Files
msd-core/gsd-core/workflows/ui-phase.md
Dennis Alexis Valin Dittrich 1017898cb9 fix(#3771): make remediation examples non-binding and surface revision conflicts (#3916)
* fix(#3771): separate the binding property from the advisory remediation

Checker findings fused "what property failed" with "how to fix it" into a
single `fix_hint` and never marked which half binds. The checker rendered
every hint under a "must fix" heading, the orchestrators injected the issues
verbatim and ordered targeted updates, and the shared revision references
mapped each hint to a prescriptive strategy — so a contract-following planner
applied a hint literally even when a smaller mechanism satisfied the same
property, or when the hint contradicted a locked decision. There was no
channel to report that conflict, and every attempt burned a revision
iteration.

Checker side: every issue now carries a binding `required_property` (the
invariant that failed) plus its evidence and severity, and `fix_hint` is
labelled non-binding wherever it appears — including the human-facing blocker
rendering, so "must fix" unambiguously names the property and never the
example.

Planner side: revision re-checks locked decisions, capability guidance and
existing plan constraints before editing; satisfying a blocker through a
smaller valid alternative counts as addressing it; and a hint that conflicts
with any of those returns `REVISION_CONFLICT` carrying the conflict and the
alternatives considered. Orchestrators route that to user choice or the
configured plan-review convergence loop without consuming retry budget.

Also applied to the UI-spec revision loop and the gap-plan hint, and the
generic pattern's stray `suggested_fix` field name is reconciled to the
plan-checker's `fix_hint`.

Nothing legitimately binding is weakened: blockers still block, severity
still gates, iteration caps and stall escalation still fire, and required
task fields and decision coverage still hold.

Refs #3771

* test(#3771): pin the binding/advisory split across the revision chain

Locks the separation at every link that carries it: the checker's issue
schema and blocker rendering, the planner's constraint re-check and
REVISION_CONFLICT return, the generic pattern's reconciled field names, and
each orchestrator's conflict routing without retry-budget consumption. Also
pins what must not have been weakened — blockers, severity gating, iteration
caps and stall escalation.

Red against the pre-fix prose: 32 of 34 assertions fail (the 2 that pass are
the preservation checks, correctly).

Refs #3771

* chore(#3771): add changeset fragment for the remediation-binding fix

* chore(#3771): acknowledge the remediation-binding growth

Five runtime-loaded files grow: the two checkers carry the binding/advisory
split where the model reads it (a `required_property` on every dimension
example, since a schema the examples contradict teaches the examples), and
the three orchestrators carry the REVISION_CONFLICT route, which has to live
with the `iteration_count`/`revision_count` state it declines to spend.

Deletes tests/emitted-drift-acks/3172-stated-failing-direction.json: it is
fully spent on next and still owned plan-phase.md, so it walls off a key it
can no longer clear (#3078). Its removal is the documented remedy for the
duplicate-key collision, not drive-by cleanup.

* fix(#3771): close the review gaps in the conflict contract

Adversarial review (Codex, Antigravity) found four real defects in the first
pass, each confirmed against the source before acting:

- The UI checker's structured return still ordered `Fix: {exact fix required}`
  and "list each BLOCK dimension with exact fix required". The dimension
  examples had been marked non-binding but the rendering the researcher
  actually reads had not — the same omission this issue is about.
- `ui-phase` and the canonical `revision-loop` flow incremented their counter
  BEFORE dispatching the reviser, so "do NOT increment on REVISION_CONFLICT"
  was unreachable prose: the iteration was already spent. The increment now
  sits on the return path in both.
- The conflict gate offered "accept as-is", which is an early exit from a
  still-failing blocker — a weakening the brief explicitly forbids. The three
  options are now adopt an alternative / override the constraint / amend the
  constraint; every one resolves the conflict. Accepting an unaddressed blocker
  remains available only at the unchanged iteration-cap escalation.
- The convergence route was declarative: nothing in
  plan-review-convergence.md could receive a conflict. plan-phase now records
  it in REVIEWS.md — the channel that loop already consumes — convergence
  refuses to declare convergence over an open entry, and routing back into a
  run convergence itself started is explicitly excluded as a cycle. `quick` has
  no REVIEWS.md and no phase, so its convergence branch was dead prose and is
  deleted in favour of asking the user.

Also reconciles the last two drifted field names (`finding`, `affected_field`)
to the plan-checker schema, and repairs a silent no-op: the few-shot
`required_property` insertion never applied because those lines are
blockquoted, and the test's own block filter was anchored on indentation only,
so a vacuous loop passed over zero blocks. Both are fixed and the filter now
asserts it found blocks.

