level (Rule Zero).
+- Execute knowledge extraction using **Signal Distillation** (`distillation.md`).
+- **Opt-in subagent execution**: for an L3 with an approved analysis, the work MAY be executed via subagents per `dispatch.md`; default stays same-session. `dispatch.md` also carries the family-wide **delegation boundary** (what may be delegated at all, and what never may) — that section is not gated by the opt-in trigger and applies at any level, dispatch or no dispatch.
+- Handle conflicting or outdated information via **Reconciliation** (`reconciliation.md`). Mark obsolete files `status: SUPERSEDED`.
+
+### 5. Closure & Indexing
+- Run verification checks (`sdlc_check.py check --root <project_root>`).
+- If the session recorded any supersession, run `sdlc_check.py stale`: its
+  `## claims` section is the revision worklist (superseded-cited documents,
+  expired windows, superseded derivation chains), worked per `## Revision`
+  -- one document, one full re-read.
+- If the work was governed by user-provided indications and is reusable, **PROPOSE distilling a guide** (proactive trigger, `guides.md` §1) — a proposal for the user, never a silent write, never from model knowledge.
+- Update `audit/handoff.md`.
+- Regenerate manifests: `python <skill_dir>/scripts/sdlc_check.py index --root <project_root>`.
+- Mark output clean and complete.
+
+## Operative Guides & Router
+Guides are consulted, created, and distilled per `guides.md`.
+- **Consult (before acting)**: check `ai_docs/reference/INDEX.md` — the guide router — and declare the verdict with the triage level.
+- **Propose proactively**: when the user hands over indications that will govern future work, propose distilling them into a guide. A proposal, never a silent write, and never from model knowledge — a guide's whole value is that every claim traces to what the user actually provided.
+- Distill from user instructions into `ai_docs/reference/GUIDE_[topic].md`.
+
+## Topic Recall — the answer-side consult
+
+The graph is only a second brain if it is READ when answering, not only written when
+distilling. The descent (`taxonomy.md`) fires here with a new trigger — the answer-side
+twin of the guide consult above.
+
+- **Trigger — unconditional scan on domain assertions.** Whenever the reply would assert
+  facts about the PROJECT'S domain (its topics, decisions, sources, constraints), scan
+  `topics/INDEX.md`. Plausibility of coverage is judged ON the scanned top rows, never
+  before them — "the KB probably doesn't have this" is model memory talking, the exact
+  judgement this reflex removes. Exempt: pure mechanics (running a command, editing per
+  explicit instruction), general knowledge outside the project's domain, L1 gestures.
+- **Once per topic per SESSION.** The dedup key is the matched slug (known ex post); a
+  question plainly within an already-descended branch reuses that consult, and a
+  placement descent already run this session counts. A compaction starts a new session.
+- **The act.** Descend per `taxonomy.md` §6 (same doctrine, answer mode). On claims,
+  answer FROM them citing claim ids; a claim whose `state` is `SUPERSEDED <id>` is never
+  cited without naming its successor.
+- **The declared verdict — only when the recall ran**, never a per-turn ritual. Four
+  legal values:
+  - `kb: <slug>[, <slug> …] → N claims cited` — **every** slug the descent opened, not
+    only the one that answered. The descent is multi-branch by mandate (`taxonomy.md`
+    §1: follow every parent, open the final candidates), so a single-slug form cannot
+    state what a correct descent did: the agent either under-reports the branches it
+    read or invents a shape for them, and both make a thorough descent
+    indistinguishable from a lucky one. Which branches were opened is the part of this
+    verdict a reader can actually check.
+  - `kb: <slug>[, <slug> …] → node matched, no claims` — surface the node's `gaps:` when
+    it answers the question: "the KB knows it doesn't know" is a first-class answer.
+  - `kb: no coverage` — index read, nothing fits.
+  - `kb: index absent — regenerate (sdlc_check.py index)` — the INDEX is missing, not
+    necessarily the graph (nodes routinely exist while the index lags); regenerate and
+    rescan.
