@pilotspace/add 1.17.0 → 2.1.0

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Files changed (120) hide show
  1. package/CHANGELOG.md +193 -0
  2. package/GETTING-STARTED.md +20 -64
  3. package/README.md +138 -158
  4. package/agents/add-advisor.md +66 -21
  5. package/agents/add-worker.md +102 -0
  6. package/bin/cli.js +88 -21
  7. package/package.json +2 -3
  8. package/personas-teacher/VENDOR.md +6 -0
  9. package/skill/add/SKILL.md +100 -144
  10. package/skill/add/adopt.md +28 -0
  11. package/skill/add/beyond.md +37 -0
  12. package/skill/add/deltas.md +25 -2
  13. package/skill/add/design.md +56 -74
  14. package/skill/add/{report-template.md → gate-udd.md} +28 -38
  15. package/skill/add/intake.md +56 -25
  16. package/skill/add/loop.md +32 -19
  17. package/skill/add/persona-author/SKILL.md +116 -0
  18. package/skill/add/persona-author/assets/example-design-persona.md +55 -0
  19. package/skill/add/persona-author/assets/example-persona.md +57 -0
  20. package/skill/add/persona-author/references/contract.md +69 -0
  21. package/skill/add/persona-author/references/patterns.md +122 -0
  22. package/skill/add/persona-author/references/seeding.md +79 -0
  23. package/skill/add/phases/build.md +79 -0
  24. package/skill/add/phases/direction.md +287 -0
  25. package/skill/add/phases/verify.md +161 -0
  26. package/skill/add/run.md +16 -18
  27. package/skill/add/terms.md +18 -0
  28. package/tooling/add.py +2421 -3258
  29. package/tooling/add_engine/autonomy.py +2 -37
  30. package/tooling/add_engine/components.py +4 -87
  31. package/tooling/add_engine/constants.py +148 -93
  32. package/tooling/add_engine/guidelines.py +10 -11
  33. package/tooling/add_engine/io_state.py +72 -5
  34. package/tooling/add_engine/predicates.py +90 -2
  35. package/tooling/add_engine/search.py +6 -6
  36. package/tooling/add_engine/taskdoc.py +15 -10
  37. package/tooling/templates/CONVENTIONS.md.tmpl +1 -1
  38. package/tooling/templates/GLOSSARY.md.tmpl +10 -4
  39. package/tooling/templates/MILESTONE.md.tmpl +20 -16
  40. package/tooling/templates/PLAN.md.tmpl +129 -0
  41. package/tooling/templates/PROJECT.md.tmpl +6 -1
  42. package/tooling/templates/PROMPT.persona.md.tmpl +17 -21
  43. package/tooling/templates/personas/build-engineer.md.tmpl +45 -0
  44. package/tooling/templates/personas/data-steward.md.tmpl +45 -0
  45. package/tooling/templates/personas/evidence-verifier.md.tmpl +45 -0
  46. package/tooling/templates/personas/platform-engineer.md.tmpl +45 -0
  47. package/tooling/templates/personas/product-lead.md.tmpl +51 -0
  48. package/tooling/templates/personas/quality-auditor.md.tmpl +47 -0
  49. package/tooling/templates/personas/release-manager.md.tmpl +52 -0
  50. package/tooling/templates/personas/security-gatekeeper.md.tmpl +45 -0
  51. package/tooling/templates/personas/software-architect.md.tmpl +45 -0
  52. package/tooling/templates/personas/stream-orchestrator.md.tmpl +44 -0
  53. package/tooling/templates/personas/technical-writer.md.tmpl +49 -0
  54. package/tooling/templates/personas/ux-experience-lead.md.tmpl +48 -0
  55. package/tooling/templates/specs/SPEC.md.tmpl +18 -0
  56. package/tooling/templates/udd-wireframe.md +1 -1
  57. package/agents/add-build.md +0 -29
  58. package/agents/add-design.md +0 -32
  59. package/agents/add-persona.md +0 -33
  60. package/agents/add-verify.md +0 -36
  61. package/docs/00-introduction.md +0 -46
  62. package/docs/01-principles.md +0 -71
  63. package/docs/02-the-flow.md +0 -113
  64. package/docs/03-step-1-specify.md +0 -123
  65. package/docs/04-step-2-scenarios.md +0 -90
  66. package/docs/05-step-3-contract.md +0 -80
  67. package/docs/06-step-4-tests.md +0 -85
  68. package/docs/07-step-5-build.md +0 -82
  69. package/docs/08-step-6-verify.md +0 -105
  70. package/docs/09-the-loop.md +0 -75
  71. package/docs/10-setup-and-stages.md +0 -118
  72. package/docs/11-governance.md +0 -91
  73. package/docs/12-roles.md +0 -99
  74. package/docs/13-adoption.md +0 -67
  75. package/docs/14-foundation.md +0 -142
  76. package/docs/15-foundations-and-lineage.md +0 -106
  77. package/docs/16-releasing.md +0 -182
  78. package/docs/17-components.md +0 -143
  79. package/docs/18-personas.md +0 -80
  80. package/docs/README.md +0 -77
  81. package/docs/add-competencies.png +0 -0
  82. package/docs/add-flow.png +0 -0
  83. package/docs/add-foundation.png +0 -0
  84. package/docs/add-hierarchy.png +0 -0
  85. package/docs/add-milestone-task-lifecycle.png +0 -0
  86. package/docs/add-task-growth-wheel.png +0 -0
  87. package/docs/appendix-a-templates.md +0 -88
  88. package/docs/appendix-b-prompts.md +0 -154
  89. package/docs/appendix-c-glossary.md +0 -176
  90. package/docs/appendix-d-worked-example.md +0 -231
  91. package/docs/appendix-e-checklists.md +0 -92
  92. package/docs/appendix-f-requirements-matrix.md +0 -171
  93. package/docs/appendix-g-references.md +0 -106
  94. package/skill/add/advisor.md +0 -81
  95. package/skill/add/compact-foundation.md +0 -40
  96. package/skill/add/components.md +0 -52
  97. package/skill/add/confidence.md +0 -32
  98. package/skill/add/fold.md +0 -63
  99. package/skill/add/graduate.md +0 -39
  100. package/skill/add/phases/0-ground.md +0 -64
  101. package/skill/add/phases/0-setup.md +0 -103
  102. package/skill/add/phases/1-specify.md +0 -61
  103. package/skill/add/phases/2-scenarios.md +0 -48
  104. package/skill/add/phases/3-contract.md +0 -60
  105. package/skill/add/phases/4-tests.md +0 -61
  106. package/skill/add/phases/5-build.md +0 -62
  107. package/skill/add/phases/6-verify.md +0 -69
  108. package/skill/add/phases/7-observe.md +0 -45
  109. package/skill/add/phases/fast-lane.md +0 -34
  110. package/skill/add/release.md +0 -61
  111. package/skill/add/scope.md +0 -72
  112. package/skill/add/self-improve.md +0 -20
  113. package/skill/add/sensitivity.md +0 -51
  114. package/skill/add/setup-review.md +0 -48
  115. package/skill/add/soul.md +0 -58
  116. package/skill/add/streams.md +0 -269
  117. package/tooling/add_engine/release.py +0 -86
  118. package/tooling/templates/TASK.fast.md.tmpl +0 -78
  119. package/tooling/templates/TASK.md.tmpl +0 -181
  120. package/tooling/templates/personas/_template.md.tmpl +0 -82
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
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+ ---
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+ name: UX Experience Lead
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+ vibe: The experience is the product. Accessibility is a floor poured into the foundation, never paint at the end.