Refs #3771

* chore(#3771): extend the growth acknowledgment for the review round

plan-review-convergence.md joins the list: the conflict route needed a
receiving end, and it lands on the seam that loop already reads (REVIEWS.md)
rather than a new mechanism. The plan-phase, ui-phase and gsd-ui-checker
entries gain the second-pass reasoning — an executable convergence branch, the
increment moved onto the return path, and the structured return that still
ordered an exact fix.

* fix(#3771): make the conflict route bounded, ordered, and owned

Round-2 adversarial review found five more defects, each confirmed in the
source before acting:

- The convergence gate sat AFTER `gsd_run state planned-phase` and the success
  banner, so a run could write and announce convergence over an unresolved
  conflict. OPEN_CONFLICTS is now read from REVIEWS.md and is part of the
  converged CONDITION, evaluated before any write.
- plan-phase's cycle-exclusion ("unless this run was invoked by convergence")
  was not a question the orchestrator can answer at runtime. plan-phase now
  never invokes convergence at all — it records the conflict when a phase
  REVIEWS.md exists and resolves it with the user in-place, which removes the
  cycle instead of describing it.
- Closure had no owner. plan-phase writes the row, so plan-phase strikes it
  resolved; convergence only reads. An open row is a live blocker, never a
  stale artifact.
- Declining to increment the counter removed the only bound on the conflict
  path: an agent returning the same conflict forever would loop unattended. A
  conflict naming the same `required_property` twice in a row is now a stall
  and escalates through the existing gate.
- verify-work's gap-plan revision loop hands `<revision_context>` to
  gsd-planner and so inherits the whole contract, but stated none of it and
  could not handle the conflict return. It is now covered like the others, and
  is in the test's orchestrator table.

Refs #3771

* chore(#3771): acknowledge the round-2 growth

verify-work.md joins the list — the flow the second review found missed — and
the plan-phase, ui-phase and plan-review-convergence entries gain the
round-2 reasoning: the gate moved ahead of the state write, the convergence
hand-off replaced with a runtime-checkable record-and-resolve, and the
recurrence bound that replaces the counter the conflict path stopped spending.

* fix(#3771): make the convergence gate countable and stop the conflict fall-through

Third adversarial round (Antigravity) found three defects:

- The OPEN_CONFLICTS pipeline had no `grep -v '~~'` despite its own comment
  claiming one, and `grep -c '^| '` also counts a markdown table's header and
  separator rows — every resolved conflict would have read as open and
  convergence would have deadlocked instead of converging. plan-phase now
  records each conflict as a `- [ ]` checklist line and flips it to `- [x]`, so
  the gate is an exact fixed-string match with no table parsing.
- "then continue below" fell through to the checker spawn, so a SECOND
  REVISION_CONFLICT would have been handed to the checker as though it were a
  revised plan. plan-phase, quick and verify-work now re-evaluate the return
  from the top of the conflict handler; ui-phase already looped back.
- revision-loop.md still described plan-phase routing a conflict to the
  convergence loop instead of asking — the behaviour round 2 removed. Recording
  is now stated as being in addition to asking, never instead of it.

Refs #3771

* chore(#3771): bring the changeset in line with what shipped

Two review rounds widened the change after the fragment was written:
verify-work's gap-plan revision and the convergence loop are covered, two
more drifted field names are reconciled, and the conflict path carries an
explicit recurrence bound.

* fix(#3771): declare and emit the REVISION_CONFLICT marker

check:contract-drift on CI caught what local lint never reached: four
workflows dispatch on `## REVISION_CONFLICT`, but no agent declared or emitted
it — an orphan consumer, matching a marker nothing produces. The shared
reference (planner-revision.md Step 7b) described the return; the agent
definitions did not carry it.

gsd-planner and gsd-ui-researcher now emit the marker in-fence alongside their
other return markers, and both registry rows in agent-contracts.md declare it.
gsd-planner's Consumed by gains the two workflows that dispatch on it and were
missing from the row.

The gate is right: a return contract belongs where the agent is defined, not
only in a reference the agent happens to load.

Refs #3771

* chore(#3771): acknowledge the return-marker growth

gsd-planner.md and gsd-ui-researcher.md each gain the REVISION_CONFLICT
marker that check:contract-drift requires them to emit.

* fix(#3771): hoist the shared conflict protocol out of the workflows

Two CI failures, both correct gates:

- tests/few-shot-calibration.test.cjs pins the plan-checker calibration file
  at exactly 4 examples (2 positive, 2 negative). The example added in the
  first pass broke that balance — and described PLANNER behaviour in the
  CHECKER's calibration set, which is the wrong surface for it. Removed; the
  smaller-alternative rule is already normative in gsd-plan-checker.md and
  planner-revision.md, and pinned by the regression suite.
- tests/phase6-capstone-conformance.test.cjs (ADR-857 phase 6, #1168) requires
  plan-phase.md to stay BELOW its pre-phase-6 baseline of 94519 bytes. The
  inline conflict block pushed it to 94988.

