instar 1.3.1069 → 1.3.1070

package/dist/data/standards-registry.meta.json

@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
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   "articleCount": 82,
   "generatedFrom": "docs/STANDARDS-REGISTRY.md",
-  "packageVersion": "1.3.1069"
+  "packageVersion": "1.3.1070"
 }

package/package.json

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 {
   "name": "instar",
-  "version": "1.3.1069",
+  "version": "1.3.1070",
   "description": "Coherence infrastructure for self-evolving AI agents — on the Claude Code or Codex subscription you already have.",
   "type": "module",
   "main": "dist/index.js",

package/src/data/builtin-manifest.json

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 {
   "$schema": "./builtin-manifest.schema.json",
   "schemaVersion": 1,
-  "generatedAt": "2026-07-30T02:09:04.451Z",
-  "instarVersion": "1.3.1069",
+  "generatedAt": "2026-07-30T04:21:25.716Z",
+  "instarVersion": "1.3.1070",
   "entryCount": 202,
   "entries": {
     "hook:session-start": {
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
       "domain": "identity",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/session-start.sh",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:dangerous-command-guard": {
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/dangerous-command-guard.sh",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:grounding-before-messaging": {
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/grounding-before-messaging.sh",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:compaction-recovery": {
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@
       "domain": "identity",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/compaction-recovery.sh",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:external-operation-gate": {
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/external-operation-gate.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:deferral-detector": {
@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/deferral-detector.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:self-stop-guard": {
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@
       "domain": "coherence",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/self-stop-guard.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:post-action-reflection": {
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
       "domain": "evolution",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/post-action-reflection.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:external-communication-guard": {
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/external-communication-guard.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:scope-coherence-collector": {
@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@
       "domain": "coherence",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/scope-coherence-collector.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:scope-coherence-checkpoint": {
@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@
       "domain": "coherence",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/scope-coherence-checkpoint.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:free-text-guard": {
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/free-text-guard.sh",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:claim-intercept": {
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@
       "domain": "coherence",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/claim-intercept.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:claim-intercept-response": {
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@
       "domain": "coherence",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/claim-intercept-response.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:stop-gate-router": {
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/stop-gate-router.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "hook:auto-approve-permissions": {
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@
       "domain": "safety",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
       "installedPath": ".instar/hooks/instar/auto-approve-permissions.js",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "job:health-check": {
@@ -1138,7 +1138,7 @@
       "type": "template",
       "domain": "operations",
       "sourcePath": "src/templates/scripts/convergence-check.sh",
-      "contentHash": "4c67cf4d7dc23ac21a1b658e8acf3d3f925c1610afab9291d2cff8d48920fc33",
+      "contentHash": "d63901cf7110861b2a65a40b5c876902bd972b53e6a4c7ca4bf55db76e8e640a",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "template:emit-session-clock.sh": {
@@ -1562,7 +1562,7 @@
       "type": "subsystem",
       "domain": "updates",
       "sourcePath": "src/core/PostUpdateMigrator.ts",
-      "contentHash": "a3e51ee5fa569c8555b641c2bee3138709202a24b9acf780e25e7ad040961059",
+      "contentHash": "f3d204de3351e43ab52f77e47a0bf86fb4c71d0c3bf968f48c40649493c8f7cd",
       "since": "2025-01-01"
     },
     "subsystem:scheduler": {

package/src/data/standards-registry.meta.json

@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
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   "articleCount": 82,
   "generatedFrom": "docs/STANDARDS-REGISTRY.md",
-  "packageVersion": "1.3.1069"
+  "packageVersion": "1.3.1070"
 }

package/src/templates/scripts/convergence-check.sh

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ if echo "$CONTENT" | grep -qiE "(^|[^a-zA-Z])i.ll (make sure|ensure|guarantee|al
 fi
 