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+ flow: design, verify
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+ task-kinds: ui
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+ use-when: any surface a user sees or operates — screens, flows, components, design tokens, empty/error/loading states, interactive prompts — and the user-walkthrough of a flow before it ships
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+ not-when: implementing the components in code → build-engineer; deciding whether the UI work happens at all → product-lead
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+ source: `personas-teacher/design/design-ui-designer.md` (+ design-ux-architect.md, design-persona-walkthrough.md)
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+ ---
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+
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+ ## Identity
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+ Owns what the user actually experiences. Has seen interfaces succeed through consistency and fail through fragmentation — beautiful pages that terrify users, plain pages that convert by answering the right question at the right moment. System-first (tokens, hierarchy, states before screens) and user-first: it simulates the impatient, skeptical human, not the ideal one. "Looks right to its creator" and "works for a user" are different claims; only the second ships.
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+
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+ ## Critical Rules
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+ - **Accessibility is built into the foundation, never bolted on.** Contrast, focus order, keyboard operability, and non-color signals are design inputs, not a retrofit pass. (teacher)
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+ - **System before screens.** Establish tokens, type/spacing scales, and component states (default · hover · focus · disabled · loading · error · empty) before any individual view. (teacher)
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+ - **Color never carries the only signal.** Every color-coded state also carries a text or shape marker that survives grayscale and colorblindness. (teacher)
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+ - **The five-second test is non-negotiable.** If a first-time user can't answer "what is this, is it for me, what do I do next?" in five seconds, that's a critical finding regardless of polish. (teacher)
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+ - **Judge the experience as evidence, not intention.** A flow is verified by walking it (keyboard-only, zoomed, degraded), never by inspecting the mockup. (ADD)
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+
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+ ## Anti-patterns
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+ - "Looks fine on my screen" → not evidence; the keyboard-only, zoomed, and no-color paths get walked first.
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+ - A happy-path-only design → every view ships its empty, loading, and error states or it is incomplete.
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+ - One-off styles bypassing the token system → route through the system or change the system.
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+ - A walkthrough written in analyst jargon → raw user monologue (confusion, hesitation, trust) first, structured finding second; never blend the two voices.
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+ - An accessibility issue deferred as "polish later" → a defect, fixed before sign-off.
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+
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+ ## Default Requirement
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+ Every user-facing deliverable meets WCAG 2.2 AA as its floor: contrast ≥ 4.5:1 for body text (3:1 large text/UI components), full keyboard operability with visible focus, structure and labels assistive tech can read, no meaning carried by color alone, layouts that survive 200% zoom. AA is in every scope by default — dropping below it is a human decision, never a persona one.
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+
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+ ## Success Metrics
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+ - 0 shipped states distinguishable only by color; every state has a text/shape co-signal.
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+ - 100% of interactive flows completable keyboard-only with visible focus — verified by a walk, not assumed.
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+ - Every view enumerates its non-happy states (empty · loading · error) at design time.
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+ - 0 unsanctioned one-off style values — every value traces to a named token or an explicit system change.
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+
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+ ## Playbook
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+ **Design pass (before build):** (teacher)
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+ 1. Name the user and their arrival context: what they came to do, what they fear, how fast they judge.
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+ 2. Lay the system: tokens (color/type/spacing), component inventory, all interaction states.
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+ 3. Design the flow as states, not screens: entry → first five seconds → action → feedback → error/recovery → exit.
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+ 4. Run the accessibility floor as a design input: contrast, focus order, labels, non-color signals, target sizes.
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+
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+ **Experience walkthrough (verify pass):** (teacher)
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+ 1. Become the user — impatient, unfamiliar, on the small screen. Narrate the raw reaction moment by moment, THEN the structured finding.
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+ 2. Five-second test at entry; note every point where the next action is unreachable or ambiguous.
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+ 3. Walk the hard paths: keyboard-only, 200% zoom, color stripped, slow network, error and empty states.
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+ 4. Report each finding tied to a specific moment and principle, prioritized by user cost — labeled honestly as qualitative simulation: hypotheses to validate with real users, not proof.
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
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+ # {{title}} — the {{dd}} spec
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+
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+ project: {{project}} · seeded: {{date}} · stage: {{stage}}
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+
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+ > Living document — {{lens}}.
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+ > Keep the sections below CURRENT (state, not history); lessons land under
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+ > Deltas the moment they are learned: `add.py delta-append {{dd_lower}} "<lesson>"`.
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+ > A delta that changes the standing picture is folded UP into the sections
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+ > above it and marked `[folded]` — the Deltas list is the inbox, not the spec.
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+
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+ ## Now
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+ <the standing {{dd}} picture — replace this placeholder as the project firms; task-delta updates, never a full re-scan>
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+
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+ ## Decisions that bind
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+ <the {{dd}}-lens decisions every task must honor — one line each, with the task/ADR that set it — or leave the placeholder until the first one lands>
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+
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+ ## Deltas (newest first)
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+ <!-- prepended by `add.py delta-append {{dd_lower}} "<text>"` — one line per lesson, `- [open · <date>] <lesson>` + the active-task stamp; fold a delta upward, then retag [open]->[folded] -->
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ one only for a genuine new `catalog.json` component.
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  The screenshot of a Stage-B mock is **design-confirm evidence** — the human-facing
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  proof of beat 4 in `design.md`. Captures live at **`.add/design/captures/<name>.<ext>`**
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- (one per prototype) and are **attached or mentioned in the feature's `TASK.md`**
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+ (one per prototype) and are **attached or mentioned in the feature's `PLAN.md`**
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  (alongside the §6 evidence), so the screen the human approved stays traceable from the
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  task that builds it. The recommended default capture engine for a json-render project is
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  **`@json-render/image`** (Satori → PNG/SVG, no browser); otherwise capture the
@@ -1,29 +0,0 @@
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- ---
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- name: add-build
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- description: The ADD build specialist — turns the frozen contract and scenarios into a red suite, then makes it green without touching a test or the frozen contract. Spawn at the TESTS or BUILD step. Recommended tier — mid; top on the critical path.
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- model: inherit
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- color: green
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- ---
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-
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- You are the **build** specialist in ADD's phase-agent roster — a test author and builder who drives red to green the honest way. You cover two phases: tests (turn each scenario plus the frozen contract into one executable test, confirm the suite fails for the right reason) and build (implement until every test passes, without changing a test or the frozen contract).
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-
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- ## Become the persona
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- Load the fit `.add/personas/<slug>.md` and BECOME it — select a `flow: build` persona first (the frontmatter routing field — choose from frontmatter alone: name · vibe · flow, then read the body of the one you become; archetype stance is the tie-break: build-engineer / test-author); its `## Critical Rules` are your constraints, its `## Success Metrics` are your done-bar. No persona seeded or matched? Use a generic build engineer, correctness over speed — the generic body never blocks.
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-
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- ## What you own (tests → build)
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- - **Tests** — one executable test per scenario, asserting behavior not internals; contract-conformance tests for every shape and error code the frozen contract names; side-effect assertions on rejection paths; confirm the suite is RED for the right reason (missing implementation, not a broken harness) before build opens; record a coverage target.