The fix for the second is the one that should have been made first: the
record/resolve/close protocol and the recurrence bound were identical in four
workflows, and revision-loop.md — which plan-phase already @-imports — is what
a shared contract is for. The protocol now lives there once; plan-phase states
only its bindings (which counter, which artifact, which next step) and points
at it. plan-phase.md: 94988 -> 92739, under the ratchet with headroom, and the
four-way duplication is gone.

quick, ui-phase and verify-work do not import the reference, so they keep their
inline statements. The suite asserts each rule against what the runtime
actually loads for that orchestrator, not against the file in isolation.

Refs #3771

* docs(#3771): state the shared-protocol relationship accurately

Three of the four revision-bearing workflows do not @-import revision-loop.md,
so 'follows it verbatim' overstated the coupling. Only plan-phase defers; the
others restate the rules inline and this section is the authority they must
agree with.

* refactor(#3771): name the authority instead of restating it four times

Self-review finding: the same ~700-byte reviser paragraph was inlined in four
prompts while gsd-planner already loads planner-revision.md whenever
<revision_context> is present (agents/gsd-planner.md:555, :588) — a fifth copy
of the same contract. Four places to edit in lockstep is precisely the drift
class this PR exists to fix; the generic pattern calling the field
suggested_fix while the checker emitted fix_hint is what that looks like after
a year.

Each prompt now carries only the load-bearing clauses and names the authority
it summarises. Deliberately NOT reduced to a bare pointer: these are LLM
prompts, and a contract stated only in a file the reader is supposed to fetch
is the failure mode of this very bug. The saving is modest (~50 bytes each) —
the point is the named source of truth, not the bytes.

Suite: dropped seven assertions that pinned heading text and bold-lead
phrasing a reword would break without changing what the runtime is told; their
neighbours already pin the same contract by content. 519 -> 499 lines, 61
tests. Red gate against origin/next: 56 of 61 fail.

Refs #3771

* fix(#3771): sanitize agent-authored conflict text and bound total conflicts

Cross-AI review (agy/Gemini) raised two security findings. I confirmed the
first by running the gate's own awk against a crafted file and reproduced it
exactly; the second is a real hole in my bound.

1. FAIL-OPEN in the convergence gate. The conflict text is agent-authored and
   is appended to REVIEWS.md, which the gate scans with an awk that stops at
   the next '## ' heading. One line of agent text beginning '## ' ends that
   scan early, so conflicts below it are never counted and convergence declares
   success over a live blocker. Measured: 3 open conflicts, awk returned 2.

   Fixed at the write boundary, which is the trust boundary: every field has
   newlines and tabs collapsed to spaces and a leading '#', '-', '|' or fence
   stripped, so one conflict is exactly one line. Both producing agents now
   declare their fields single-line plain text, and the reader states the
   invariant it depends on so a later edit cannot silently break it. Verified:
   3 open + 1 resolved now counts 3; missing file and absent section count 0.

2. The recurrence bound was 'same required_property twice in a row', which an
   agent alternating property names never trips, leaving the un-incremented
   conflict path unbounded. Now bounded twice: the repeat rule catches the
   common case, and the THIRD conflict return of a loop escalates whatever
   property it names. A conflict still never consumes a revision iteration;
   this cap is separate from and additional to the revision cap.

Rejected from the same review: deleting 'a planner that reaches
required_property by a smaller or different mechanism has addressed the issue
in full' from the CHECKER prompt as misplaced. It is load-bearing exactly
there. A checker that does not know a different mechanism counts will re-flag
the issue on re-check, which is the revision loop that never terminates. The
argument offered for deleting it, that the checker evaluates the new state
independently, describes the failure mode.

Refs #3771

* fix(#3771): fail closed on an unverifiable convergence gate

Second cross-AI pass (agy, this time with the full files rather than the diff)
found two more, both real:

1. The gate read REVIEWS_FILE with `2>/dev/null || echo 0`, so an unreadable or
   empty path counted as ZERO open conflicts and converged. That path is
   resolved a few lines earlier by a pre-existing unquoted
   `ls ${phase_dir}/${padded_phase}-REVIEWS.md` (line 346, not touched by this
   PR), which yields an empty string rather than an error when the path
   contains a space. Unverifiable is not clean: the gate now tests -z and -r
   first and BLOCKS. Verified both branches.

   The unquoted ls itself is left alone deliberately — it predates this change
   and belongs to the reviews lookup, not the conflict gate. Fixing it at my
   own boundary removes its effect on this gate without widening scope.

