create-religion 0.2.0 → 0.3.0

package/dist/lib/doctor.js

@@ -14,17 +14,21 @@ const REQUIRED = [
     "build-plan.md",
     "context/project-overview.md",
     "context/coding-standards.md",
+    "context/untrusted-input.md",
     "context/ai-interaction.md",
     "context/current-work.md",
     "context/findings.md",
+    "context/inbox.md",
     "history/features",
     "history/fixes",
     "history/rollbacks",
+    "history/refactors",
+    "history/spikes",
     "reference"
 ];
 const ALLOWED = {
     "workflow.stepReview": ["every", "item"],
-    "git.mode": ["trunk", "branch-per-item"],
+    "git.mode": ["trunk", "branch-per-item", "pull-request"],
     "git.checkpoints": ["none", "every-step", "squash"],
     "verification.logicTests": ["when-configured", "required"],
     "verification.uiEvidence": ["when-available", "required"],

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "create-religion",
-  "version": "0.2.0",
+  "version": "0.3.0",
   "description": "A file-backed, spec-driven AI development workflow. Spec before code, small reviewed diffs, and project state in markdown so a cleared context costs nothing.",
   "license": "MIT",
   "author": "Nate",

package/template/.agents/skills/audit/SKILL.md

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 name: audit
 summary: review the code itself across four lenses, recording findings in the ledger
 description: "Read-only code review across four lenses (quality, security, performance, tests) and four scopes (current work, changed files, a path, or the whole project), fanning the lenses out to subagents that read and return findings while this skill performs the single write. Records each finding in religion/context/findings.md with a durable identifier, a severity from P0 to P3, and a status, where an open or fixed P0 or P1 blocks completion. Use when the user runs $audit, asks for a code, quality, security, performance, or test review, wants dead code or duplication found, or wants a repair re-reviewed before it closes."
+allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Agent, Write, Edit
 ---
 
 # audit - review the code, and record what you find

package/template/.agents/skills/auto/SKILL.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 name: auto
 summary: run the loop unattended, within explicit bounds
-description: "Run the reviewed loop without stopping between steps, within bounds you set. With no argument it takes one work item and stops before completing it; `all` runs the remaining build plan; a number runs that many items. Specs, implements, verifies, applies the configured gates, repairs confirmed high-severity findings, and completes each item. Its invocation grants committing, dependency installs, and remote reads for the run, and grants nothing else: it still stops to ask before any merge. Use only when the user runs $auto or explicitly asks for an unattended run."
+description: "Run the reviewed loop without stopping between steps, within bounds you set. With no argument it takes one work item and stops before completing it; `all` runs the remaining build plan; a number runs that many items. Specs, implements, verifies, applies the configured gates, repairs confirmed high-severity findings, and completes each item. Its invocation grants committing, dependency installs, and remote reads for the run, and grants nothing else: it still stops to ask before any merge. Under git.mode pull-request it lands every item on one shared integration branch and ends by opening a single aggregate review packet it never merges, after stating that whole remote budget up front and being told yes. Use only when the user runs $auto or explicitly asks for an unattended run."
 ---
 
 # auto - the same loop, without the pauses
@@ -29,14 +29,32 @@ produced.
 Running this authorizes, for this run only: committing, installing dependencies, and
 network reads. That is the second authority tier, and the invocation is the approval.
 
-It grants **nothing** in the first tier. Merging, pushing, deploying, publishing, deleting
-data, and rewriting history each still stop and ask, every time, no matter how many items
-remain.
+It grants **nothing** in the first tier. Merging into the default branch, pushing to it,
+deploying, publishing, deleting data, and rewriting history each still stop and ask, every
+time, no matter how many items remain.
 
 Under `git.mode: trunk` there is no merge, so a run completes items and keeps going. Under
 `branch-per-item` it stops once per item to ask. That is not a flaw in the mode; landing
 work on a shared branch is a decision, and it stays one.
 