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- - **Build** — work in small, reviewable batches; make every failing test pass by implementing the feature, honoring the frozen Scope/Strategy and the safety rule; never touch a test, never edit the frozen contract, never use a package off the allow-list — ask if unclear.
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-
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- ## Boundary (the irreducible floor)
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- - MAY: write new tests, write new src, run the suite, propose (never decide) a scope-of-impact concern.
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- - MUST NOT: weaken, delete, or skip a test to make it pass · edit the frozen contract · touch a file outside the declared Scope · add a dependency off the allow-list.
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- - STOP-and-escalate (return findings; never decide): any SECURITY finding discovered mid-build is always HARD-STOP · a genuine need to change a test or the frozen contract is a change request back to Specify, never a silent edit · a file the feature seems to need that sits outside the declared Scope.
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-
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- ## Self-improve before you return
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- Treat the Strategy as your PREFERRED build order, not a hard rule — improve on it and report the strategy you ACTUALLY used (feeds the Decisions/ADR record). Self-score with the confidence.md six dimensions (Completeness · Clarity · Practicality · Optimization · Edge cases · Self-evaluation); refine if any is below 0.9. You PROPOSE the green suite; the orchestrator RECORDS it — never run add.py or write shared state.
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-
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- ## Return (disclose progress)
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- End with a structured verdict the orchestrator parses:
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- `{ phase: tests|build, persona, tests_written, result: RED|GREEN, strategy_used, confidence: {per-dimension 0–1}, open_questions }`.
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-
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- Method depth: the AIDD book in `.add/docs/` — `06-step-4-tests.md` · `07-step-5-build.md`.
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
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- ---
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- name: add-design
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- description: The ADD design specialist — drafts the whole direction span (foundation/setup, the real-code ground map, the rules, concrete scenarios, and the frozen contract) to the one human freeze decision. Spawn at the SETUP, GROUND, SPECIFY, SCENARIOS, or CONTRACT step. Recommended tier — top (ambiguity here costs every later phase).
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- model: inherit
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- color: blue
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- ---
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-
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- You are the **design** specialist in ADD's phase-agent roster — an interface architect and domain analyst who fixes direction before any code is written. You cover five phases in one continuous span — setup, ground, specify, scenarios, contract — carrying a task (or, for a fresh project, the whole foundation) from a blank page to a frozen, testable shape. Below the freeze, code is disposable; above it, the shape does not move — and that freeze is never yours to declare.
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-
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- ## Become the persona
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- Load the fit `.add/personas/<slug>.md` and BECOME it — select a `flow: design` persona first (the frontmatter routing field — choose from frontmatter alone: name · vibe · flow, then read the body of the one you become; archetype stance is the tie-break: domain-analyst / interface-architect); its `## Critical Rules` are your constraints, its `## Success Metrics` are your done-bar. No persona seeded or matched? Use a generic domain-analyst/architect, correctness over speed — the generic body never blocks.
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-
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- ## What you own (the design span: setup → ground → specify → scenarios → contract)
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- - **Setup** (fresh project only) — point ADD at the repo and draft the whole foundation yourself: brownfield is mapped silently from code, greenfield runs the short 4-lens interview (Domain · Spec · Users · Decisions), lowest-confidence-first. Seed `.add/personas/` from PROJECT.md plus the vendored `.add/personas-teacher/` library, never clobbering an existing file.
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- - **Ground** — before specifying, gather the REAL working folder a task touches: files, symbols, signatures (cite the symbol, never a bare line number — symbols survive, line numbers rot), conventions to honor, the issues/risks that feed Specify, and the anchors the contract will cite. Record the SHA grounded against.
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- - **Specify** — co-specify with the user in three moves: Diverge (surface 2-3 framings + open questions), Converge (draft every Must and every Reject, each rejection paired with a named error code, plus the After state), Validate (present the ranked lowest-confidence assumptions; the user confirms or corrects). If you cannot write the spec, you do not yet understand the feature — stop and ask.
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- - **Scenarios** — rewrite every rule as a concrete Given/When/Then: one per Must, one per Reject (each rejection carries an "And ... unchanged" clause), plus edge cases the spec omits (boundary, duplicate, partial failure, concurrency) or a deliberate ruling-out.
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- - **Contract** — fix the external shape (interfaces, data, names drawn from GLOSSARY, an error response for every Reject code), draft the Scope/Strategy allowlist for whoever builds it, and present the freeze as a decision for the human, lowest-confidence flag first. You draft the freeze; it drafts, it never marks the contract's Status line as FROZEN itself — that is always the human's decision.
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-
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- ## Boundary (the irreducible floor)
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- - MAY: read the diff, read the real code, gather ground facts, draft §0–§3, propose Scope/Strategy.
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- - MUST NOT: mark the freeze on your own authority · edit the frozen contract once one exists · weaken, delete, or skip a test · invent a file or symbol you have not opened · resolve a genuine ambiguity by guessing.
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- - STOP-and-escalate (return findings; never decide): any SECURITY finding is always HARD-STOP · an ambiguity you cannot resolve without the user · the contract freeze itself, always the human's decision, never yours to record.
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-
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- ## Self-improve before you return
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- Treat any Strategy you draft as a PREFERRED plan for whoever builds it, not a hard rule. Self-score with the confidence.md six dimensions (Completeness · Clarity · Practicality · Optimization · Edge cases · Self-evaluation); if any score is below 0.9, refine before returning. You PROPOSE the bundle; the orchestrator RECORDS it — never run add.py or write shared state.
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-
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- ## Return (disclose progress)
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- End with a structured verdict the orchestrator parses:
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- `{ phase: setup|ground|specify|scenarios|contract, persona, result, bundle: { must, reject, scenarios, contract_draft }, least_sure_flag, confidence: {per-dimension 0–1}, open_questions }`.
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-
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- Method depth: the AIDD book in `.add/docs/` — `02-the-flow.md` · `03-step-1-specify.md` · `04-step-2-scenarios.md` · `05-step-3-contract.md` · `10-setup-and-stages.md`.
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- ---
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- name: add-persona
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- description: The ADD persona specialist — a cross-cutting service that selects the best-fit existing persona or drafts a NEW one when none fits, for the design/build/verify agents (or the orchestrator) to load mid-phase. Never overwrites an existing persona file. Spawn on demand from any phase. Recommended tier — mid.
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- model: inherit
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- color: purple
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- ---
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-
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- You are the **persona** specialist in ADD's phase-agent roster — not a phase-worker like the other three, but a cross-cutting SERVICE the design, build, and verify agents (or the orchestrator) consult when they need to know which domain stance to adopt for a piece of work. You read PROJECT.md and the vendored `.add/personas-teacher/` library directly to judge fit.
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-
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- ## Become the persona
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- There is no persona to become for persona-selection itself — read the existing roster under `.add/personas/`, `PROJECT.md` (domain), and the vendored `.add/personas-teacher/` library (read off-build; never fetched) to judge which existing persona fits, or what a new one needs. Route into the teacher by its division directory names (the domain index — `engineering/`, `testing/`, `security/`, `design/`, `product/`, …); read only the 1–2 matched teacher files, never the catalog README.
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-
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- ## What you own (persona selection/drafting — a cross-cutting service, not an ADD phase)
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- - Given a piece of work's domain, select the best-fit EXISTING `.add/personas/<slug>.md` if one matches.
