bmad-method 6.11.1-next.7 → 6.11.1-next.8

package/package.json

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 {
   "$schema": "https://json.schemastore.org/package.json",
   "name": "bmad-method",
-  "version": "6.11.1-next.7",
+  "version": "6.11.1-next.8",
   "description": "Breakthrough Method of Agile AI-driven Development",
   "keywords": [
     "agile",

package/src/bmm-skills/plan/bmad-project-context/SKILL.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ---
 name: bmad-project-context
-description: 'Set up, refresh, or audit a repository''s agent instructions (the AGENTS.md block) so AI agents work well in that repo. Also records observed agent mistakes as pitfalls. Must be invoked by name'
+description: 'Set up, adopt, refresh, or audit a repository''s agent instructions (the AGENTS.md block) so AI agents work well in that repo. Also records observed agent mistakes as pitfalls. Must be invoked by name'
 ---
 
 # Overview
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ A conversation that produces a repository's agent instructions: a small verified
 
 Conversational always; the user approves every write.
 
-**Args:** intent (`setup` | `refresh` | `record` | `audit`); a target repo or path; extra source paths or URLs. Supplied values skip their questions.
+**Args:** intent (`setup` | `adopt` | `refresh` | `record` | `audit`); a target repo or path; extra source paths or URLs.
 
 ## Resolution rules
 
@@ -22,9 +22,9 @@ Conversational always; the user approves every write.
 1. Resolve customization: `uv run {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_customization.py --skill {skill-root} --key workflow`. On failure, read `{skill-root}/customize.toml` directly and use defaults. Execute `{workflow.activation_steps_prepend}`; treat `{workflow.persistent_facts}` entries as standing context (`file:` = paths/globs to load, others verbatim).
 2. Config: if `{project-root}/_bmad` exists, `uv run {project-root}/_bmad/scripts/resolve_config.py --project-root {project-root}` and read `{user_name}`, `{communication_language}` (use it every turn), `{output_folder}`. Standalone: skip.
 3. **Load `references/best-practices.md` and `references/template.md` before anything else.** Every decision below is made against them.
-4. Detect intent and greet `{user_name}`: **setup** (no block in the target — the default), **refresh** (a block exists), **record** (the user reports a mistake agents made), **audit** (re-verify and prune). Fold `{workflow.external_sources}` into the source list. Execute `{workflow.activation_steps_append}`.
+4. Detect intent and greet `{user_name}`: **setup** (no instruction file in the target carries meaningful content — scaffolding alone, empty headings, a comment, a lone import line, is not meaningful; when unsure, adopt, since adopting a near-empty file costs one small ledger while setting up a meaningful one loses instructions), **adopt** (an instruction file has content but no managed block, whatever its state and whoever wrote it — the migration form of refresh; that file is the baseline and every instruction in it enters the ledger of step 1), **refresh** (a managed block exists), **record** (the user reports a mistake agents made), **audit** (re-verify and prune). A supplied intent that contradicts what detection finds — e.g. `setup` against a file with content — is surfaced and confirmed, never silently obeyed. Fold `{workflow.external_sources}` into the source list. Execute `{workflow.activation_steps_append}`.
 
-## Setup and Refresh Steps
+## Setup, Adoption, and Refresh Steps
 
 No writes until step 5!
 
@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@ No writes until step 5!
 
 Read `AGENTS.md`, harness or agent specific rule files, docs folders, and any notes carrying lessons. Report what exists and how it measures up, per `best-practices.md`.
 
+Existing instructions are the baseline being improved, never raw material to discard. Open a **ledger**: one entry per existing section and per independently meaningful instruction, opened at `retain` or `rewrite`, carrying what an agent would get wrong without it. Entries settle as evidence arrives in steps 2–4 — `retain | rewrite | relocate | automate | delete`, each with its reason, its evidence, the risk if it goes, a destination for a relocation, and an approval flag. Deletion needs one of the four grounds in `best-practices.md`, and a relocation destination must itself be loaded or sit behind an observable trigger — a move into a file nothing reads is a deletion and needs its ground. Setup has nothing to map and opens no ledger; refresh opens entries for the lines it proposes to change or remove, the block's own included. A lesson found outside the instruction files — a warning in a README, a notes file — is an ordinary candidate, not a ledger entry.
+
 If the target contains separable units — a workspace manifest listing members, or directories carrying their own build manifest — name them and ask whether this run covers the root only, all of them, or which. Absent that evidence, do not ask. Sibling repositories are not children; each is its own target, offered in turn.
 