2. REVIEWS.md is writable by the review agent, which could flip a `- [ ]` to
   `- [x]` or delete the section and forge the state of a blocking gate. The
   section now declares a single writer: /gsd:plan-phase appends and closes,
   every other agent leaves it byte-for-byte alone, readers read.

Also trimmed a clause that explained the increment ordering by reference to
what the file said before this PR. Commit history is not instruction, and
these files are prompts.

Rejected: the claim that quick's conflict gate deadlocks autonomous pipelines
by asking the user. Its existing max-iteration escalation in the same file
already asks the user the same way; this adds no new interaction class.
Noted but out of scope: the per-dimension YAML example blocks and the shim
boilerplate duplicated across agent prompts both predate this change.

Refs #3771

* fix(#3771): count conflicts by line shape, not by section

CodeRabbit review on the rehearsal PR. Five findings, all valid, all applied.

The best one is a deletion. The convergence gate scanned between
'## Plan-Revision Conflicts' and the next '## ' heading, and that scan stops at
the FIRST heading it meets — so one stray '## ' line hid every conflict beneath
it and returned 0, converging over a live blocker. Reproduced: section-scan 0,
shape-scan 1. Sanitizing at the write boundary does not cover a hand-edited,
legacy, or foreign-written REVIEWS.md, so the reader needed its own guarantee.

It now matches the conflict line SHAPE anywhere in the file:

  grep -c '^- \[ \] .*required_property:'

No section bookkeeping, nothing a heading can truncate, and it composes with the
writer's sanitization (which strips a leading '-' from agent text, so agent prose
cannot forge the shape). Verified: injected heading -> 1, all resolved -> 0.

The other four:

- Both checkers told the author never to emit a contradictory fix_hint, then
  offered an escape hatch that put the forbidden route in the hint anyway. They
  now name NO route in that case and state only that the property conflicts with
  the constraint. A hint carrying a forbidden route is applied by anyone who
  trusts hints.
- The REVISION_CONFLICT marker description in gsd-planner.md was narrower than
  planner-revision.md: it covered a contradictory hint but not an unreachable
  required_property. A planner reading only the agent file would have burned
  retry budget on the case the reference routes to a conflict.
- The few-shot calibration examples used uppercase BLOCKER/INFO while the schema
  defines blocker/warning/info. Pre-existing, but it is the same schema-vs-example
  disagreement this PR exists to end, and the file was already being edited.
- verify-work's re-entry instruction existed but sat after the Bounded clause, so
  the paragraph read "re-spawn ... stop re-spawning ... after re-spawning". The
  re-entry now immediately follows the re-spawn, and states that only a
  non-conflict return may reach the checker or increment iteration_count.

Refs #3771

* fix(#3771): resolve the contradictory scope_sanity severity examples

Sixth CodeRabbit finding, posted outside the diff range and missed on my first
read — I had claimed all findings were addressed after reading only the five
inline comments. This one was in the review body.

agents/gsd-plan-checker.md carried TWO scope_sanity examples with identical
metrics (5 tasks, 12 files) and OPPOSITE severities: warning in Dimension 5,
blocker in <examples>. Line 872 states "2-3 tasks/plan good, 4 warning, 5+
blocker" and the severity table lists warning as "Scope 4 tasks (borderline)",
so the warning example contradicted both.

ADR-2629 Decision 5's "over budget is a WARNING, never a blocker" does not
excuse it: that rule governs the smart-zone TOKEN estimate (the estimate-check
verb, lines 299-306), which is a different axis from task count. Verified in
source before touching it.

The contradiction is pre-existing but this PR made it binding and visible:
severity is now declared part of the binding payload, and both examples were
given the same required_property, so they now disagree on the severity of an
identical finding about an identical property.

Deviating from the proposed correction, which was warning -> blocker: that
would duplicate the <examples> entry outright (same tasks, files, severity).
The Dimension 5 example is instead made a genuine 4-task borderline warning, so
the file keeps one worked example per severity and the thresholds, the severity
table and both examples finally agree.

Refs #3771

* fix(#3771): stop laundering a grep error into zero open conflicts

Seventh CodeRabbit finding — from a SECOND review round my own CR-4 push
triggered, which I had not looked for. This one is a regression I introduced
while fixing the previous fail-open.

CR-4 replaced the truncatable section scan with:

  OPEN_CONFLICTS=$(grep -c '^- \[ \] .*required_property:' "$REVIEWS_FILE" || true)

`|| true` masks every grep failure. grep exits 1 for "no matches" (a legitimate
zero) but 2 for a read error, and `|| true` turns both into an empty capture
that `${OPEN_CONFLICTS:-0}` renders as 0. If REVIEWS.md is removed or becomes
unreadable between the -r check and the scan, the gate reports no conflicts and
convergence proceeds. Proven: unreadable file -> captured empty -> 0.