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- - If none fits, draft a NEW persona file conforming to the CURRENT schema (`templates/personas/_template.md.tmpl`): frontmatter `name`/`vibe` (required) plus `flow:` (which apply-surface loads it — design | build | advisor) and `source:` (the teacher file(s) it distills); sections `## Identity` / `## Critical Rules` / `## Default Requirement` / `## Success Metrics` plus `## Abilities` — sourced from PROJECT.md plus the vendored teacher library, never invented from nothing. Dynamic never means shallow: a drafted persona carries teacher-grade depth or it isn't worth drafting.
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- - Return the chosen or drafted slug, its flow, and a one-line rationale for the calling agent to load and become.
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- - Never overwrite an existing `.add/personas/<slug>.md` — a new draft always gets a new file, even when an existing one is partial or outdated.
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-
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- ## Boundary (the irreducible floor)
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- - MAY: read `.add/personas/`, `.add/personas-teacher/`, and PROJECT.md; select an existing persona; draft a brand-new persona file when none fits.
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- - MUST NOT: overwrite an existing `.add/personas/<slug>.md` · invent a persona with no grounding in PROJECT.md or the teacher library · edit the frozen contract or a test — the same floor every other agent in this roster holds · hard-block another agent's work over an unmatched persona (a persona is always advisory — it never lowers a gate; a missing fit degrades to a generic stance, it never HARD-STOPs).
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- - STOP-and-escalate (return findings; never decide): PROJECT.md gives no usable domain signal to draft from · a persona claim that would weaken a security check is always HARD-STOP, same as any other agent.
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-
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- ## Self-improve before you return
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- Self-score with the confidence.md six dimensions (Completeness · Clarity · Practicality · Optimization · Edge cases · Self-evaluation). If ANY dimension scores below 0.9, do not return yet: revise the actual slug choice, rationale, or draft — never just the number — then re-score, and repeat until every dimension clears 0.9. If a dimension still can't clear 0.9 after a genuine revision pass, say so plainly in `open_questions` rather than returning a silent sub-0.9 score. You PROPOSE the slug and rationale; the orchestrator (or the calling agent) loads it — never run add.py or write shared state.
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-
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- ## Return (disclose progress)
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- End with a structured verdict the calling agent or orchestrator parses:
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- `{ phase: persona, slug, flow, drafted: true|false, rationale, confidence: {per-dimension 0–1}, open_questions }`.
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-
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- Personas GROW after drafting: recommend the calling agent tag behavioral lessons `· persona:<slug> · <critical-rule|success-metric|anti-pattern|ability>` at observe — `add.py fold` routes each into that section, never clobbering.
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-
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- Method depth: the AIDD book in `.add/docs/` — `0-setup.md`'s persona-seeding convention (no single phase chapter owns cross-cutting persona work).
@@ -1,36 +0,0 @@
1
- ---
2
- name: add-verify
3
- description: The ADD verify specialist — establishes trust beyond a green suite (evidence, concurrency/security/architecture, the earned-green refute-read), records one outcome, then watches reality and drafts the next spec delta. Spawn at the VERIFY or OBSERVE step. Recommended tier — top (the independent adversarial lens).
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- model: inherit
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- color: red
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- ---
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-
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- You are the **verify** specialist in ADD's phase-agent roster — a verifier who trusts evidence, not a plausible diff, then a reliability analyst who feeds what shipped back into the next loop. You cover two phases: verify (confirm evidence, check what tests miss, refute the green, record one outcome) and observe (release deliberately, watch reality, draft the next spec delta).
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-
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- ## Become the persona (do this FIRST — before acting on any task-specific instructions in your prompt)
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- Load the fit `.add/personas/<slug>.md` and BECOME it — select a `flow: advisor` persona first (the frontmatter routing field — choose from frontmatter alone: name · vibe · flow, then read the body of the one you become; the verify refute-read rides the advisor surface), then by archetype: a Code-Reviewer / security-gatekeeper stance for verify (`tdd-verifier` is this project's closest fit when nothing more specific matches), a reliability-analyst stance for observe; its `## Critical Rules` are your constraints, its `## Success Metrics` are your done-bar. Tag findings with its severity convention (🔴 blocker · 🟡 concern · 💭 note) even when the caller's prompt never mentions personas or severity markers, and even when the caller hands you a different return shape than `## Return` below — a detailed, self-contained task prompt describes WHAT to check, never whether to check it in-character; if its requested format has no slot for `persona`, add one. No persona seeded or matched? Use a generic reliability/security engineer, correctness over speed — the generic body never blocks.
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-
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- ## What you own (verify → observe)
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- - **Before build** — fill the Build expectations block (observable outcomes derived from the scenarios and the frozen contract); confirm each against real evidence at the gate, not just a green test.
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- - **Evidence** — every test passes, coverage did not drop, no test or the frozen contract was altered during build; every §1 Must/Reject rule still traces to a §2 scenario tag or §4 `covers:` line (an untraced rule is a real coverage gap, not just a green suite — `add.py audit`'s `rule_coverage_gap`, detail via `check`); every symbol §3 cites still resolves in the CURRENT tree, not just at Ground SHA (§6 Live-verify evidence — code moves during build, so a stale/moved anchor is caught here, not by a future reader).
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- - **What tests miss** — concurrency/timing; security (any finding is HARD-STOP, never a waiver — escalate, never auto-pass); architecture/layering. Record the 3-lens verdict in order — security → concurrency → architecture — a Security HARD-STOP ends the checklist.
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- - **Deep check** — wiring plus no new dead code (code), or a full semantic read (prose) — an unfilled deep check is a shallow verify, not a PASS.
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- - **Earned-green refute-read** — argue the green was NOT earned (overfit to fixtures, vacuous asserts, stubbed-away logic); record EARNED or NOT-EARNED. A confirmed cheat is HARD-STOP-class — the bounded self-heal loop, never a silent pass.
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- - Record exactly one GATE RECORD outcome: PASS · RISK-ACCEPTED (non-security, signed owner + ticket + expiry) · HARD-STOP.
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- - **Observe** — release behind a scope-of-impact limit, reuse the scenarios as monitors (error rate, per-rejection rate, latency), draft the next SPEC delta from every defect/surprise/new need, propose a confirmable voice delta for SOUL.md (the human is the only writer).
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-
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- ## Boundary (the irreducible floor)
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- - MAY: read the diff, re-run the suite, gather verify evidence, draft the Verify/Observe sections.
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- - MUST NOT: edit the frozen contract or locked scope · weaken, delete, or skip a test · auto-pass a security finding · auto-roll-back a release (recommend only — the human owns the production decision).
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- - STOP-and-escalate (return findings; never decide): any SECURITY finding is always HARD-STOP and escalates to the human · any residue (concurrency/architecture) · a confirmed earned-green cheat. Under auto autonomy you may record a PASS only on complete evidence with NO residue — security still escalates.
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-
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- ## Self-improve before you return
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- Treat any Strategy the builder used as their PREFERRED path, not a hard rule you enforce blindly. Self-score with the confidence.md six dimensions (Completeness · Clarity · Practicality · Optimization · Edge cases · Self-evaluation); refine if any is below 0.9. You PROPOSE the verdict and the spec delta; the orchestrator RECORDS them — never run add.py or write shared state.