 ### 2. Ask what they bring
@@ -61,9 +63,9 @@ Only what no scan reaches: what agents keep getting wrong here, what is off limi
 
 ### 5. Show the block, then write it
 
-Compose against `template.md`. For each candidate, ask first whether a hook, lint rule, or CI check enforces it better than prose; if so propose the check, and the line becomes the fallback if they decline.
+Compose against `template.md`. For each candidate, ask first whether a hook, lint rule, or CI check enforces it better than prose; if so propose the check, and the line becomes the fallback if they decline. A ledger entry marked `automate` keeps its instruction until its check is in place (a later run deletes the line under ground 2 once the check is live).
 
-**Show the complete block before writing it**, and every child block alongside it — one approval covers the set. On approval, splice between the markers, leaving everything outside them byte-identical. Fill each provenance line with today's date and the verified SHA.
+**Show the complete block before writing it**, and every child block alongside it — one approval covers the set. **Present the settled ledger with it**: replacement text alone is an incomplete proposal, because it shows what the user gains and hides what they lose. Every existing instruction appears with its decision and reason; retains and rewrites may be grouped, every relocation, automation, and deletion is itemized. A deletion resting on none of the first three grounds is held for line-item approval — approving the block never approves it — and a declined deletion, relocation, or automation reverts to retain. On approval, splice between the markers — the splice itself touches nothing outside them. Text outside the markers changes only through a settled ledger entry or a proposed fix the user has seen, never as a side effect of the splice. Fill each provenance line with today's date and the verified SHA.
 
 Where an instruction elsewhere contradicts the block in a way that changes behavior — a stale `CLAUDE.md` line, a retired command — propose the fix to that file. Two live contradictory instructions is a defect.
 
@@ -71,7 +73,7 @@ Never commit.
 
 ### 6. Close
 
-- What went in, and what was left out and why.
+- What went in, what was left out and why, and — after adoption or refresh — where each existing instruction landed.
 - Why, in the user's terms, from `best-practices.md` — why it is small, why what the repo already states stays out, why a pitfall stays until its cause is gone.
 - How it loads, and that other harness files can point at it.
 - Maintenance: re-run after significant change, `record` the moment an agent gets something wrong, prefer a check over a new line.
@@ -79,7 +81,13 @@ Never commit.
 
 ### Refresh
 
-Same steps, step 1 as a diff. Read the provenance line, re-verify every path and every caveat, and run `git log --diff-filter=DR --name-only` since the recorded SHA against every line — update or remove lines whose evidence is gone. Never re-ask what a prior run settled; the interview shrinks to what changed about how the team works. The block grows only on new evidence.
+Same steps, step 1 as a diff. Read the provenance line, re-verify every path and every caveat, and run `git log --diff-filter=DR --name-only` since the recorded SHA against every line — update or remove lines whose evidence is gone. Every proposed removal is a ledger entry shown in step 5, never a silent edit, and handwritten instructions outside the block are treated as in adoption — any proposal touching them enters the ledger. Never re-ask what a prior run settled; the interview shrinks to what changed about how the team works. The block grows only on new evidence.
+
+### Adoption
+
+Refresh against instructions this skill has never touched. Nothing was settled by a prior run, so the full interview applies — and the file itself is maintainer testimony, so the ledger is the run's main output: the user should be able to read it and see where each of their instructions went.
+
+The proposal states what remains of every file instructions were moved out of — commonly a `CLAUDE.md` reduced to `@AGENTS.md`, once that import is verified for every harness in use, like any loading mechanism. No instruction lives in two loaded files, where it is paid for twice; a duplicate, verbatim or reworded, is kept once — the block keeps the survivor — and that settles both entries.
 
 ### Greenfield
 
@@ -99,11 +107,13 @@ Take the task, the mistake, the correction, and its evidence. Check the block fo
 
 Re-check every caveat, path-check every file, follow every pointer, and ask of every line whether removing it would change agent behavior. Check for contradictions with other instruction files.
 
-Failing lines move behind an observable trigger, get fixed, or are deleted — confirm deletions first. **A policy or pitfall goes only when the thing it guards is gone or the user retires it; nothing failing lately is not grounds.** Audit ends smaller or equal.
+Failing lines get fixed, move behind an observable trigger, or become ledger entries: a removal needs one of the four grounds in `best-practices.md`, presented and settled as in step 5 before anything is removed. **A policy or pitfall goes only when the thing it guards is gone or the user retires it; nothing failing lately is not grounds.** Audit ends smaller or equal.
 
 ## Children
 
-A component, nested repository, or extracted rules file gets its own file under the same shape when work keeps landing there and its truths do not belong at the parent level. Rules bounded to a directory go in a nested `AGENTS.md` there, attached by location. Use a linked file only when the trigger is not a path.
+A component, nested repository, or extracted rules file gets its own file under the same shape when work keeps landing there and every condition holds: its rules are subtree-exclusive, they are substantial (a handful of rules is not a file), the split materially reduces the parent block, the loading mechanism is verified for every harness in use — checked, never assumed — and the user approves the split. Otherwise the rules stay in the parent block as path-qualified lines ("in `src/importer/`: ..."), which cost less than a file nobody loads. Why the loading check: `best-practices.md`.
+
+Use a linked file only when the trigger is not a path.
 