+Under `pull-request` nothing lands on the default branch, so there is no merge to stop for.
+What the run does need is the one grant the authority rules allow to be given ahead of time,
+and it is asked for **before any work starts**, in full:
+
+    This run will, without asking again:
+      create and push the integration branch <integrationBranchPrefix><date>
+      create and push one branch per item
+      open a pull request from each item into the integration branch
+      merge those pull requests into the integration branch
+      open one aggregate pull request into <default branch>
+
+    It will not merge or push <default branch>, and it will not merge
+    the aggregate pull request.
+
+Print that, naming the real branches, and wait. **The enumeration is the approval, and it is
+the whole remote budget.** A general yes to running is not it, and neither is silence. If the
+answer is no, the run does not start.
+
 ## Step 1 - preflight once
 
 Before the first item:
@@ -48,6 +66,21 @@ Before the first item:
   than one that never began.
 - The working tree is clean, or the only dirt belongs to work being resumed.
 - The plan has unchecked items.
+- Under `pull-request`, the repository can host one: a remote exists and the host command
+  works. A repository that cannot is a stop, not a reason to fall back to local merges. The
+  mode exists to produce review gates, and silently producing a different history instead
+  would be worse than not running.
+
+Record the default branch's current commit. It bounds what the aggregate pull request will
+carry, and the final report refers to it.
+
+Under `pull-request`, then establish the run's integration branch, named from
+`git.integrationBranchPrefix` and the date. Create it from that recorded commit and push it.
+Every item branches off it and lands back into it, which is what lets item three build on
+items one and two. On a resume, reuse the branch of that name rather than opening a second;
+if one exists that does not descend from the recorded commit, stop, because the run's base
+moved and that needs a person. Never rebase, reset, or force-push it: it is append-only for
+the run.
 
 State the bounds, the gates in force, and how many items are in range. Then start.
 
@@ -66,9 +99,39 @@ For every item, in plan order:
    the finding recorded rather than trying variations.
 5. **Complete it**, following $complete, which archives, ticks the plan, prunes the
    ledger, and commits. Ask before any merge.
-6. **Report one line** and move on.
+6. **Land it**, under `pull-request` only: push the item's branch, open its pull request
+   **into the integration branch** rather than the default branch, and merge it there once
+   its checks are green. Merge only a pull request this run opened, only into the integration
+   branch. A failing or conflicted one is a stop, never something to force. Then delete the
+   item branch, confirming the work commit is in the integration branch first, since a
+   squash leaves no merge parent for `git branch -d` to find. Return to the integration
+   branch clean before the next item.
+7. **Report one line** and move on.
+
+An item counts against `auto.maxItems` once it has landed, not once it is built.
+
+## Step 3 - close the run
+
+Under `trunk` and `branch-per-item` there is nothing to close: the items are done and the
+run reports.
+
+Under `pull-request`, open one aggregate pull request from the integration branch into the
+default branch. Title it for the run rather than for any one item. Its body is the run's
+review packet, and it is the artefact a person actually reads:
+
+- one section per completed item, in plan order, naming what it delivered, its merged pull
+  request, and the checks that proved it
+- findings still open or fixed, by identifier, and anything deliberately left out
+- what the run did not reach, and why it stopped
+
+Report the URL and stop. **Never merge it.** It is the review gate the mode exists to reach.
+
+Open it even when the run stopped early with completed items behind it, saying plainly in
+the body that it stopped short: work that passed every gate deserves to be reviewable, and a
+packet describing three of six items beats an integration branch nobody knows about. When
+the run completed no items at all, open nothing and say so.
 
-## Step 3 - stop
+## Step 4 - stop
 
 Stop immediately, keeping all state intact, when any of these happens:
 
@@ -84,9 +147,11 @@ Stop immediately, keeping all state intact, when any of these happens:
 A stopped run leaves the branch, the spec, and the ticked steps exactly as they are.
 `$auto resume` picks up from there, because the state is in files rather than in the run.
 