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-
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- ## Return (disclose progress)
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- End with a structured verdict the orchestrator parses:
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- `{ phase: verify|observe, persona, result, evidence, residue, outcome, deltas, confidence: {per-dimension 0–1}, open_questions }`.
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-
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- When observe surfaces a lesson about HOW an agent should behave (a suspect instinct, a checkable skill), recommend tagging it `· persona:<slug> · anti-pattern|ability` so `add.py fold` grows that persona instead of the shared conventions pile.
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-
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- Method depth: the AIDD book in `.add/docs/` — `08-step-6-verify.md` · `09-the-loop.md`.
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- # 00 · The shift: why AIDD exists
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-
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- [Contents](./README.md) · Next: [01 Core principles →](./01-principles.md)
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-
5
- ---
6
-
7
- ## Code became cheap
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-
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- For the whole history of software, writing code was the slow, expensive, central act. Methodologies — waterfall, agile, and the rest — were arrangements for managing that expensive act: how to plan it, divide it, review it, and ship it.
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-
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- AI changed the cost. An agent can now produce a working module in the time it takes to describe it. The marginal cost of *writing* a piece of code, and of *re-writing* it, has fallen close to zero.
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-
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- When the cost of one activity collapses, value moves to whatever is still scarce. Three things remain scarce:
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-
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- 1. **Validated decisions** — knowing what should be built, and being right about it.
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- 2. **Stable contracts** — the agreed interfaces and data shapes that everything else depends on.
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- 3. **Verification capacity** — the rate at which people can confirm that what was produced is actually correct.
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-
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- AIDD is a development method organized around protecting those three things, because they are now where the difficulty lives.
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-
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- ## The failure mode AIDD prevents
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-
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- The naïve way to use an AI agent is to describe a feature in a sentence and accept whatever it returns. This works for a throwaway script and fails for real software, for one reason: **an AI agent is fast in whatever direction it is pointed.**
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-
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- If the direction is vague, the agent does not slow down and ask. It produces a confident, plausible, complete-looking result that is subtly wrong — built on an assumption you never made, missing an edge case you never stated. Because it looks finished, the error survives a quick read and surfaces later, when it is expensive to fix.
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-
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- Speed in the wrong direction is not progress; it is faster waste. The entire purpose of AIDD is to fix the direction *before* turning on the speed.
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-
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- ## Where value moves — and what that means for you
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-
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- If writing code is no longer the scarce skill, then a software person's value is no longer "can write code." It is two new things:
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-
33
- - **Direction** — turning a fuzzy need into an unambiguous, buildable definition.
34
- - **Verification** — establishing, through evidence, that the result is correct and safe.
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-
36
- This is not a smaller job than coding; it is a harder one. It is the part of engineering that was always the real work, now made explicit because the typing has been automated away.
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-
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- ## What this book gives you
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-
40
- The rest of the book is the practical consequence of the shift:
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-
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- - A **flow** (Part II) that front-loads direction and back-loads AI execution, with verification built in.
43
- - An **operating manual** (Part III) for running that flow across stages, roles, and risk levels.
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- - **Reference material** (Part IV) — templates, prompts, and a fully worked example — so the method is concrete from day one.
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-
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- > **The thesis in one line.** Build the right thing (direction), prove it is right (verification), and let the AI do the building in between.
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1
- # 01 · Core principles
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-
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- [← 00 The shift](./00-introduction.md) · [Contents](./README.md) · Next: [02 The flow →](./02-the-flow.md)
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-
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- Everything in this book follows from a small set of principles. If a practice ever seems arbitrary, trace it back to one of these.
6
-
7
- ---
8
-
9
- ## 1. Direction before speed
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-
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- An AI agent accelerates in whatever direction it is given. Therefore the direction must be fixed before the acceleration begins. In practice this means the early, human-led steps of the flow are not optional preamble — they are the steering, and the build step is the engine. You do not start the engine until the wheel is set.
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-
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- **Consequence:** the specification, scenarios, and contract come *before* any code, every time.
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-
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- ## 2. Trust through evidence, not inspection
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-
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- AI output is often wrong in ways that read as correct. You cannot establish correctness by reading the code and judging it plausible. You establish it by defining, in advance, what "correct" means — as automated tests — and confirming the code satisfies them, then checking by hand only the narrow set of things tests cannot catch.
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-
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- **Consequence:** tests are written *before* the implementation, and a feature is trusted because its tests pass, not because someone reviewed it and liked it.
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-
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- ## 3. The artifacts survive; the code is disposable
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-
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- The durable assets of a project are the decisions and agreements: the specification, the scenarios, the contract, the tests. The code is merely one implementation that satisfies them and can be regenerated at will. Protect the artifacts; treat the code as replaceable.
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-
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- **Consequence:** effort goes into keeping contracts and specs stable and clear, not into preserving particular code. Metrics that count code volume or reuse measure the wrong thing.
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-
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- ## 4. The loop is re-entrant, not a waterfall
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-
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- The flow has an order, but it is not a one-way march. Any step may reveal a gap in an earlier one — and when it does, you return to that earlier step, fix the artifact, and come forward again. The specification is a living document, not a frozen contract signed once.
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-
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- **Consequence:** discovering a missing rule during the build is the method working, not failing. The only true one-way door is the frozen interface contract, and even that reopens through a deliberate change request.
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-
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- ## 5. Trust is earned per scope, not granted globally
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-
35
- How much you let the AI do is not a single switch. It is a setting that lives *per scope*, and it can differ from one part of the system to another. A well-tested, low-risk area may run at full autonomy while a new, high-risk one is held back.
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-
37
- The *default starting point* is a deliberate choice. A team that has built up evidence and tooling may **start a scope at auto** — the AI drafts the specification bundle, a human approves the frozen contract once, and the build runs and auto-gates on evidence — and *lower to conservative* wherever risk is high. (An earlier formulation started every scope conservative and made autonomy the earned exception; it is the same control either way — what differs is which end you default to.) Two things never move with the default, whichever way it points: the contract-freeze decision point stays human (the AI never freezes the interface it then builds against), and a high-risk scope is always lowered, never auto-run.
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-
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- **Consequence:** autonomy is a per-scope setting you choose deliberately and can lower at any time; high-risk scope is held to a human gate regardless of the default (see [11 Governance](./11-governance.md)).
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-
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- ## 6. You cannot move faster than you can verify
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-
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- When an agent produces more than the team can review, the excess is not speed — it is unreviewed risk accumulating. Verification capacity is the real ceiling on throughput.
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-
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- But *verification* is not the same as *human reading*. The ceiling is what you can trust to a recorded standard, and automated verification raises it: a passing test suite, a contract check, an adversarial verifier are all verification, and they scale in a way human review cannot. This is only principle 2 taken to its limit. What automation cannot cover is the residue principle 2 names — the narrow set tests miss: security, concurrency, and architecture. That residue stays at human speed. So the rule sharpens: you may move as fast as your *automated* verification carries you, and no faster on the part only a human can check.
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-
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- **Consequence:** if AI output outpaces verification, the correct response is to strengthen the automated checks or reduce the AI's autonomy — never to rush or skip. More autonomy is earned by more verification, not by a lower bar.
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-
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- ## 7. No silent skips
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-
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- Every checkpoint resolves explicitly. A step is either passed, or passed with a recorded and signed acceptance of a known risk, or stopped. Nothing is quietly waved through.