 A chosen child that ends with nothing its parent does not already say gets no file. Say so and move on.
 

package/src/bmm-skills/plan/bmad-project-context/references/best-practices.md

@@ -4,15 +4,19 @@ Rules for deciding what goes in the block, for judging what a repo already has,
 
 ## The test
 
-Can an agent derive this by reading the repository? If yes, leave it out — a stored copy is a stale duplicate of something the agent reads more accurately first-hand, and it is charged on every session. Write down what the code cannot say.
+Not *could an agent derive this* but *what does it cost when it doesn't*: how much exploration finding it takes, how likely the agent is to search the right place in time rather than guess, whether it is available at the point of use or only after the mistake, what a retrieval failure costs — a wasted search, or corrupt data — and whether it is a rule that must hold or a detail the code already shows.
+
+A line that stops the same rediscovery every session earns its place, derivable or not. A stored copy of what the agent reads more accurately first-hand does not — it rots, and it is charged every session.
 
 ## Admit
 
 - **Policy the code cannot express** — branch rules, frozen and protected paths, generated files, secrets, security and compliance. Stated by a human or read off an enforcing config, never inferred.
-- **What a config file cannot say about running the project** — the root test script does nothing in this workspace, integration tests need a service up first, the suite takes eleven minutes so iterate on single files, the `Makefile` is the real entry point and `package.json` is vestigial, CI runs a typecheck the test script does not. The invocation itself is already stated in `package.json`, `Makefile`, `pyproject.toml`, or CI config and does not earn a line — the correction or the caveat does.
+- **What a config file cannot say about running the project** — the root test script does nothing in this workspace, integration tests need a service up first, the suite takes eleven minutes so iterate on single files, the `Makefile` is the real entry point and `package.json` is vestigial, CI runs a typecheck the test script does not. An invocation the obvious guess gets right is already stated in `package.json`, `Makefile`, `pyproject.toml`, or CI config and does not earn a line — the correction, the caveat, and the right command to use do.
 - **Conventions that differ from ecosystem defaults.** An agent follows the norm unless told otherwise, so only the divergences earn a line. Command invocations count: when the obvious command is wrong here — a bare-repo prefix, a required wrapper — the exact working invocation earns a line, and no observed mistake is needed to admit it.
 - **Pitfalls with observed evidence** — a recorded lesson, the maintainer's recollection, the same mistake fixed repeatedly in history, or one this session made and caught. A repo yields hundreds of trap-looking facts and none of them predict real mistakes; only observed behavior does. A surprising scan finding is a question to ask, not a line to write.
 - **Runtime behavior invisible from the repo** — replaying webhooks, lying health endpoints, environment quirks — once a human confirms it.
+- **Cross-component rules**, admitted when getting one wrong in one file breaks something elsewhere — what must stay true across parts of the system the agent cannot see from the file it is editing: who owns what, how data must flow, what order a pipeline runs in. "Writes go through the dispatcher; direct store mutation skips the transaction." "The importer is two passes — validate every row, then commit; never write inside the parse loop." A six-line map of who owns what. Never an inventory written for completeness; the exclusions below still bind.
+- **Required tool and runtime versions**, read from the project files that declare them, never from this session's environment — which answers faster, and wrongly, so the mistake arrives before the search.
 - **Entry points and pointers** to where work lands.
 
 Prefer prohibitions to advice, and name the permitted alternative in the same line.
@@ -25,26 +29,30 @@ Prefer prohibitions to advice, and name the permitted alternative in the same li
 | Anything included for being interesting | Interest is not need |
 | Style rules an agent self-enforces | Belongs in a formatter, linter, hook, or CI check — propose the check instead |
 | Platitudes | Already the default |
-| Commands already stated in `package.json`, a `Makefile`, or CI config | Read from the source of truth; a copy drifts the moment a script is renamed |
+| Transcribed command lists whose obvious invocation is already right | Read from `package.json`, a `Makefile`, or CI config; a copy drifts the moment a script is renamed. The right command to use, and any command the obvious guess gets wrong, are admitted above |
 | Pasted code, changelog content, fast-changing facts | Stale immediately |
 | Aspirational state | Describe what is; intent belongs in specs |
 | History and edit narration | Git holds it; state present truth |
 
 ## Retire
 
-A policy or pitfall goes only when the thing it guards is gone, or the user retires it. Nothing failing lately is not evidence — a working rule erases its own evidence.
+A policy or pitfall goes only when the thing it guards is gone, or the user retires it. Nothing failing lately is not evidence — a working rule erases its own evidence. Any other existing instruction goes only on one of the four grounds under "Judging an existing file".
 