-## Step 4 - report
+## Step 5 - report
 
 - items completed, by name, and what each delivered
+- under `pull-request`, the recorded starting commit, the integration branch and its head,
+  each item's merged pull request, and the aggregate pull request URL or why none was opened
 - what stopped the run, exactly, and the state it stopped in
 - findings raised, repaired, and still open
 - checks run, and any that could not run
@@ -100,7 +165,9 @@ the part it got wrong.
 
 - Explicit invocation only.
 - The gates are the same gates. Unattended is not a reason to lower one.
-- Never merge, push, deploy, publish, or delete without asking, however long the queue is.
+- Never write to the default branch, in any mode. Never merge the aggregate pull request,
+  and never force-push anything, the integration branch included.
+- Never deploy, publish, or delete without asking, however long the queue is.
 - Never widen an item's scope to make its gate pass.
 - Stop on ambiguity. There is nobody to ask mid-run, so a guess compounds silently.
 

package/template/.agents/skills/capture/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+---
+name: capture
+summary: note something for later without breaking the one thing in progress
+description: "Write a one-line note into religion/context/inbox.md and carry on, so noticing something worth doing does not cost the work item in progress. Takes the note as an argument, records it dated with where it came from, and stops. It never specs, never plans, and never starts work: $fix and $feature read the inbox when choosing what to build next. Use when the user runs $capture, says to note, park, remember or jot something down, mentions something worth doing later or some other time, or spots a problem mid-build that is not the thing being built."
+allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Write, Edit
+---
+
+# capture - note it, keep building
+
+This exists because of a rule elsewhere: one work item at a time. That rule is what makes a
+cleared context cheap, and it is also what makes noticing something mid-build awkward, since
+there is nowhere to put it. Without an answer, a good observation either derails the work or
+is lost.
+
+The answer is a line in a file and no ceremony at all.
+
+## Input
+
+The note, as an argument:
+
+    $capture "the rate limiter drops the first request after an idle period"
+
+With no argument, ask what to note. Do not guess from the conversation, and do not sweep up
+everything recently mentioned: a note nobody chose is a note nobody wants.
+
+## What it does
+
+Append one line to `religion/context/inbox.md` with the date and, when there is one, the file
+or area it concerns. Then stop, and return to whatever was happening.
+
+That is the whole skill. It is deliberately small: anything more, and using it costs more
+attention than the thought was worth, which is the failure mode that makes people stop
+noting things.
+
+## What it does not do
+
+- **It does not spec.** A note is not a work item. $fix turns one into a spec when you
+  decide to.
+- **It does not start work**, touch the active spec, or tick anything.
+- **It does not record code defects found by review.** Those are findings, they carry
+  severities and block completion, and $audit owns them. A note is something you
+  thought of; a finding is something a review proved.
+- **It does not judge.** Write down what was said. Triage happens when the note is read, not
+  when it is written.
+
+## How a note leaves the inbox
+
+$fix and $feature read the inbox when they start, and offer what is in it
+alongside the build plan. Choosing one specs it and removes the line; that is the only way a
+note leaves, other than you deleting it.
+
+An inbox nobody reads is a list of things nobody did, so the reading is the point rather
+than the writing.
+
+## Rules
+
+- One line per note. If it needs a paragraph, it needs a spec, and that is $fix.
+- Never interrupt the work in progress to discuss the note.
+- Never write to the findings ledger.
+- Never let the inbox become a plan. The build plan is the plan.
+
+## Formatting
+
+Match the conventions in `religion/context/ai-interaction.md`: concise, scannable markdown,
+lists for enumerations and tables for matrices rather than dense paragraphs.