The status is now inspected, and only exit 1 counts as zero; anything else
blocks.

My first attempt at this fix was itself wrong and my own harness caught it: I
wrote `if ! grep ...; then grep_status=$?`, but `!` inverts the status, so `$?`
in that branch is 0 and every failure reads as success — the clean-file case
printed "BLOCKED (grep exit 0)". The status must be read in the ELSE branch of a
non-negated `if`, which is what CodeRabbit proposed. Both traps are now pinned
by tests.

Verified end to end: all resolved -> 0, no conflicts at all -> 0, injected
heading -> 1, unreadable file -> BLOCKED with grep exit 2.

Refs #3771

* test(#3771): execute the conflict gate instead of reading it

CodeRabbit round three: 0 actionable, 1 nitpick — "these assertions inspect
Markdown source only; they do not prove that grep status 1 produces zero
conflicts or that a scan error exits before convergence." Rated Trivial. It is
the most valuable finding of the three rounds.

This gate has been wrong three times: a section scan a heading could truncate, a
`|| true` that laundered grep's error status into zero, and an `if !` whose `$?`
reported the negation rather than the command. Every one of those passed the
text assertions that existed at the time. I proved each fix by hand in a shell,
and none of that proof lived in the suite.

The gate is one self-contained fenced block, so the test now extracts it from
the workflow — located by content, not line number — writes it to a script and
RUNS it against fixtures: two open plus one resolved counts 2; no matches counts
0 and does not fail; a conflict below an injected `## ` heading still counts; an
unreadable path and an empty path both BLOCK with a non-zero status and no zero
count on stdout.

Non-vacuity proven by mutation rather than asserted. Reverting the gate to each
of its three historical broken forms reds the suite:

  section-scan awk  -> 7 failures (5 in the gate cases)
  || true           -> 4 failures (3 in the gate cases)
  if ! (negated $?) -> 4 failures (3 in the gate cases)
  restored          -> 69 pass, 0 fail

The prose assertions stay: they are the right instrument for a prompt. This
covers the one part of the change that is real shell an orchestrator executes.

Refs #3771

* test(#3771): route the gate harness through the shared test helpers

ESLint's project rules caught three violations in the new harness: an unbounded
execFileSync (DEFECT.UNBOUNDED-SUBPROCESS — an unbounded spawn is an indefinite
hang, and on macOS CI that is how a stuck run stops reporting instead of failing)
and two raw fs.rmSync calls, which skip the Windows-EBUSY retry budget that
helpers.cleanup carries.

Now uses createTempDir/cleanup from tests/helpers.cjs and passes an explicit
30s timeout. Suppressing the rules was available and would have been the wrong
call: both exist because of real CI failure modes on platforms I am not testing
on.

* chore(#3771): backfill the changeset PR number

The pr: field is drift-checked against the PR event payload, so it cannot be
written before the PR exists. Set to 3916.

* fix(#3771): close revision conflict persistence gaps

Use the authoritative review artifact, keep conflict and normal retry paths disjoint, and enforce one writer-reader grammar so malformed state fails closed.

Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: diagnose-issues.md — #3771 marks the gap-plan remediation hint non-binding while keeping root_cause authoritative
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: gsd-plan-checker.md — #3771 separates binding required_property evidence from advisory fix_hint examples across the checker contract
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: gsd-planner.md — #3771 declares the REVISION_CONFLICT return used when remediation contradicts governing constraints
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: gsd-ui-checker.md — #3771 applies the same binding-property and advisory-hint split to UI review findings
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: gsd-ui-researcher.md — #3771 defines the UI revision producer's structured REVISION_CONFLICT return
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: plan-phase.md — #3771 routes and persists bounded revision conflicts before spending the normal retry budget
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: plan-review-convergence.md — #3771 adds the fail-closed owned-block parser and prevents convergence over open conflicts
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: review.md — #3771 emits and preserves the canonical writer-owned conflict block across review regeneration
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: ui-phase.md — #3771 routes UI revision conflicts to resolution before consuming revision_count
Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: verify-work.md — #3771 gives gap-plan revision the same bounded conflict route before iteration_count

* test(#3916): guard rebases against schema drift

Load the current-base progressive-disclosure examples so every integrated issue remains bound by required_property after branch reconciliation.

* test(#3916): skip the extracted-gate suite's bash spawns on win32

Third review round's sole survivor: runConflictGate()/withReviews() spawn
bash against a Node-native temp path built by createTempDir(), which is
backslash-separated on the Windows CI lane and not a path Git Bash is
guaranteed to accept (DEFECT.WINDOWS-TEST-PORTABILITY, matching the
observed CI failure at revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs:844,
ENOENT on a path Windows read as a directory separator). No eslint rule
catches it since the call has neither a chmod nor a `bash -c` form.