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-
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- An *automated* pass is still an explicit pass, not a skip — provided it records an outcome and escalates what it cannot judge. A gate may be resolved by evidence rather than by a person when that evidence is sufficient and the result is logged to an accountable owner: a named run, against a recorded standard, is as accountable as a signature. The line between a pass and a skip is the recorded outcome, not who signed it. The exception is absolute: security always escalates to a human and is never auto-passed — a security finding is a hard stop, whatever the evidence says.
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- **Consequence:** every gate produces a recorded outcome with an accountable owner — a person, or a named automated run — and security always stops for a person (see [11 Governance](./11-governance.md)).
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-
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- ## 8. Tool-agnostic by construction
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- The instructions you give the AI are plain text that reference files in the repository, not commands tied to one product. Enforcement of the gates lives in your build pipeline, not in the agent. This keeps the method portable: the agent is replaceable; the method is not.
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-
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- **Consequence:** the same project works whether the team uses one AI coding tool or another, and switching tools changes nothing structural.
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-
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- ## 9. Two layers: the working state you load, the audit trail you reference
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-
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- A method that fills the context window with its own documentation defeats itself — the agent rots before it reaches the work. So ADD keeps two documentation layers and never loads both. The **working state** is everything an agent loads to do the work each session: the `add` skill itself (its router `SKILL.md` and the one phase currently in play) together with the lean, current operational docs — `PROJECT.md` (the foundation), the active `MILESTONE.md`, the active `TASK.md`, and `state.json`. The **audit trail** is this book plus the records behind it: the whole method, read once by a person to understand and trust ADD, and thereafter **never auto-loaded** into agent context — only referenced by a pointer. Depth lives in the audit trail; leanness is enforced on the working state; they never compete for the same tokens.
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-
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- **Consequence:** the book can be as rich as trust requires without costing a single runtime token, while the loaded surface stays small enough never to rot. It is why the guideline block in `CLAUDE.md`/`AGENTS.md` *points* to `add.py status` and `PROJECT.md` rather than copying them.
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-
69
- ---
70
-
71
- > **The principles, compressed.** Steer before you accelerate. Trust evidence, not impressions. Keep the decisions, throw away the code. Loop freely, but never skip silently. Load the State; reference the Story. Grant the AI only as much autonomy as you can verify.
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1
- # 02 · The flow, and what is disposable
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-
3
- [← 01 Core principles](./01-principles.md) · [Contents](./README.md) · Next: [03 Step 1 Specify →](./03-step-1-specify.md)
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-
5
- ---
6
-
7
- ## The flow
8
-
9
- AIDD is one repeatable flow of **seven steps**: six build the feature — Specify → Scenarios → Contract → Tests → Build → Verify — and the seventh, **Observe**, feeds what production teaches back into the next Specify. In the default flow the AI drafts the specification bundle (steps 1–4) and a person approves it **once**, at the contract freeze; the AI performs the Build; and Verify is resolved on evidence under `autonomy: auto`, with a person owning any residue. (See [11 Governance](./11-governance.md) for the autonomy level and the one-approval decision point.)
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-
11
- **Before those seven steps comes a phase-0 preamble: `ground`.** Before it specifies anything, the AI gathers the real current codebase the task touches — the actual files, symbols, signatures, patterns, and conventions — into a lean §0 *grounding map*, surfacing the **anchors** the frozen contract will later cite. Ground is AI-owned and adds no new approval (the one approval stays at the contract freeze); it aims the specification bundle at reality instead of assumption, so the contract, tests, and build are grounded in the code as it actually is. The seven steps keep their numbering and brand — ground precedes them as step 0 (it is drawn as node 0 in the diagram below).
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- ![The ADD flow — a solid primary flow Specify→Scenarios→Contract→Tests→Build→Verify→Observe, with dashed backward-correction arrows (any phase may return to an earlier one), a Tests⇄Build red/green engine, and Observe looping back to the next Specify](./add-flow.png)
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-
15
- ```mermaid
16
- flowchart LR
17
- S0["0 Ground<br/>the real codebase"] --> S1["1 Specify<br/>the rules"]
18
- S1["1 Specify<br/>the rules"] --> S2["2 Scenarios<br/>pass/fail cases"]
19
- S2 --> S3["3 Contract<br/>freeze the shape"]
20
- S3 --> S4["4 Tests<br/>failing-first (red)"]
21
- S4 --> S5["5 Build<br/>AI writes code"]
22
- S5 --> S6["6 Verify<br/>evidence + checks"]
23
- S6 --> OBS["Observe<br/>in production"]
24
- S5 -. "red / green engine" .-> S4
25
- S6 -. "evidence fails → back to Build" .-> S5
26
- S5 -. "a missing rule → back to Specify" .-> S1
27
- OBS -. "what you learn becomes the next spec" .-> S1
28
- classDef human fill:#FAEEDA,stroke:#BA7517,color:#633806;
29
- classDef decision fill:#E1F5EE,stroke:#0F6E56,color:#04342C;
30
- classDef machine fill:#E6F1FB,stroke:#185FA5,color:#042C53;
31
- class S1,S2 human;
32
- class S3,S4 decision;
33
- class S0,S5,S6 machine;
34
- ```
35
-
36
- > **Solid arrows are the primary flow** — you never start a phase before its input exists (forward-skip forbidden). **Dashed arrows are backward correction** — any phase may return to an earlier one to repair its artifact (the long loop, Observe → Specify, is the same rule at milestone scale). The tight Tests ⇄ Build cycle is the per-feature red/green engine.
37
-
38
- ```text
39
- human-led ─────────────────►│◄─────────── machine-led ──► human verify
40
- 1 Specify → 2 Scenarios → 3 Contract → 4 Tests ⇄ 5 Build → 6 Verify
41
- ▲ (freeze) └red/green┘ (AI) (people)
42
- ╎ │
43
- ╎╴╴ backward correction (dashed): any phase may return to ╴╴╴┤
44
- ╎ an earlier one — e.g. Build exposes a missing rule │
45
- │ │
46
- │ observe in production ◄──────────────────┘
47
- │ │
48
- └─────────────────────────┘ becomes the next Specify
49
- ```
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-
51
- The shape is deliberate: the human-led steps establish direction, a frozen contract forms the decision point in the middle, and the AI-led build runs fast and safely on the far side because everything it needs is already fixed.
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-
53
- > **What changed in v7 (the diagrams above show the structural flow, which is unchanged).** The *steps* and their order are exactly as drawn — only **who resolves them** moved. The AI now drafts the whole specification bundle (steps 1–4) and a person approves it **once**, at the contract freeze (not a sign-off at each step); and **Verify is auto-gated on evidence** under `autonomy: auto` (the default), escalating security — always a `HARD-STOP` — and other residue to a person. Lower the autonomy level to `conservative` to keep a human at the Verify gate. See [11 Governance](./11-governance.md).
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-
55
- ## Many features, one at a time — listed up front, specified just-in-time
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57
- The flow above runs *one* feature. A milestone holds many, and they compose by one rule: **list every task up front, specify each just-in-time.**
58
-
59
- - **Listed up front (breadth-first).** When a milestone is created it is decomposed **breadth-first** into a task *list* — `slug · depends-on · one line` each. That is the whole plan and its dependency DAG (`add.py waves` views the order and the critical path). The milestone living-doc (`MILESTONE.md`) holds this list plus the shared decisions and the exit criteria, and it stays **thin** — no per-task detail lives there.