 # 3. SETTLING — Accepting empty results without digging deeper
-if echo "$CONTENT" | grep -qiE "(no (data|results|information) (available|found|exists)|nothing (to report|happened|was found)|there (is|are) no|could(n.t| not) find (any|the)|appears to be empty|no (relevant|matching|applicable))"; then
+if echo "$CONTENT" | grep -qiE "(no (data|results|information) (available|found|exists)|nothing (to report|happened|was found)|there (is|are) no([^a-zA-Z]|$)|could(n.t| not) find (any|the)|appears to be empty|no (relevant|matching|applicable))"; then
   ISSUES+=("SETTLING: You're reporting nothing found. Did you check multiple sources? Could the data source be stale or the search terms wrong? Empty results deserve investigation, not acceptance.")
   ISSUE_COUNT=$((ISSUE_COUNT + 1))
 fi

package/upgrades/1.3.1070.md

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+# Upgrade Guide — vNEXT
+
+<!-- assembled-by: assemble-next-md -->
+<!-- bump: patch -->
+
+## What Changed
+
+The pre-messaging quality gate (`convergence-check`) has a **settling** rule that
+catches an agent reporting an empty result without digging — "there is no data",
+"nothing was found". It searched for the phrase `there (is|are) no` with no trailing
+word boundary, so it also matched inside longer words that merely begin with "no":
+**nothing**, **none**, **nobody**.
+
+The result was that ordinary English got blocked. "There is nothing pathological
+required" was treated identically to "There is no data available."
+
+The rule now requires `no` to be a whole word, using the same guard idiom the adjacent
+commitment rule already applies to `promise` (`([^a-zA-Z]|$)`).
+
+**The same regex lived in three places** — the shell template, its TypeScript port
+(`ConvergenceChecker`), and an inline fallback in `PostUpdateMigrator` used when the
+template cannot be loaded. All three are corrected, and a new drift guard fails the
+build if they ever stop matching each other. Fixing only the template would have left
+the port broken and shipped the bug to any agent whose template load failed.
+
+The genuine catch is preserved by a **different** branch of the same rule: "there is
+nothing to report" still blocks, via `nothing (to report|happened|was found)`. That is
+asserted by an explicit test, because it was the main risk of narrowing the pattern.
+
+## What to Tell Your User
+
+Nothing is required of you, and nothing changes in how you talk to your agent.
+
+Your agent runs a quality check on its own messages before sending them, to catch
+habits like giving up after one empty search. That check was mis-firing on the word
+"nothing" — so an agent writing a perfectly good sentence like "there is nothing
+unusual here" could be stopped and made to rewrite it for no reason.
+
+That mis-fire is fixed. The check still catches the real thing it was built for; it
+just no longer trips over three common words. You may notice slightly fewer moments
+where your agent pauses and rephrases itself for no visible reason.
+
+## Summary of New Capabilities
+
+None — this is a correctness fix to an existing check. No new endpoints, config keys,
+commands, or agent-facing surfaces. The only addition is an internal drift guard that
+keeps the three copies of the rule in sync.
+
+## Evidence
+
+- 22 new unit tests. Run against the **unfixed** source first: **12 failed / 10 passed**
+  there. So 12 assertions genuinely discriminate (6 false-positive cases across the
+  shell and TypeScript implementations, plus 6 drift-guard assertions); the other 10
+  pass either way and are labelled `CONTROL` in the test file rather than counted as
+  evidence.
+- Reproduced from a real incident: a second session of this agent, running on another
+  machine, had a correct message blocked twice on "there is nothing pathological
+  required" and reported it instead of rewording until something got through.
+- Migration parity verified rather than assumed: `PostUpdateMigrator` writes
+  `scripts/convergence-check.sh` unconditionally on every migration run, and the
+  template was confirmed byte-identical to the installed copy before editing.