Guards the four call sites with the repo's existing skipOnWin32
convention (describe/test `{ skip: IS_WINDOWS }`) rather than
normalizing the harness path to forward slashes, which would defeat the
one test whose purpose is proving the production gate does NOT rewrite
a literal backslash in a POSIX filename.

* fix(#3916): backfill changeset pr field to the fork validation PR number

* fix(#3771): forbid silently accepting an open plan-revision conflict at max-cycles escalation

The max-cycles escalation prompt only surfaced HIGH_COUNT and ACTIONABLE_COUNT; an open
plan-revision conflict (OPEN_CONFLICTS > 0) was never disclosed there, and "Proceed anyway"
could exit successfully over it — exactly the failure mode this PR exists to close (a success
banner over an unresolved conflict nobody resolved). Blockers still block: withhold "Proceed
anyway" and route to Manual review whenever a conflict is open.

* fix(#3771): do not hard-block REVISION_CONFLICT persistence when no REVIEWS.md exists yet

A phase's first-ever revision cycle can return REVISION_CONFLICT before any REVIEWS.md has been
written — REVIEWS_PATH is then legitimately empty, not a corrupt or deleted file. The persistence
gate's own accompanying prose already says the record channel applies 'when REVIEWS_FILE is
non-empty', but the bash condition never checked that, so it hard-blocked every conflict on a
brand-new phase regardless of whether persistence was even expected to run. Require a non-empty
REVIEWS_FILE before treating a missing file as an error.

* chore(#3771): raise the plan-phase.md ADR-857 host-loop ceiling to 96700

The frozen pre-phase-6 ceiling (94519) collided on rebase: this PR's own
REVISION_CONFLICT persistence/routing gate is core planner control flow, not an
un-extracted optional feature, and landed alongside an unrelated, already-merged
same-file growth (the #4.6 context-drift pre-check) already on next. Same
rationale #1298 already established for execute-phase.md's ceiling.

* chore(#3916): backfill changeset pr field to the upstream PR number

* fix(#3771): make the writer-side REVISION_CONFLICT sanitize step real shell

The Conflict Return record channel sanitized agent-authored fields via a
prose instruction ("Sanitize each agent-authored field before appending")
for the orchestrator LLM to apply by hand, while the reader-side gate in
plan-review-convergence.md parses the same slot with real, executed awk.
Flagged Minor across two review rounds (round 4, round 6) since no code
performed the sanitize anywhere.

plan-phase.md's Conflict Return step now runs a real bash gate: sanitize
each field (collapse newline/tab to space, strip a leading #/-/|/fence),
build the one-line record, skip the append if an identical line already
exists (idempotent), insert before the writer-owned end delimiter, and
fail closed if that delimiter is missing rather than silently dropping
the conflict.

tests/revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs extracts and RUNS the new
fence (matching how the reader gate is already tested), composing it
with the existing reader gate: hostile-field fast-check fuzzing, a
repeated-conflict idempotency check, and a missing-delimiter fail-closed
check that the file is left byte-for-byte unchanged on failure.

Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: plan-phase.md — #3916 turns the writer-side
REVISION_CONFLICT sanitize+insert step into real, executed shell instead
of a prose instruction, matching the reader gate's existing rigor

* fix(#3916): backfill changeset pr field to the fork validation PR number

Fork CI's changeset-lint reads the real PR number from its own event
payload; the fragment still carried the upstream number from the last
sync, so the DEFECT.CHANGESET-PR-FIELD-DRIFT check failed on this fork
PR. Re-backfill to the upstream number before the final push.

* fix(#3771): close the awk -v forgery and same-session close gaps agy found

Adversarial review (gemini-3.8-flash-high via the internal agy review
lane) on the full PR found two BLOCKERs against the just-added
writer-side conflict gate:

1. `awk -v line="${LINE}"` decodes escape sequences in its argument, so
   a literal two-character `\n` in agent-authored text became a real
   newline inside awk, splitting the appended record across two
   physical lines. `tr` only strips actual control bytes, so it never
   saw this — it defeated the exact forgery the gate exists to
   prevent, both the reader's zero-count and the writer's own
   idempotency check. Fixed by passing LINE/END through awk's
   ENVIRON, which is not escape-decoded.

2. A conflict resolved and re-spawned within the same plan-phase
   session was never flipped from `- [ ]` to `- [x]` — the record
   channel bullet said "plan-phase closes it," but no step did. Only
   a *separate* `--reviews` re-entry (line ~622, still prose-only)
   closes conflicts; the in-session resolve path left them open
   forever, permanently blocking convergence. Fixed by carrying the
   just-written line in `PENDING_CONFLICT` and closing it in the
   `Otherwise` branch before the checker re-spawns.