package/template/.agents/skills/complete/SKILL.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 name: complete
 summary: run the final gate, archive the work, commit it, and close it out
-description: "Close out a finished feature, fix, rollback, or refactor campaign. Runs the full Verify command and the final safety pass, applies the configured quality gates, archives the spec under religion/history/, ticks the build plan, prunes resolved findings into the archive, resets the active spec, and makes the work commit. Under branch-per-item it squash-merges only with explicit approval, then asks separately before pushing. Ends with a manual walkthrough of what landed. Use when the user runs $complete, or asks to finish, wrap up, close out, or merge the current work item once it is built and reviewed."
+description: "Close out a finished feature, fix, rollback, or refactor campaign. Runs the full Verify command and the final safety pass, applies the configured quality gates, archives the spec under religion/history/, ticks the build plan, prunes resolved findings into the archive, resets the active spec, and makes the work commit. Under branch-per-item it squash-merges only with explicit approval, then asks separately before pushing. Under pull-request it pushes the branch and opens a pull request into the default branch, merging nothing. Ends with a manual walkthrough of what landed. Use when the user runs $complete, or asks to finish, wrap up, close out, or merge the current work item once it is built and reviewed."
 ---
 
 # complete - close out the finished work
@@ -152,10 +152,33 @@ Under **`branch-per-item`**:
 2. Delete the branch after a clean merge.
 3. Stop.
 
-Then, in either mode, ask separately whether to push. **Approval to merge is not approval
-to push.** Push only after an explicit yes to pushing, in this conversation. If there is no
+In those two modes, ask separately whether to push. **Approval to merge is not approval to
+push.** Push only after an explicit yes to pushing, in this conversation. If there is no
 remote, say so rather than guessing.
 
+Under **`pull-request`** nothing is merged here and the default branch is never written to.
+The branch goes up, the pull request describes it, and the merge is the user's, on the host:
+
+1. Confirm the repository can host one: a remote exists and the host command works. If it
+   cannot, stop and say so plainly. The work is committed on its branch and the user can
+   open the pull request themselves. Never invent a remote, and never quietly fall back to
+   a local merge, which would swap the history model without saying so.
+2. Push the branch and set its upstream, only with an explicit yes in this conversation.
+   **That yes covers pushing this branch and nothing else.** Neither running this skill nor
+   "looks good" is that yes.
+3. Open the pull request from the branch into the default branch. Title it from the work
+   commit. The body carries what changed and why, the checks that ran with the exact command
+   or output proving each, the manual walkthrough from Step 5, and anything left open:
+   unresolved findings, deliberate omissions, follow-ups.
+4. Report the pull request URL and stop. Do not merge it, do not wait or poll for it, and do
+   not touch the default branch.
+
+Deleting the branch is a separate, later action, because the merge happens outside this
+session. When the user says it merged: check out the default branch, fast-forward it,
+confirm the work commit is actually in it, and only then delete the branch locally and on
+the remote. A squash-merge leaves no merge parent, so `git branch -d` will refuse; verify
+the content landed before reaching for `-D`.
+
 ## Step 5 - say how to try it
 
 Always end with the manual walkthrough for what just landed: what to start, where to go,

package/template/.agents/skills/doctor/SKILL.md

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 name: doctor
 summary: check the setup is healthy and explain anything that is not
 description: "Read-only health check of the installation: required files present, adapter trees in sync, the entry file's commands accurate, configuration valid, plans usable, overview fresh, ignore rules sane, and git state workable. Runs the religion command-line tool for the deterministic checks when it is installed, then explains what any failure means and offers the fix. Use when the user runs $doctor, asks whether the setup is correct, wants a health check, or says something feels wrong before starting or resuming work."
+allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash
 ---
 
 # doctor - is this set up correctly

package/template/.agents/skills/feature/SKILL.md

@@ -22,6 +22,11 @@ lines into something buildable is this skill's whole job. It plans; it never bui
 - **A description with no match in the plan** - goes through **New work intake** below.
 - **`preview`** appended to any of the above - a read-only briefing, writing nothing.
 
+Read `religion/context/inbox.md` before choosing. When it holds anything and no argument
+named a specific item, list what is in it alongside the plan item you would otherwise take,
+and let the user pick. A note that is specced leaves the inbox with the line removed; the
+rest stay. An inbox nobody reads is a list of things nobody did.
+
 ## Step 0 - make sure the ground is solid
 
 Two checks before anything else.
@@ -127,9 +132,20 @@ visual spec from words alone when an image could exist.
 