+  Never fake the verdict: an always-"no coverage" verdict certifies a lookup that did
+  not happen. The `router:` and `kb:` verdicts are independent and may co-occur, one
+  line each — a how-to question can match a guide AND carry claims.
+- **Anti-echo — the re-touch rule.** When a DERIVED claim grounds a decision the user is
+  about to take, walk its chain to non-DERIVED ground — a GIVEN artifact, an ELICITED or
+  RULING note — and cite that ground beside the claim id; re-opening only the immediate
+  target may re-read the agent's own synthesis, which is the echo chamber itself. If the
+  ground does not resolve (imported bundle without originals, external `original_path:`,
+  tombstone): say so beside the claim id and treat the claim as **unverified for
+  decision-grounding** — surfaced, never silently cited. Per-provenance stance: GIVEN's
+  source column is already the direct citation; ELICITED/RULING carry the practitioner's
+  own authority; an IMPORTED claim grounding a decision is named as un-re-ratified
+  foreign authority.
+- **Citation scope — the row's test is scope, not fidelity.** Before citing a claim in
+  an answer or a document, verify every part of the row belongs to the question: a row
+  can be atomic as provenance and plural as meaning (`distillation.md` §3), and a
+  faithful quote of the whole row then asserts what the source did not — a capability
+  borrowed across subjects, another actor's surface, a silently switched referent.
+  If part of the row is out of scope, **cite the part and say where the rest
+  belongs** — never cite the whole row on the grounds that it "says what I quoted",
+  and never silently drop the off-topic part (that loses an assertion — the other
+  half of the north star). A row that keeps forcing this test is a split candidate
+  (`reconciliation.md` §Splitting a bundled row).
+- **The trace persists.** When the decision is recorded (a ruling note, a diary entry),
+  that record cites the claim id AND the re-touched ground — the trace survives in the
+  corpus, not in ephemeral chat.
+- **Under dispatch**, recall is an orchestrator concern: the orchestrator runs the
+  descent itself; a context-free subagent never runs its own. The task schema has no
+  claims field today, so until a dispatch-focused unit adds one, the orchestrator
+  inlines the cited claim rows in the task's free text — an explicit interim.
+
+## The Capture Moment — the day's decisions reach the ledger
+
+Capture today is what makes recall honest tomorrow: a captured elicited or ruled note
+is exactly the non-DERIVED ground the re-touch rule above walks to. The rails all
+exist — this section adds only the MOMENT.
+
+- **When — user-signed closings, once per session.** Phase 5 of a governed unit, or
+  any closing signal from the user in an un-governed session ("chiudiamo", "we're
+  done"); the session-end pass that updates `handoff.md`/`project_notes.md` then runs
+  at that same closing. Never per-turn, never a standing interruption. **Declared
+  residual**: an unsignaled end (the user simply stops writing) captures nothing —
+  the phase-4 duty (a decision stated mid-session owes its note WHEN SAID) is the
+  protection for sessions that never close, and the orient's recency line makes the
+  miss visible next time. That line measures NOTES recency, not full ledger
+  freshness, and trusts frontmatter `date:` over file mtimes — mtimes lie after a
+  clone or worktree.
+- **The sweep question.** At the closing, ONE question, carrying its own search
+  result inline: "today I recorded: [what the sweep found already on the rails] —
+  any other decisions from today to record?". Scoped to TODAY, so it reaches
+  decisions taken outside the session (a meeting, a call) that no transcript search
+  could find — facts only the practitioner owns. This is a **scheduled elicitation**
+  in the same family as the phase-3 round, not a blocking question (nothing stalls;
+  the session is ending), so the blocking form does not attach; the inline result
+  satisfies the search-first duty. "Niente" ends it.