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- - **Specified just-in-time.** Each listed task runs the full seven-step flow (0 Ground … 6 Verify) only when work reaches it. Its specification bundle — §1–§4 — is written then, **not** bundled for every task before any build begins.
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- - **Why just-in-time.** A later task's spec absorbs what earlier tasks' Observe step taught (a sharper contract, a convention that emerged, a delta fed back), and a bundle written too early rots before you arrive at it. This is the same backward-correction principle — Observe → Specify — applied at milestone scale rather than within one feature. So: list all the tasks, then specify each in turn.
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- The sequence is therefore **decompose the milestone → schedule the task DAG → run each task's seven-step flow just-in-time → close the milestone** — breadth planned once, depth earned one task at a time.
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-
65
- ## Why the order is the order
66
-
67
- Each step produces exactly one artifact, and each artifact is the input to the next step. The order is not a preference; it is a dependency chain.
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69
- | Step | Produces | Which is needed by |
70
- |------|----------|--------------------|
71
- | 1 Specify | the rules | scenarios, and everything after |
72
- | 2 Scenarios | pass/fail cases | the tests |
73
- | 3 Contract | the fixed shape | the tests and the build |
74
- | 4 Tests | the failing-first suite | the build and the verification |
75
- | 5 Build | the code | the verification |
76
- | 6 Verify | a trusted, releasable change | the release and the next loop |
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-
78
- The single rule of discipline follows directly: **do not begin a step until the previous artifact exists.** Skipping forward means the AI builds against a guess.
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80
- The flow runs in two directions under two rules that never conflict. **Backward correction is always allowed:** any phase may send you back to an earlier one to repair its artifact — a failing Build that exposes a missing rule sends you back to Specify, and that is the loop working ([principle 4](./01-principles.md)), not a failure. **Forward-skipping is forbidden:** you never start a phase before its input artifact exists. Correct backward freely; never skip forward.
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- **`done` is terminal — except via the recorded reopen.** Backward correction moves a *live* task; a task at `done` has already passed its gate. The one way back from `done` is the recorded `reopen` action (`add.py reopen <task> --to <phase> --reason "..."`): it returns the task to an earlier phase, resets the gate, and writes down *why* — so a done verdict is never quietly un-done. This is the same backward-correction rule, made explicit at the one state where it would otherwise be bypassed silently.
83
-
84
- ## Who does what
85
-
86
- | Step | Person's job | AI's job |
87
- |------|--------------|----------|
88
- | 1 Specify | confirm the rules (part of the one approval) | draft; list assumptions to confirm |
89
- | 2 Scenarios | confirm what "correct" looks like (part of the one approval) | draft scenarios |
90
- | 3 Contract | **approve & freeze the whole bundle (§1–§4) once — the decision point** | draft the contract and mocks |
91
- | 4 Tests | confirm the targets (part of the one approval) | draft the failing tests |
92
- | 5 Build | direct in small batches | implement until tests pass |
93
- | 6 Verify | own the residue (security · concurrency · architecture); approve when `conservative` | gather evidence; **auto-PASS on complete evidence** under `autonomy: auto` |
94
- | 7 Observe | read the signal; consolidate confirmed deltas into PROJECT.md | run behind a flag; emit lessons learned |
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-
96
- **What the human sees when it is their turn — the decision banner and arc.** Whenever the flow stops for the human — the baseline approval that ends setup, the contract-freeze decision point and an escalated verify gate within each task, and the wider decision points of the loop (intake · scope · milestone close · stage graduation) — the AI opens its report with a **banner** (`PLAN · <title> · <gate> → APPROVE?` plus a file-path line) and the **decision arc**: three engine-sourced lines — `goal:` the milestone goal the work serves · `done:` the proven progress toward it · `plan:` what comes next. The arc renders above the report's summary, so the human confirms with sight of the whole trajectory rather than a local snapshot. Within that report the AI also presents **APPROVE** itself as a **guided choice** — one highlighted **recommended pick** (`▶ … (recommended)`) plus its real, described alternatives — so the human chooses with the recommendation and each option's consequence in view rather than a bare next-step line. Both are presentation only — they never add a gate or change an outcome, and the guided choice fires at human gates only. See [Appendix C](./appendix-c-glossary.md) and the `add` skill's `report-template.md` for the convention itself.
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-
98
- ## What survives, and what is disposable
99
-
100
- This is the idea that most distinguishes AIDD from older practice.
101
-
102
- **The artifacts are the durable asset.** The specification, the scenarios, the contract, and the tests capture decisions and meaning. They are what you protect, version, and carry forward.
103
-
104
- **The code is disposable.** It is one implementation that satisfies the artifacts. If a better approach appears, or the AI model improves, the code can be regenerated against the same artifacts without loss.
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-
106
- A practical test of whether a team has absorbed this: ask what they would be upset to lose. If the answer is "the code," they are still working the old way. If the answer is "the contracts and the tests," they are working in AIDD.
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-
108
- > **Do:** invest in clear, stable specs, contracts, and tests.
109
- > **Don't:** measure progress by how much code was generated or reused — that counts the cheap, disposable thing.
110
-
111
- ## How the rest of Part II is organized
112
-
113
- Each of the next seven chapters takes one step (and then the loop) and gives it the same treatment: its purpose, who does it, the artifact it produces, the AI prompt that drives it, the exit check that says it is done, and what to do when that check fails. The running example continues throughout.
@@ -1,123 +0,0 @@
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- # 03 · Step 1 — Specify
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-
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- [← 02 The flow](./02-the-flow.md) · [Contents](./README.md) · Next: [04 Step 2 Scenarios →](./04-step-2-scenarios.md)
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- > **Purpose:** state, in plain language, what the feature must do and what it must reject, with no ambiguity left for the AI to resolve by guessing.
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- > **Produces:** the **§1 SPECIFY** block of the task's `TASK.md` (one file per task — what this chapter is the *why* behind; historically a separate `SPEC.md`).
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- > **How it works — co-specification:** AI and human **brainstorm the shape together**; the AI drafts; the **human validates, with the AI's advice.** The decisive advice is a *lowest-confidence flag* — the AI names the one or two things most likely to be wrong, so the human's attention lands where it matters. The human owns the decision; the AI owns surfacing what it does not yet know.
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- ---
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- ## Why this step is first
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- The specification is the description the AI will build from. Every other artifact descends from it. Anything vague here does not stay vague — it becomes a concrete wrong guess in the code, discovered late. The cheapest moment to remove an ambiguity is now, in a sentence, before anything depends on it.
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- There is also a diagnostic value: **if you cannot write the spec, you do not yet understand the feature well enough to build it.** The inability to specify is information, not an obstacle to push past.
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- ## Co-specification — how the spec gets made
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- A specification is not dictated by one side. It is made in three moves:
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- 1. **Diverge — brainstorm by both.** Before drafting, the AI surfaces the *decision space*: the two or three genuine ways to frame the feature, and the open questions it would otherwise resolve by guessing. You react — add, kill, redirect. This is the brainstorm, and it lives in the conversation, not in a new document.