 **Build steps** are the core of the file. Each is a small diff, ends with something that
 works, depends only on earlier steps, and carries an outcome that can actually be observed.
+
+Where two steps genuinely do not depend on each other, mark the later one `(with N)`. It is
+an assertion, not a hint: that these steps touch different files and neither needs the
+other's result. Mark nothing you are unsure of. An unmarked spec is sequential, which is
+always correct and never wrong, and a project with `workflow.parallelSteps` off ignores the
+markers entirely.
 Read the Commands section of the entry file while writing the Testing section, so predicted
 coverage matches the gate that is actually on.
 
+When writing the spec needed a broad read of the codebase first, run that read in a subagent
+and have it return what it found. A survey large enough to be worth doing is large enough to
+crowd out the context that has to write the spec from it. The subagent reads and returns; this
+skill writes, as it always does.
+
 This is a draft. Do not present it yet.
 
 ## Step 4 - red-team the draft, then tighten

package/template/.agents/skills/fix/SKILL.md

@@ -16,7 +16,12 @@ numbered, it ticks nothing, and it archives on its own.
   something wrong.
 - **A finding identifier** - `$fix F-03` specs the repair of that ledger entry.
 
-Without either, ask what is wrong. Do not guess.
+- **Nothing** - read `religion/context/inbox.md` and offer what is there. Those notes were
+  taken mid-build precisely because they were not worth stopping for at the time, and this is
+  the moment they are worth something. Specced notes leave the inbox; the rest stay.
+
+Without any of those, ask what is wrong. Do not guess, and do not scan the project hoping to
+find something.
 
 ## Step 1 - understand the problem
 

package/template/.agents/skills/implement/SKILL.md

@@ -50,9 +50,11 @@ Read `git.mode`.
 If the current branch looks wrong for this work, say so and ask; do not switch or create
 one unprompted.
 
-**`branch-per-item`** creates and checks out a branch named from the spec using the
-configured prefix. On a resume the branch exists already, so check it out rather than
-creating a second one.
+**`branch-per-item`** and **`pull-request`** both create and check out a branch named from
+the spec, using the prefix configured for its kind: feature, fix, rollback, or refactor.
+They differ only in how the work leaves the branch at completion, which is not this skill's
+concern. On a resume the branch exists already, so check it out rather than creating a
+second one.
 
 Either way, if the project is not a git repository, say so and ask the user to initialize
 one. The loop needs history to be reviewable.
@@ -63,7 +65,7 @@ Set the spec's status to `in progress` before the first code change of this run,
 whenever work resumes after a passing check and touches product code. That invalidates
 stale verification state.
 
-Work through the build steps **in order, one at a time**. For each:
+Work through the build steps **in order, one at a time**, unless a wave applies. For each:
 
 1. **Implement just that step.** The smallest change that satisfies its stated outcome.
    Nothing from a later step, nothing nobody asked for.
@@ -90,8 +92,13 @@ Work through the build steps **in order, one at a time**. For each:
    is failing, and offer to hand it to $debug, which reproduces the failure and
    tests competing hypotheses in parallel. Do not keep trying variations.
 6. **Tick the step** (`- [x]`) once its gate is satisfied, so progress survives a cleared
-   context. If the step repaired a finding, mark that finding `fixed` and note the repair
+   context. In a wave, tick each step that passed, and only those. If the step repaired a finding, mark that finding `fixed` and note the repair
    in its resolution line. Never mark it `closed`; see Step 3.
+
+   **Tick it then, not later.** Never save several ticks to write in one go. The spec on
+   disk is the only record of what is done, and a session that ends between the work and
+   the bookkeeping loses exactly the step it just finished: the next one rebuilds it,
+   because an unticked step is indistinguishable from one never started.
 7. **Then prompt, according to config.**
 
    With `workflow.stepReview: "item"`, do not prompt. Continue to the next step and
@@ -115,6 +122,44 @@ Work through the build steps **in order, one at a time**. For each:
 Never batch the whole item into one diff. A diff too large to read means the step was too
 large; split it.
 