+- **The sweep is idempotent.** It verifies the day's decisions are on the rails; a
+  decision already noted at phase 4 is verified, never re-captured — no second note,
+  no duplicate claim row. The moment closes gaps; the phase-4 row stays the primary
+  channel.
+- **What counts as a decision**: domain choices made or confirmed today — a value, a
+  threshold, a rule, a stated preference, a rejected alternative with its reason.
+  NOT mechanics (commands run, files edited), NOT process state (the handoff's job).
+- **The channeling — existing rails, explicit provenance.**
+  - The user's words → `corpus/notes/*` with `origin: elicited` and a `date:`; a
+    claim row distilled from it carries `prov: ELICITED`, source = that note with a
+    legal `L<a>-<b>` locator.
+  - A synthesis of the day's discussion → a note with `derived_from:` → claim
+    `prov: DERIVED`.
+  - **RULING only when the decision resolves an existing contested set** — then
+    `reconciliation.md` §2 applies in full (mandatory `basis:`, supersession of the
+    whole prior set). A fresh conflict-free decision is captured elicited: a preference
+    is not a fact, and `basis:` is reserved for the fact the corpus lacks.
+  - A fact on an existing topic → claim row, L1 (`id` empty; `claim-id --fill`).
+  - No owning topic → the note is written NOW and the placement is declared as the
+    next kb unit. Capture never smuggles an L3 hierarchy change, and
+    `topics/unplaced.md` is never a decision park — UNPLACED is for topic-less
+    scraps and is invisible to recall.
+- **Reconciliation is wired.** A captured claim meeting an existing claim on the
+  node classifies per `reconciliation.md` — capture can confirm, refine, coexist or
+  CONTEST, never silently overwrite.
+- **Silence stays legal where no one signed off**: no closing signal → no question,
+  no ritual line.
+
+## Revision — the full re-read
+
+Incorporating new knowledge into an existing document is a rewrite, not an
+append: anchored edits are each correct while the global invariant — the body
+reads as CURRENT state — is never re-verified. The gesture:
+- Re-read the WHOLE document before editing; then rewrite the body so it reads
+  as written today — new knowledge fused, never quarantined in dated
+  sections — never append a delta.
+- History goes to the Diary/notes, never an inline chronicle — and past Diary
+  entries are never rewritten: a correction is a new entry.
+- A SUPERSEDED banner is a tombstone, never a revision device in a living doc.
+- Claim tables are EXEMPT (rows move only per `reconciliation.md`) and node
+  frontmatter moves only per `taxonomy.md` — a revision never re-parents; the
+  rewrite governs prose, never the ledger or the graph edges.
+- A multi-document pass re-reads PER DOCUMENT; set coverage is not integrity.
+- The re-read raises the probability of catching a false premise; it cannot
+  guarantee it — domain judgment stays the human's.
+
+## Mechanical Enforcement
+- `scripts/sdlc_check.py index`: updates `ai_docs/INDEX.md` and `ai_docs/reference/INDEX.md`.
+- `scripts/sdlc_check.py validate`: validates YAML frontmatter (`status`, `description`).
+- `scripts/sdlc_check.py check`: checks dirty closures and missing indexes.
+- `scripts/sdlc_check.py stale`: spine staleness plus `## claims` --
+  superseded-cited documents, expired `valid` windows, superseded
+  derivation chains (the time cycle's consolidated view).

package/skills/kb-agentic-skill/dispatch.md

@@ -26,7 +26,11 @@ without an E-ISP.
    - `sdlc_check.py plan brief PLAN_[feature].md --task <id>` — prints the
      task block, the `produces` of prior-order tasks (interfaces), and
      `guides` pointers (paths, never pasted content) to stdout.
-   - Spawn the subagent with that brief as its entire context window.
+   - Spawn the subagent with that brief plus the return-doubts line as its
+     entire context window. The line: "An open point whose answer changes the
+     work is not yours to decide: return it in your final output with what you
+     searched." The orchestrator treats them as its own candidate doubts
+     (`elicitation.md` §When a doubt emerges).