Also fixed a MAJOR: docs/COMMANDS.md described the `--max-cycles`
escalation gate as uniformly offering "proceed or review manually,"
but the code (this PR's own change) withholds "Proceed anyway"
specifically when a plan-revision conflict is open — only manual
review is offered in that case. Docs now say so.

Not applied: the reviewer's `\r` truncated to plain tr from a MINOR
that also asked for temp-file permission preservation across `mktemp`.
Applying `chmod --reference` is not portable to macOS/BSD `chmod`, so
this is left as a documented low-severity tradeoff — the temp file now
sits alongside REVIEWS.md (same filesystem, atomic `mv`), which was
the same finding's more substantive half. Also not applied: a
suggested `gsd_run review record-conflict` CLI subcommand to
deduplicate the two `awk` blocks — a new command plus wiring is out of
scope for a review-remediation fix.

tests/revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs adds regression coverage
for both BLOCKERs: a literal-backslash-n hostile field composed with
the reader gate, and a close-gate extraction that verifies the flip to
`[x]`, the reader's count dropping to 0, and a fail-closed path when
the pending line is missing.

Emitted-Drift-Ack-Growth: plan-phase.md — #3916 fixes an awk -v escape-
decoding forgery and adds the missing same-session conflict-close step
an adversarial review found in the writer-side gate

* chore(#3916): backfill changeset pr field to the upstream PR number

Fork-validation CI needed pr: 1 to pass its own changeset-lint; restore
pr: 3916 before this push reaches open-gsd/gsd-core.

* fix(#3771): trim plan-phase.md prose back under the XL byte cap

Merging origin/next's unrelated growth pushed plan-phase.md 473 bytes
past the workflow-size-budget XL cap and the ADR-857 phase-6 baseline,
both tripped by CI after review approval. Removed an unpinned inert
bash comment and tightened connective prose in three REVISION_CONFLICT
bullets; no executable shell or test-pinned substring changed.

* chore(rehearsal): pin changeset pr field to fork rehearsal PR #25

Scratch-only commit for the rehearsal branch's own CI. Will not be
carried onto the branch backing upstream #3916 — that keeps pr: 3916.

* fix(#3771): address CodeRabbit findings on the REVISION_CONFLICT protocol

Fork rehearsal PR #25's first CodeRabbit pass surfaced 7 findings against
the already-approved #3916 diff; each verified against current code
before fixing (none hallucinated):

- plan-phase.md: writer-side awk gates now strip a trailing \r before
  comparing lines, matching the reader gate (plan-review-convergence.md)
  -- a CRLF REVIEWS.md previously made both writer gates fail closed.
- plan-phase.md: the close-fence's REVIEWS_FILE/PENDING_CONFLICT/
  CONFLICT_RESOLUTION were read without ever being (re)defined in that
  fence -- shell state does not survive across separate fenced blocks
  (same convention already documented in review.md). Added the explicit
  recompute/set instruction.
- revision-loop.md: previous_conflict_property was never reset after a
  normal (non-conflict) revision, so a later, unrelated conflict on the
  same property could be misread as a repeat and escalate prematurely.
- gsd-plan-checker.md / few-shot-examples/plan-checker.md: two example
  required_property strings were unconditionally binding in a way their
  own dimension's rules aren't (no-analog RESEARCH.md fallback; tasks
  that create no functions), now scoped to match.
- quick/steps/plan-checker-loop.md: added the same disjoint
  "Otherwise (not REVISION_CONFLICT)" branch plan-phase.md already had,
  closing an ambiguity between the conflict and non-conflict return paths.
- revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs: the REVIEWS_PATH init-order
  assertion used indexOf() without checking for -1, so it would pass
  vacuously if either anchor were renamed away.

Also restores an "Export the row's CONFLICT_*" instruction I had cut in
the prior byte-budget trim -- checked non-pinned by tests, but it was the
only text telling the agent to set those vars before the awk block reads
them via ENVIRON.

Net growth from these fixes required reclaiming bytes elsewhere in
plan-phase.md (verified against every pinned substring in
revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs) to stay under the XL tier's
hard 98304-byte cap; final size 98245 bytes.

* fix(#3771): resync the #4079 shrink-only mirror to the current PRE_PHASE6 line

tests/plan-phase-background-wait-wakeup.test.cjs (landed on next via an
unrelated #4079 PR, merged in by this branch's next-sync) mirrored
plan-phase.md's phase6 shrink-only ceiling as a hardcoded local constant
(94519) rather than reading tests/phase6-capstone-conformance.test.cjs's
PRE_PHASE6 value. That value has since been legitimately raised twice
during this PR's own review (94519 -> 96700 -> 98300) to accommodate the
REVISION_CONFLICT persistence/routing gate. The two branches' independent
histories left the mirror stale post-merge -- not a textual git conflict,
but the same class of thing. Resynced to 98300.