+## Waves, when the spec asks for them
+
+Off unless `workflow.parallelSteps` is `true`. When it is off, ignore every marker and build
+in order: a spec carrying markers must behave identically in a project that never opted in.
+
+A step marked `(with N)` may run alongside step `N`. Those steps and everything transitively
+joined to them form one **wave**. A step with no marker waits for every step before it, which
+is why an unmarked spec is exactly as sequential as it has always been.
+
+    - [ ] 1. Add the schema migration
+    - [ ] 2. Build the endpoint
+    - [ ] 3. Build the client  (with 2)
+    - [ ] 4. Update the docs
+
+Two waves of one, then a wave of two, then a wave of one.
+
+**Refuse a wave rather than guess at one.** Run the wave sequentially, and say why, when:
+
+- a marker names a later step, itself, or a step that does not exist
+- two steps in the wave would change the same file, which is a conflict the spec did not
+  intend and the author is better placed to resolve than a merge
+- the wave is larger than three steps, which usually means the spec is describing one step
+  badly rather than three independent ones
+
+**Building a wave.** Each step runs in its own subagent with the step, the spec, the
+standards, and nothing else. They build and **return**; they do not tick, do not write the
+spec, and do not touch the ledger. The parent applies what comes back, runs the gate for each
+step, and performs every write. This is the same rule audit's lenses follow, for the same
+reason: concurrent writers to one file is the one thing waves must never introduce.
+
+**A failure stops the wave.** Report which steps passed and which did not, tick only what
+passed, and stop. Do not retry the wave; the next run resumes at the first unticked step,
+sequentially, because a wave that failed once has already shown its independence was wrong.
+
+**One packet per wave.** Steps that ran together are reviewed together: one diff with a
+section per step and its evidence, prompted once. `workflow.stepReview` still decides whether
+that prompt happens per wave or is collected to the end; a wave never lands unreviewed.
+
 ## Step 3 - clear the ledger before handing off
 
 Read `religion/context/findings.md`. A P0 or P1 finding that is `open` or `fixed` will

package/template/.agents/skills/refactor/SKILL.md

@@ -75,6 +75,12 @@ the spec in Step 5, so every step can be measured against the state before anyth
 
 ## Step 3 - survey
 
+**Run the survey in a subagent and have it return the map.** For anything larger than a
+single file this is the difference between writing a campaign with room to think and writing
+it from a context already full of the survey. The subagent reads and returns counts and
+candidate locations; it never writes, and this skill performs the single write, exactly as
+$audit does with its lenses.
+
 Read the target across the selected lenses, or all five when none was named. Read
 `religion/context/findings.md` as well: quality findings recorded by $audit against
 this area are candidates already identified, and folding them in avoids rediscovering them

package/template/.agents/skills/rollback/SKILL.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 name: rollback
 summary: plan a guarded reversal of completed work, preserving its history
-description: "Plan the safe reversal of a completed item using its archive and the commits it recorded when it landed. Verifies the recorded commits still resolve and are ancestors of HEAD, reviews later commits for work that depends on them, then writes a Type: Rollback spec to religion/context/current-work.md and stops before any code changes. The reversal applies only the product diff in reverse, never a whole-commit revert, so the archive and plan bookkeeping that landed in the same commits survive. Use when the user runs $rollback, asks to remove or undo completed work, or wants the project returned to its behavior before an item without erasing the record that it existed."
+description: "Plan the safe reversal of a completed item using its archive and the commits it recorded when it landed. Verifies the recorded commits still resolve and are ancestors of HEAD, reviews later commits for work that depends on them, then writes a Type: Rollback spec to religion/context/current-work.md and stops before any code changes. The reversal applies only the product diff in reverse, never a whole-commit revert, so the archive and plan bookkeeping that landed in the same commits survive. Given `--steps N` instead, backs out the last N steps of the item in progress: stashes anything uncommitted first, reverts what those steps changed, and unticks them, after showing what it will do and being told yes. Use when the user runs $rollback, asks to remove or undo completed work, wants the project returned to its behavior before an item without erasing the record that it existed, or asks to back out or undo the last step or two of work still in progress."
 ---
 