    - Run `task.verify` out of band (the orchestrator executes it — the
      validator only ever prints it, never runs it) plus the one-shot review
      below.

package/skills/kb-agentic-skill/elicitation.md

@@ -1,133 +1,192 @@
-# Spec Elicitation
-
-`## The question discipline` below governs EVERY question to the practitioner —
-any phase, any level, inside or outside the round. The rest of the file is the
-spec elicitation round: it applies when an L3 request enters phase 3 (Request
-Analysis), BEFORE drafting the ANALYSIS document (Standalone) or the D-UC/E-ISP
-(Hybrid).
-
-Skip path: if the spec is already complete — an approved Vision or explicit
-user requirements already answer goal, scope, and constraints — skip the
-round and add a one-line note in the analysis stating why it was skipped.
-Do not run the round as a formality when the answers are already on record.
-
-Unattended path: when the user is not reachable (a scheduled or autonomous run,
-and a bootstrap Vision is `DRAFT` by mandate, so the skip path above cannot
-apply on a project's first L3), do not stall and do not invent consensus. Write
-the six answers as **declared assumptions** in `## Objective`, mark the ANALYSIS
-`BLOCKED on the user`, and stop before implementation. An assumption on the
-record is reviewable; a guess folded silently into a design is not.
-
-## The question discipline
-
-A question to the practitioner spends their attention and stalls the work; the
-process *plans* that cost in exactly two places — the round below, and the
-Capture Moment sweep at a user-signed closing (`SKILL.md`), a scheduled
-elicitation in the same family that carries its search result inline and stalls
-nothing. Everywhere, a question is legal only when BOTH hold:
-
-1. **Searched first, and the search is named — with its result.** The answer is
-   not on record and not derivable from the corpus, the topic graph, `ai_docs/`,
-   the Vision or the conversation — and the question states the terms, tools and
-   areas you searched **and what they returned**. Same standard as a router
-   verdict or a taxonomy-pass MISSING, and it carries their floors: a search
-   whose scope does not cover the question is not a search; a hit you did not
-   open narrows nothing; and **never fake the search** — "I looked and found
-   nothing" that names no terms and no areas is a search not run. A question the
-   corpus can answer is a search outsourced to the practitioner.
-2. **It names what is blocked.** The question states the specific decision or
-   fact that cannot be resolved without the reply — what you will do differently
-   depending on the answer. If nothing downstream changes, there is no question.
-
-Never legal:
-
-- **Generic confirmation** — "shall I proceed?", "is this OK?". The process
-  authorizes proceeding; if a real risk motivates the ask, name the risk and the
-  fork — that is a blocking question and carries the form below.
-- **Preference-fishing** — asking the practitioner to pick among options that
-  are equivalent in their effect on the benefit and already decided by the
-  project's conventions. Cheapness to undo is NOT the test.
-- **Re-asking the record** — goal, scope or constraints that an APPROVED
-  Vision, an earlier reply, or the request itself already states; or a fact a
-  claim row already carries with its source.
-
-What questions are FOR — what the practitioner uniquely owns: the benefit,
-priorities between conflicting goods, non-goals, acceptance, the approvals
-doctrine reserves to them, and **rulings on contested claims — where their
-answer counts only as a fact they know (`basis:`), never as a preference**
-(`reconciliation.md` §2). Facts about intent come from the practitioner; facts
-about the documents come from the corpus. **Precedence:** a choice the
-practitioner uniquely owns is never preference-fishing; the list above reaches
-choices that are *not* theirs.
-
-**Default non-blocking.** An unknown on which no fork of the work depends:
-write it as a **declared assumption** in the artifact it touches, proceed, and
-present the open points **batched**, answered by exception. This branch carries
-the SAME evidence duty as a question: each assumption states **what it is taken
-from** and **the alternative it excludes**, and every declared assumption
-reaches the batch — an assumption nobody is shown is a silent decision. This is
-the same structure as the claim ledger's own escalation rule — keep BOTH sides
-with their sources and surface them, never silently pick one — and it is this
-branch, not the blocking one, where that rule structurally lives: an open
-`CONTESTED` set never stops an ingest (`reconciliation.md` §4).