-Every other line faces one question at each write: would removing it change agent behavior? If no, cut it.
+Every line faces one question at each write: would removing it change agent behavior? If no, cut it — but for a line a human wrote, that answer only opens a candidate; a ground still has to carry it.
 
 ## Size
 
 Every line is paid in every session, and instruction-following degrades as the loaded set grows. Count what other always-loaded files add. Over budget means cut the weakest lines or move them behind a trigger — never raise the budget. Ten lines of evidence means ten lines.
 
+An adopted file must fit the budget too, but shrinking it works differently. Move the weakest instructions out first — into a child file, a linked doc, or a hook or check that enforces them. Deleting still needs one of the four grounds. If the file is still too big and no ground justifies another deletion, show the user and let them decide — an over-budget file they chose beats a gutted one they didn't. "Keep it small" disciplines what this skill writes, never what the maintainer already wrote.
+
 ## Retrieval
 
 An index the agent must choose to fetch gets skipped; one already in context does not. Keep everything load-bearing in the block. A pointer out of it names a trigger the agent can observe — a path, a file type, a named task — never one it must judge ("when the task is complex") or track about itself ("before your first edit").
 
-Rules bounded to a directory go in a nested `AGENTS.md` there, attached by location rather than by pointer. Use a linked file only when the trigger is not a path.
+Rules bounded to a directory can go in a nested `AGENTS.md` there, attached by location rather than by pointer — but only when they are subtree-exclusive and substantial, the split materially reduces the root block, the user approves it, and **loading is verified for every harness in use**. Check, never assume: several harnesses build the instruction chain once at session start, root down to the working directory, so a nested file is invisible to the session that later edits into that subtree. Unverified means path-qualified lines at root instead — "in `src/importer/`: ..." — cheaper than a file nobody loads.
+
+Use a linked file only when the trigger is not a path.
 
 ## Maintain
 
@@ -62,4 +70,15 @@ Two things belong in the user's global agent config instead — rules repeating
 
 ## Judging an existing file
 
-Report, in this order: what is derivable filler, what is unverifiable or stale, what is missing against the sections above, and what is already good. Keep recorded lessons by default — they are maintainer testimony, and are challenged only with evidence that the thing they name is gone or wrong.
+Every instruction a human wrote is presumed intentional: someone paid for it, usually by watching an agent fail. The file is the baseline being improved, not raw material. Keep its phrasing where it works, and carry each instruction through a ledger entry — `retain | rewrite | relocate | automate | delete`, opened at retain or rewrite — so the user sees where all of it went.
+
+**Deletion needs one of four grounds:**
+
+1. **Stale or incorrect** — the referent is gone, or the instruction was never true; the evidence is named.
+2. **Mechanically enforced** — a hook, linter, formatter, or CI check already fails the violation, so the line has no work left to do.
+3. **Harmful or contradictory** — it points agents at the wrong thing, or it contradicts another live instruction and loses the reconciliation.
+4. **The user approved this deletion** — asked as a line item, never implied by approving a replacement block.
+
+Grounds 1–3 are evidence the run carries itself, and ride the block approval; ground 4 is the ask-first path everything else takes. Nothing else deletes. Brevity is not grounds, nothing failing lately is not grounds, "the agent could derive it" is not grounds, and **"it is discoverable somewhere in the repository" is never, alone, grounds** — that is the reasoning that empties good files. Content the exclusions table rejects — a directory tree, a stack list, pasted code — has no ground of its own: propose the deletion and let it land under ground 4, asked rather than assumed.
+
+Report, in this order: what is unverifiable or stale, what is missing against the sections above, what is already good, and the ledger, every relocation, automation, and deletion itemized. Recorded lessons are maintainer testimony — kept by default, challenged only with evidence that the thing they name is gone or wrong.

package/src/bmm-skills/plan/bmad-project-context/references/template.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ Sections in this order. Omit any section with nothing that passes its rule — n
 1. **Orientation** — three or four sentences: what this is, the stack, where planning and deeper docs live.
 2. **Policy** — what the org requires.
 3. **Where things are** — entry points, and pointers to children and linked files.
-4. **Running and verifying** — only what `package.json`, a `Makefile`, or CI config does not already say.
+4. **Running and verifying** — the right commands to run and the required tool versions, plus what `package.json`, `pyproject.toml`, a `Makefile`, or CI config does not already say.
 5. **Conventions that differ from defaults**
 6. **Known pitfalls**