 # rollback - plan a guarded reversal
@@ -17,6 +17,35 @@ record that the work ever existed, and would fight with whatever the plan says n
 
 This skill plans. It writes a spec and stops. No product file changes here.
 
+**Except in one mode.** `$rollback --steps N` backs out the last N steps of the item currently
+in progress, and does it rather than speccing it. The two jobs share a verb and nothing else:
+reversing completed work is large, has consequences for anything built on top, and earns a
+reviewed spec. Backing out two steps you just wrote is small, local, and speccing it would
+mean writing into the very file whose steps are being undone.
+
+## Backing out steps in progress
+
+Only for `--steps N`. For a completed item, skip to Step 1.
+
+1. **Read the active spec.** Take the last N ticked steps. If fewer than N are ticked, say so
+   and take what there is. If none are, there is nothing to undo and this stops.
+2. **Make it recoverable before making it gone.** Stash anything uncommitted with a named
+   entry, whatever `git.checkpoints` says, and keep the name. Undoing work git cannot recover
+   is a deletion, and the stash is what turns it back into a mistake that costs one command.
+3. **Show what will happen**, then ask once: the steps by number and title, the files that
+   change, and whether they came from commits or the working tree. Wait for a yes. This is
+   the only approval, and it does not extend to anything else.
+4. **Reverse it.** Where the steps are commits, revert their product diff. Where they are
+   uncommitted, restore the files to their state before those steps. Never rewrite pushed
+   history, and never reach past the current work item.
+5. **Untick the steps** in the active spec, so the next $implement resumes at the first
+   of them rather than believing they are done.
+6. **Report** what was reversed, what was left alone, and the exact command that recovers the
+   stash. Say the stash name; a recovery path nobody can find is not one.
+
+The spec, the archive and the build plan are untouched: the item is still in progress, and
+nothing about it has been completed or recorded.
+
 ## Step 1 - identify the target
 
 Take a build-plan number or name. Match it to a **checked** item and its archive under
@@ -102,6 +131,11 @@ work needs its own plan.
 
 ## Rules
 
+- `--steps` acts; everything else plans. Never blur the two.
+- `--steps` never touches the build plan, an archive, or a completed item.
+- Stash before reverting, every time, even when the steps are committed. The cost is one
+  stash entry and the alternative is an unrecoverable mistake.
+
 - The archive is never deleted or rewritten. Completion adds a rollback record beside it.
 - Reverse only the recorded product diff. Never a whole-commit revert.
 - The build-plan item is unticked and annotated, and keeps its number.