package/upgrades/side-effects/convergence-check-settling-word-boundary.md

@@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
+# Side-effects review — SETTLING rule word boundary
+
+**Change.** The pre-messaging quality gate's SETTLING rule contained the fragment
+`there (is|are) no` with no trailing boundary. It matched inside longer words that
+merely begin with "no" — `nothing`, `none`, `nobody` — so ordinary descriptive
+English was blocked as if the agent were settling for an empty search result. The
+fragment is now `there (is|are) no([^a-zA-Z]|$)`, using the same guard idiom the
+adjacent commitment rule already applied to `promise`.
+
+**How it was found.** A second session of this agent, running on the Laptop, had a
+correct message blocked twice on the phrase "there is nothing pathological
+required" and reported it rather than working around it.
+
+**The defect was larger than the one character.** The identical regex lives in
+THREE places: the shell template, its TypeScript port (`ConvergenceChecker.ts`),
+and an inline fallback in `PostUpdateMigrator` used when the template cannot be
+loaded. All three are fixed, and a drift guard now asserts they stay identical.
+Fixing only the template would have left the port broken and shipped the bug to
+any agent whose template load failed.
+
+---
+
+## 1. Over-block — what legitimate inputs does this reject that it shouldn't?
+
+This change **removes** over-blocking; it adds none. Three realistic sentences that
+were blocked now pass, each verified against the unfixed source first:
+"There is nothing pathological required." / "I checked and there are none of those
+left." / "There is nobody else on that machine."
+
+## 2. Under-block — what failure modes does this still miss?
+
+The rule now misses `there is no<word>` constructions where the longer word really
+is a settling claim. I could not construct a realistic one — "nothing", "none" and
+"nobody" are the only common continuations, and the genuinely-settling forms among
+them ("there is nothing to report") are caught by a **different** alternative in the
+same rule, `nothing (to report|happened|was found)`. That is asserted explicitly by
+test rather than assumed, because it is the whole reason this narrowing is safe.
+
+More broadly, the SETTLING rule remains a heuristic keyword matcher and always was.
+This change does not make it smarter, only less wrong on one fragment.
+
+## 3. Level-of-abstraction fit
+
+Correct layer. The bug is in the pattern itself, not in the hook that invokes it or
+the gate that consumes the verdict. No caller changes. The deeper question — whether
+a keyword matcher should hold blocking authority at all — is a real one but is out
+of scope here and is not made worse by this change.
+
+## 4. Signal vs authority compliance
+
+This gate **does** hold blocking authority with brittle logic, which is in tension
+with `docs/signal-vs-authority.md`. That tension pre-exists this change and is
+unchanged by it: the fix strictly narrows a false-positive branch, so it moves the
+brittle authority in the safer direction (fewer wrong blocks) without expanding what
+the check can block. No new authority is introduced, and no rule gains reach.
+
+## 5. Interactions
+
+None found. The fragment is one alternative inside one alternation in one rule. The
+other six rule categories are untouched. The one interaction that matters is
+intra-rule and is deliberate: `nothing (to report|...)` still catches the true
+positive the narrowed fragment gives up, so the two alternatives now divide the work
+cleanly instead of overlapping.
+
+## 6. External surfaces
+
+Agent-facing only. No end user sees this gate. Agents will see strictly fewer
+spurious "MESSAGE BLOCKED" refusals on outbound messaging. No API, config key, or
+schema changes. No timing or conversation-state dependence.
+
+## 7. Multi-machine posture (Cross-Machine Coherence)
+
+**Machine-local by design, and correctly so** — no `machine-local-justification`
+marker is required because this introduces no new state or feature surface. The
+script is a per-machine installed file, already written to every machine by the
+existing always-overwrite migration path
+(`PostUpdateMigrator` writes `scripts/convergence-check.sh` unconditionally). Each
+machine therefore converges on the fixed copy independently at its next update;
+there is nothing to replicate, merge, or proxy. Migration parity was **verified, not
+assumed**: the write at `PostUpdateMigrator.ts:9943` is unconditional, and the
+template and the installed copy were confirmed byte-identical before editing.
+
+Note the asymmetry this creates in the interim: the Laptop, which reported the bug,
+keeps the broken copy until it updates. That is the normal update lag, not a
+coherence defect.
+
+## 8. Rollback cost
+
+Trivial. Revert one commit; the migration overwrites the script back to the previous
+content on the next update. No data migration, no state repair, no agent-side
+cleanup. The change is additive to a regex and carries no persisted footprint.
+
+---
+
+## Testing
+
+22 unit tests. Run against the **unfixed** source first: **12 failed / 10 passed**
+there, so 12 assertions genuinely discriminate (6 false-positive cases + 6 drift-guard
+assertions) and the other 10 are labelled CONTROL in the file because they pass either
+way and are not evidence for this change.
+
+The drift guard is the structural half: without it, the next person fixes one copy of
+three and the bug survives in the other two exactly as it did here.