-
-**Blocking is reserved** for three cases: proceeding under ANY assumption would
-waste the work (the forks diverge at once); the doctrine reserves the decision
-to the practitioner; or the doctrine itself mandates the stop. **Exactly two
-mandating files prescribe their own hand-over, and there the general form does
-not apply**: `reconciliation.md` §4's escalation form (the claims in the set,
-each source, date and provenance, and why the machine cannot decide) — the
-mandated form for claim conflicts; and `review.md`'s round cap (the artifact
-plus the open findings). That list is closed. Every other blocking question
-carries the general form:
-
-- the fork: the concrete options and what each implies for the work;
-- the evidence: what you searched, read or tried, and what it leaves undecided;
-- why no assumption survives — what work is discarded if you assume and are
-  wrong;
-- why it is the practitioner's call;
-- what stays blocked until answered.
-
-## The round
-
-Ask ONE structured set of questions, not a drip of follow-ups. Keep each
-question short and numbered; offer concrete options where a real choice
-exists (this narrows the reply and speeds up the round). Cover:
-
-1. **Goal / benefit** — what problem this closes and why now. The answer must
-   name what the actor *obtains*, not a mechanism: "a dashboard" is not an
-   answer to "never lose the thread" — ask again until it is a benefit
-   (`vision.md`: the Vision is the distilled benefit; solutions and preferences
-   are what gets filtered out).
-2. **Actors** — who interacts with this: their role, primary goal, and what
-   "good UX" means to them. These become the Vision's `## Actors`; each
-   use-case below attaches to one (actor = who they are, use-case = what
-   they do). Skip only when an approved Vision already names them.
-3. **Scope boundaries** — what is explicitly included in this unit of work.
-4. **Non-goals** — what is explicitly excluded, so scope does not silently
-   creep in later.
-5. **Constraints** — technical, compatibility, and security constraints that
-   bound the solution space.
-6. **Acceptance signals** — how you and the user will both recognize the
-   work is done and correct.
-
-## Reflect
-
-Fold the answers into the ANALYSIS `## Objective` / `## Vision-Alignment`
-sections (Standalone) or into the D-UC/E-ISP (Hybrid) — do not leave them
-sitting only in the chat transcript. The written document, not the
-conversation, is what the next session and the next reviewer will read.
-
-Run a second round only when an answer opens a real fork in the design (a
-genuinely new question the first round could not have anticipated). Do not
-run a second round to double-check answers that were already clear.
-
-## Anti-patterns
-
-- **Interrogation**: an endless list of questions, or drip-feeding one
-  question at a time across many turns instead of one structured round.
-- **Asking what the approved vision already answers**: re-asking goal or
-  non-goals that a `Status: APPROVED` Vision or M-VISION already states.
-- **Collecting answers without folding them in**: getting replies in chat
-  and proceeding to design without writing them into the analysis document —
-  the next reader has no record of why the scope is what it is.
+# Spec Elicitation
+
+`## The question discipline` below governs EVERY doubt and EVERY question to the
+practitioner — any phase, any level, inside or outside the round. The rest of the
+file is the spec elicitation round: it applies when an L3 request enters phase 3 (Request
+Analysis), BEFORE drafting the ANALYSIS document (Standalone) or the D-UC/E-ISP
+(Hybrid).
+
+Skip path: if the spec is already complete — an approved Vision or explicit
+user requirements already answer goal, scope, and constraints — skip the
+round and add a one-line note in the analysis stating why it was skipped.
+Do not run the round as a formality when the answers are already on record.