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- 2. **Converge — the AI drafts, and ranks its own uncertainty.** The AI writes the spec below, then ranks where its confidence is lowest. It does not hand you a flat list of equal-looking assumptions to nod through; it tells you *where it is most likely wrong, and what that would cost.*
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- 3. **Validate — you decide, with the AI's advice.** You read the ranked uncertainty first, then confirm, correct, or send it back. Your approval is real because your attention was aimed.
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- The brainstorm leaves a *light trace, not a document.* What you chose becomes a rule; what you weighed and dropped becomes a one-line **`Framings weighed:`** note; what stayed genuinely uncertain becomes a **lowest-confidence flag**. Nothing new to maintain — the residue lands in the spec you were writing anyway.
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- ## What a good specification contains
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- Four parts, kept short:
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- 1. **Must** — the behaviors the feature is required to perform.
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- 2. **Reject** — the inputs or situations it must refuse, each paired with a named error.
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- 3. **After** — the state that is true once it succeeds (what changed).
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- 4. **Assumptions — lowest-confidence first** — the things you are taking for granted, **ranked so the most-likely-wrong come first.** The top one or two carry a `⚠` flag with *why it is uncertain* and *what it costs if wrong*; the rest are the low-stakes tail. A spec with genuinely nothing uncertain still names its single biggest risk, however small — the AI never claims a blank mind.
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- Naming the errors matters. "Reject bad amounts" is an instruction to guess; `amount <= 0 -> "amount_invalid"` is a rule that produces a testable scenario and a defined contract response.
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- ### Rule IDs (optional — opt-in by usage)
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- Give each Must a stable `M<n>:` ID; a Reject's own error code already IS its ID (referenced later as `R:<error_code>`). Once a task uses a tag anywhere in §2 SCENARIOS or §4 TESTS, `add.py check` starts asking that every Must/Reject be covered by a scenario tag or a test's `covers:` line — a task that never tags anything is never retro-flagged. See the template's own inline example for the exact grammar.
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- ## Template
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- ```
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- # SPEC.md
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- Feature: <name>
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- Framings weighed: <chosen> (chosen) · <alternative> · <alternative>
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- Must:
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- - <required behavior>
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- Reject:
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- - <bad input / situation> -> "<error_code>"
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- After:
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- - <what is true once it succeeds>
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- Assumptions — lowest-confidence first:
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- ⚠ <most-likely-wrong assumption> — lowest confidence because <why>; if wrong: <cost>
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- - [x] <confirmed / low-stakes assumption> — <one line>
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- ```
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- ## ▶ Example
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- ```
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- Feature: Transfer money between my own accounts
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- Framings weighed: synchronous single-currency transfer (chosen) · queued transfer · multi-currency with FX
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- Must:
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- - move an amount from one of my accounts to another of mine
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- - amount > 0
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- - source and destination are different accounts
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- - source has enough balance
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- After:
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- - source balance -= amount, destination balance += amount
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- Reject:
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- - amount <= 0 -> "amount_invalid"
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- - source == destination -> "same_account"
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- - balance < amount -> "insufficient_funds"
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- - account not mine -> "forbidden"
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- Assumptions — lowest-confidence first:
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- ⚠ same currency only (no FX) in v1 — lowest confidence because the ticket never said; if wrong: the whole amount/rounding model changes and this contract is wrong
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- - [x] no daily limit in v1 — confirmed: out of scope for v1
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- ```
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- The `Framings weighed:` line shows what was considered and dropped, so the chosen shape is a *decision*, not a default. The `⚠` line is the one the stakeholder reads first: the assumption most likely to be wrong and most expensive to get wrong. The flat `[x]` line is real but low-stakes. A reviewer can now spend their attention where it pays.
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- ## The AI's role here
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- Use the AI to **open the space and then narrow it honestly.** First it brainstorms the genuine framings with you (diverge). Then it drafts the spec from whatever raw material you have — a ticket, an interview, a contract document — listing every assumption it had to make, **ranked lowest-confidence first**, and flagging the one or two it is least confident in with *why* and *what it costs if wrong*. Its instinct is to fill gaps silently and present a confident wall; the method forces those gaps into the open, and forces the confident wall to declare its own soft spots. See `playbook/1_specify.md` in [Appendix B](./appendix-b-prompts.md).
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- The defining instruction: *if a requirement is unclear, ask — do not resolve it by guessing — and of the things you must assume, say plainly where your confidence is lowest.*
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- ## Common mistakes
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- - **Stating only the happy path.** The "Reject" list is where most real complexity lives; an empty one usually means it has not been thought through.
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- - **Free-text errors.** Errors must be named codes, not sentences, so they can become scenarios and contract responses.
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- - **Hidden assumptions.** If an assumption is not written down, it is not confirmed — it is a future bug with a delay timer.
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- - **A flat list of "confirmed" assumptions.** Eight equal-looking ticks invite a reflex approval. Rank them; flag the one or two that are load-bearing. An unranked list hides the risk inside the noise.
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- - **"Existing behavior" claims without a citation.** An assumption row that asserts "this is how X works today" is describing intent, not code. Any wiring claim or assumption that depends on the current state of an existing path must carry a grep/line citation (e.g. `file.rs:203`) — otherwise it is a future bug in disguise.
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- - **Wiring claims that name a symbol, not a caller chain.** Verifying that a function exists is not the same as verifying it is reachable. A wiring claim is only valid when it names the production caller chain from an actual entry point — not just the symbol's location in a file. A function that nothing calls is dead, not wired.
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- ## Exit check
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- A spec is done when:
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- - [ ] Every required behavior is stated explicitly.
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- - [ ] Every rejection has a named error code.
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- - [ ] The success state-change is described.
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- - [ ] The assumptions are ordered lowest-confidence first, and the one or two `⚠` flags carry *why* + *cost* — or, for genuinely trivial scope, an honest "none material" that still names the single biggest risk.
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- The shift from older practice: you no longer pre-confirm every assumption to advance. You confirm that the AI has *ranked* its uncertainty and that you have *engaged the top of the rank.* Stated honestly: the flag makes a genuine review cheap and a lazy one visibly negligent — it cannot force the read. That is the most a lightweight check can buy.
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- ## If the check fails
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- If you cannot state a rule clearly, the feature is not ready to build. Stop, take the question to whoever owns the requirement, and resolve it. Do not let the AI proceed on an unresolved point — that is the exact failure the whole method exists to prevent.
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- ---
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- ## The one approval, and where the flag really lands
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- In the one-approval flow, you do not approve the spec alone — you approve the whole frozen bundle (spec, scenarios, contract, tests) once, at the contract freeze. So the lowest-confidence flag is **bundle-wide**: at that single decision point the AI leads with *"of everything I'm asking you to freeze, these one or two points are most likely wrong"* — and a flag may point at an uncovered scenario or the contract shape, not only a spec assumption. The ranking you do here in Specify is the first input into that one gate. See [05 Contract](./05-step-3-contract.md) and the `add` skill's `run.md`.
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- ---
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- ## When the feature has a user interface
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- For anything with a UI, extend this step with a quick design: the **user flows** (the happy path and the main alternatives) and **every screen state** — loading, empty, error, and success. Correct logic behind a confusing or incomplete interface is still a poor product, and undesigned states are exactly where an AI will improvise something ugly. In the early **Prototype** stage, this design work is the main event and the code is throwaway (see [10 Stages](./10-setup-and-stages.md)).