package/template/.agents/skills/spike/SKILL.md

@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+---
+name: spike
+summary: answer one feasibility question with throwaway code, then delete it
+description: "Answer a single question about whether an approach will work, by building the smallest throwaway thing that settles it inside a stated time budget, then deleting the code and recording the answer under religion/history/spikes/. Nothing it writes ever ships. Use when the user runs $spike, asks whether something is possible or feasible, wants to know which of two approaches to take, says to try something and see, or is about to spec work that rests on an assumption nobody has tested. Not for a failure that already exists, which is $debug, and not for how something should look, which is $prototype."
+allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Write, Edit, WebFetch
+---
+
+# spike - find out, then throw it away
+
+A spec written against an untested assumption is expensive twice: once when it is written and
+reviewed, and again when implementation discovers the approach does not work and the whole
+thing is revised. A spike moves that discovery in front of the spec, where it costs a
+morning instead of a work item.
+
+The code is not the output. The answer is.
+
+## Where it sits
+
+    a question the plans do not answer
+        |
+      [spike]  -> answer recorded, code deleted
+        |
+    $feature or $fix, now speccing something known to work
+
+## Input
+
+One question, and ideally a budget:
+
+    $spike "can we stream these updates over the platform's own APIs, or is a worker needed"
+    $spike "is the vendor SDK usable from an edge runtime" --budget 1h
+
+With no question, ask for one. A spike without a question is just unplanned work.
+
+**One question per spike.** Two questions is two spikes, because the answer to the first
+usually changes whether the second is worth asking.
+
+## Step 1 - state the question and the budget
+
+Write both down before touching anything: the question in a form that has a yes, a no, or a
+named alternative as its answer, and what a good enough answer looks like. A question that
+cannot be answered wrongly is not a question.
+
+The budget defaults to something small. Say it out loud, and say what happens when it runs
+out, which is that the answer becomes "not settled in the time given" and that is a real
+result rather than a failure.
+
+## Step 2 - build the smallest thing that settles it
+
+Write the least code that produces evidence. It may be ugly, it may be hardcoded, it may
+have no error handling and no tests, because none of it is going to exist tomorrow.
+
+Keep it out of the way of real code: a scratch directory, a single file, a branch you will
+not merge. Never build the spike inside the shape the real work will take, because that is
+how a spike quietly becomes the implementation.
+
+Do not install anything the project has not agreed to. A spike that needs a new dependency to
+answer its question has found part of its answer.
+
+## Step 3 - answer, with evidence
+
+State the answer, the evidence that decided it, and what you did not test. Evidence is a
+command and its output, a request and its response, a measurement. "It seemed to work" is not
+an answer.
+
+Then say what this means for the work that prompted it: which approach the spec should take,
+and what is now known to be off the table.
+
+## Step 4 - delete the code, keep the answer
+
+Delete what you built. This is the step that makes a spike a spike, and the one most often
+skipped, because working code is hard to throw away. Keeping it means an unreviewed, untested
+sketch becomes load-bearing later, which is worse than having no answer at all.
+
+Record the result under `religion/history/spikes/`, named for the question: what was asked,
+what the answer was, the evidence, the budget it took, and what is still unknown. That file
+is what stops the same question being asked again in six months.
+
+Deleting files is a first-tier action, so ask before removing anything that is not clearly
+the throwaway you just made.
+
+## Rules
+
+- One question, one spike, one answer.
+- The code never ships. If it turns out to be worth keeping, that is a spec, not a spike.
+- A budget that runs out produces "not settled", which is reported, not hidden.
+- Never spike something the plans already answer.
+- Never write to the findings ledger. A spike answers a question; it does not review code.
+
+## Formatting
+
+Match the conventions in `religion/context/ai-interaction.md`: concise, scannable markdown,
+lists for enumerations and tables for matrices rather than dense paragraphs.

package/template/.agents/skills/status/SKILL.md

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 name: status
 summary: say where the work stands and what to do next
 description: "Report where the project stands: build-plan progress, the active spec and which of its steps are done, open findings, git state, and the one action that makes sense next. Uses the religion command-line tool when it is installed, since the parsing is deterministic, and reads the state files directly when it is not. Read-only. Use when the user runs $status, asks where things stand, what is next, what is in progress, or is picking work back up after a break or a cleared context."
+allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash
 ---
 
 # status - where things stand

package/template/.agents/skills/try/SKILL.md

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 name: try
 summary: write the human walkthrough for reviewing the work yourself
 description: "Generate the manual walkthrough for the current or most recently completed work: what to start, where to go, what to click or run, what to expect, and what would count as wrong. Read-only, and written for a person rather than an agent. $complete emits one for every completed item automatically, so this is for asking again later or for work still in progress. Use when the user runs $try, asks how to see or test a change themselves, asks where to click, or wants a manual review path."
+allowed-tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash
 ---
 
 # try - the human review path