+
+Unattended path: when the user is not reachable (a scheduled or autonomous run,
+and a bootstrap Vision is `DRAFT` by mandate, so the skip path above cannot
+apply on a project's first L3) and a real doubt remains, do not stall and do not
+invent consensus. Write it as a **declared assumption** (§Ask before the write)
+in the artifact it touches. At L3, mark the ANALYSIS `BLOCKED on the user` and
+stop before implementation; below L3, proceed and list the assumption in the
+reply. An assumption on the record is reviewable; a guess folded silently into a
+design is not.
+
+## The question discipline
+
+A doubt kept silent is decided by the agent alone and reaches the documents
+looking settled; a useless question wastes the practitioner's attention. This
+section rules on both. The process *plans* questions in two places — the round
+below, and the Capture Moment sweep at a user-signed closing (`SKILL.md`) — each
+a planned occasion that keeps its own form.
+
+### When a doubt emerges
+
+A **candidate doubt** is an open point whose answer changes what you write or
+record. The usual signals — they illustrate, they do not close the definition:
+
+| Thought | What it means |
+|---|---|
+| "They probably mean…", "I'll assume…" | you are choosing between readings of the request |
+| "The request doesn't say, so I'll fill it in" | a gap in scope, a non-goal, an acceptance criterion or a priority |
+| "Either would work, I'll pick one" | equivalent in effect: yours, pick and do not ask; different in effect: weigh them below |
+| "I'll note it as an assumption and move on" | with the practitioner reachable, that note is where doubts go to be forgotten |
+| "It's reversible, it can be fixed later" | later is after the documents built on it exist |
+
+- **A fact, or information only the practitioner holds** (a date, a figure, a
+  constraint): settled only by evidence, cited — never settled by a weighing. Left
+  open by the corpus and changing the work, it is a real doubt.
+- **A choice** — a reading of intent, a structuring trade-off: cite the
+  practitioner's statement that settles it (the request, an APPROVED Vision, an
+  earlier reply); failing one, weigh the pros and cons of each option, stating each
+  rejected option at its strongest — the need it serves best; a weighing won against
+  a weak version of the alternative is not a weighing. One clearly outweighs: take
+  it and write the weighing with the choice — "I take X over Z: pro …, contro …".
+  Balanced, or turning on a priority of theirs not on record: a **real doubt** — and
+  it turns on one whenever the options serve different needs of the actor, each
+  better at one the actor would notice in using the result (a quick answer against
+  a complete record) and
+  none good enough at both, and nothing the practitioner wrote ranks those needs —
+  however clear your own ranking feels. "The more natural reading" with no pros and
+  cons written is not a weighing. Reserved approvals never enter this test
+  (§The form of a question).
+
+### Ask before the write
+
+A real doubt that passes the legality test below is **owed**, not merely allowed:
+the test separates a doubt from a search not yet run, it never licenses silence.
+Ask it before the first write that would embed its answer, grouped with every
+doubt open at that point, in one numbered set, with the client's
+structured-question facility where it has one. Never defer a doubt to the
+deliverable, where the practitioner must find it inside the document; never drip
+one question per turn. Fold every answer into the artifact, citing the reply; an
+intent choice with neither a source nor a weighing is a finding (`review.md`
+§Reviewing).
+
+**Declared assumptions exist only where no question can be asked:**
+
+- **Unattended** — the practitioner is not reachable (the Unattended path above).
+- **Delegated** — their own words handed you this choice; quote them. A general
+  "go ahead" is not a delegation.
+
+Each states **what it is taken from** and **the alternative it excludes**, and is
+listed where the practitioner will read it — an assumption nobody is shown is a
+silent decision. A dispatched subagent returns its open points in its final output
+(`dispatch.md`); the orchestrator treats them as its own candidate doubts
+(§When a doubt emerges).
+
+### The legality test
+
+Everywhere, a question is legal only when BOTH hold:
+
+1. **Searched first, and the search is named — with its result.** The answer is
+   not on record and not derivable from the corpus, the topic graph, `ai_docs/`,
+   the Vision or the conversation — and the question states the terms, tools and
+   areas you searched **and what they returned**. Same standard as a router
+   verdict or a taxonomy-pass MISSING, and it carries their floors: a search
+   whose scope does not cover the question is not a search; a hit you did not
+   open narrows nothing; and **never fake the search** — "I looked and found
+   nothing" that names no terms and no areas is a search not run. A question the
+   corpus can answer is a search outsourced to the practitioner.
+2. **It names what is blocked.** The question states the specific decision or
+   fact that cannot be resolved without the reply — what you will do differently
+   depending on the answer. If nothing downstream changes, there is no question.
+
+Never legal:
+
+- **Generic confirmation** — "shall I proceed?", "is this OK?". The process
+  authorizes proceeding; if a real risk motivates the ask, name the risk and the
+  fork — that is a blocking question and carries the form below.
+- **Preference-fishing** — asking the practitioner to pick among options that
+  are equivalent in their effect on the benefit and already decided by the
+  project's conventions. Cheapness to undo is NOT the test.
+- **Re-asking the record** — goal, scope or constraints that an APPROVED
+  Vision, an earlier reply, or the request itself already states; or a fact a
+  claim row already carries with its source.
+
+What questions are FOR — what the practitioner uniquely owns: the benefit,
+priorities between conflicting goods, non-goals, acceptance, the approvals
+doctrine reserves to them, and **rulings on contested claims — where their
+answer counts only as a fact they know (`basis:`), never as a preference**
+(`reconciliation.md` §2). Facts about intent come from the practitioner; facts
+about the documents come from the corpus. **Precedence:** a choice the
+practitioner uniquely owns is never preference-fishing; the list above reaches
+choices that are *not* theirs.
+
+### The form of a question
+
+The approvals reserved above and every stop the doctrine mandates are asked
+whatever you expect the answer: **legal by mandate**, never weighed, never
+re-argued here. Unattended, they are never assumed: the work holds, unless the
+mandating rule prescribes its own unattended handling (`review.md`'s gated rung
+does).
+
+**Exactly two mandating files prescribe their own hand-over, and there the
+general form does not apply**: `reconciliation.md` §4's escalation — the mandated
+form for claim conflicts, which keeps its own timing as well; and
+`review.md`'s round cap (the artifact plus the open findings). That list is closed. A question outside the
+planned occasions carries the **blocking form**, one line per element:
+
+- the fork: the options, each with its pros and cons, and what each implies for
+  the work;
+- the evidence: what you searched, read or tried, and what it leaves undecided;
+- why no assumption survives — why the weighing does not settle it, and what a
+  wrong pick costs; a reserved approval or a mandated stop cites the approval or
+  the mandate instead;
+- why it is the practitioner's call;
+- what stays blocked until answered.
+
+## The round
+
+Ask ONE structured set of questions, not a drip of follow-ups. Keep each
+question short and numbered; offer concrete options where a real choice
+exists, each with its pros and cons (this narrows the reply and speeds up the
+round). Cover:
+
+1. **Goal / benefit** — what problem this closes and why now. The answer must
+   name what the actor *obtains*, not a mechanism: "a dashboard" is not an
+   answer to "never lose the thread" — ask again until it is a benefit
+   (`vision.md`: the Vision is the distilled benefit; solutions and preferences
+   are what gets filtered out).
+2. **Actors** — who interacts with this: their role, primary goal, and what
+   "good UX" means to them. These become the Vision's `## Actors`; each
+   use-case below attaches to one (actor = who they are, use-case = what
+   they do). Skip only when an approved Vision already names them.
+3. **Scope boundaries** — what is explicitly included in this unit of work.
+4. **Non-goals** — what is explicitly excluded, so scope does not silently
+   creep in later.
+5. **Constraints** — technical, compatibility, and security constraints that
+   bound the solution space.
+6. **Acceptance signals** — how you and the user will both recognize the
+   work is done and correct.
+
+## Reflect
+
+Fold the answers into the ANALYSIS `## Objective` / `## Vision-Alignment`
+sections (Standalone) or into the D-UC/E-ISP (Hybrid) — do not leave them
+sitting only in the chat transcript. The written document, not the
+conversation, is what the next session and the next reviewer will read.
+
+Run a second round only when an answer opens a real fork in the design (a
+genuinely new question the first round could not have anticipated). Do not
+run a second round to double-check answers that were already clear.
+
+## Anti-patterns
+
+- **Interrogation**: an endless list of questions, or drip-feeding one
+  question at a time across many turns instead of one structured round.
+- **Asking what the approved vision already answers**: re-asking goal or
+  non-goals that a `Status: APPROVED` Vision or M-VISION already states.
+- **Deferring a doubt into the document**: writing a guess into the artifact
+  and leaving the practitioner to find it there.
+- **Collecting answers without folding them in**: getting replies in chat
+  and proceeding to design without writing them into the analysis document —
+  the next reader has no record of why the scope is what it is.

package/skills/kb-agentic-skill/review.md

@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ above is already satisfiable and no stop fires (the row still carries
 rung 2 is not "usable" for this clause, it joins the question instead. When the best rung is gated and no
 ungated rung works, the gate STOPS and asks: descending to rung 3 on silence is
 illegal while a user is reachable. The stop is doctrine-mandated (legal by mandate,
-`elicitation.md` §Blocking is reserved) and carries that file's five-bullet
+`elicitation.md` §The form of a question) and carries that file's five-bullet
 blocking form — its closed-list exemption covers this file's round-cap hand-over
 only, not this stop. The question offers the gated rung(s) against the fallback, with what each
 buys; states each higher rung's status (tried / unusable / gated) with the
@@ -335,6 +335,13 @@ When you are the reviewer:
   statement is the proof the check ran; an unfalsifiable "I checked" is the review
   theater this discipline exists to prevent (the reviewer-side twin of §Receiving's
   silent-drop rule). Plain code reviews stay findings-only.
+- **An unasked doubt is a finding (impact/solution-analysis & design reviews).** An
+  intent choice written with no owner-authored source and no weighing, a weighing
+  that names no rejected option or turns on an owner priority not on record, and a
+  fact or owner-held datum settled by a weighing instead of evidence are findings;
+  so is a cited source that does not say what the line claims. What makes a ground
+  or an assumption legal is each lens's `elicitation.md` §The question discipline —
+  cite it, never restate it. The fix is the question, not a better justification.
 - **Restated facts (cite, never copy).** Every governance slot has ONE owning document
   per project. A fact restated in the artifact under review when another document owns
   it is a **finding**: the fix is a citation naming the owner, not a better copy. This

package/skills/kb-agentic-skill/scripts/sdlc_core.py

@@ -1574,6 +1574,13 @@ def cmd_stale(root, hybrid=False):
         return rc                                  # was: return 0 — MUST carry guide rc
     use_git = git_available(root)
     entry = entry_script()
+    # The audit plan records the marks: its own edits are not a change to the area
+    # that contains it. Counting them made a committed hash mark of that area
+    # stale again, and every re-mark repeated the loop.
+    try:
+        plan_rel = f.resolve().relative_to(Path(root).resolve()).as_posix()
+    except ValueError:
+        plan_rel = None
     # F-056: an ANALYZED row whose reference cannot be evaluated is UNVERIFIED,
     # never fresh. Each `continue` below that skips such a row records it here;
     # skipping silently is how a pruned reference printed `[ok]` over three areas.
@@ -1641,6 +1648,7 @@ def cmd_stale(root, hybrid=False):
                     except ValueError:   # symlink out of the tree: report absolute, never crash
                         name = str(fp)
                     changed.append(name)
+        changed = [c for c in changed if c != plan_rel]
         if changed:
             stale.append((rel, changed))