* fix(#3771): address round-2 CodeRabbit findings on the conflict gates

CodeRabbit's re-review of the previous remediation commit found two real
issues in what it had already flagged:

- Both writer-side awk CRLF fixes used \`sub(/\r$/, "")\` directly on \`\$0\`,
  which mutates it in place -- \`{ print }\` then emitted the CR-stripped
  copy for every passed-through line, silently rewriting an unrelated
  CRLF REVIEWS.md to LF on any insert or close. Now compares against a
  separate \`cur\` copy and prints the original, untouched \`\$0\`.
- The close-fence's "recompute REVIEWS_FILE/PENDING_CONFLICT" prose
  implied in-fence derivation, but the fence has no such code and the
  test harness (\`runCloseGate\`) deliberately supplies all three as
  pre-set env vars -- matching how the open fence's "Export the row's
  CONFLICT_*" instruction already works. Reworded to "export ... in the
  same invocation", matching that established, test-verified pattern
  instead of promising logic that isn't there.

Added a regression test proving the CRLF fix no longer touches
passthrough lines (red against the mutate-in-place version, green now).

* fix(#3771): use a CRLF-safe check in the new passthrough regression test

local/no-crlf-fragile-split forbids splitting readFileSync content on a
literal \n (Windows git-autocrlf checkouts yield \r\n). My CRLF
passthrough-preservation test from the previous commit did exactly that
to inspect the first line. Replaced with a direct startsWith() check
against the known CRLF-terminated header, which needs no split.

* test(#3771): assert the record itself is inserted in the CRLF passthrough test

CodeRabbit nitpick (round 3): the passthrough-preservation test checked
gate status and the pre-existing line's CRLF ending, but never asserted
the new REVISION_CONFLICT record was actually written.

* fix(#3771): address agy/gemini-3.8-flash-high adversarial review findings

Full-PR adversarial review (internal /gsd-review antigravity lane,
gemini-3.8-flash-high) surfaced 9 findings; each verified against current
code before fixing (none hallucinated):

HIGH:
- quick-batch/steps/plan-checker-loop.md never received the
  required_property/fix_hint binding language or REVISION_CONFLICT
  handling this PR added everywhere else -- a genuinely unmigrated
  producing context. Migrated to match quick/steps/plan-checker-loop.md,
  and added it to the ORCHESTRATORS consistency battery in
  revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs so future drift is caught
  automatically.
- The close-fence's PENDING_CONFLICT was an agent-supplied env var that
  had to exactly reconstruct a five-field sanitized line across a
  multi-minute subagent dispatch -- fragile, and a scalar var also meant
  a second simultaneous conflict silently dropped the first on overwrite.
  Redesigned to match the open conflict by CONFLICT_DIMENSION/
  CONFLICT_PLAN identity instead: the agent re-supplies two short,
  already-tracked identifiers rather than reconstructing the full
  sanitized text, and each conflict resolves independently regardless of
  how many are open. Updated the test harness's runCloseGate contract to
  match, and added a two-open-conflicts regression test.

MEDIUM:
- plan-phase.md's `--reviews` replanning path told the reader to "flip
  the matching line to [x]" in prose only, with no executable path to
  it -- pointed it at the same close gate used in step 12.
- plan-review-convergence.md's reader-gate awk tolerated a blank line
  before the opening delimiter but not before the heading that follows
  it; a formatter or LLM writer inserting one would hard-abort
  convergence on an otherwise well-formed REVIEWS.md. Added the same
  tolerance already granted above it, with a regression test.

LOW:
- Clarified that the escalation destination for a stalled conflict is
  the same iteration/revision-count cap gate already defined in each of
  quick, quick-batch, ui-phase, and verify-work, rather than an
  undefined "stall" concept.
- Clarified "twice in a row" means no successful revision intervened,
  matching revision-loop.md's now-explicit previous_conflict_property
  reset.
- Fixed gsd-ui-researcher.md's stale rationale text, copied verbatim
  from planner-revision.md: ui-phase presents the conflict table
  directly to the user, it does not persist to a shared file scanned by
  heading.

Net growth again required reclaiming bytes in plan-phase.md (verified
against every pinned substring in revision-remediation-binding.test.cjs)
to stay under the XL tier's hard 98304-byte cap; removed a now-dead
PENDING_CONFLICT assignment in the process. Final size 98258 bytes.

* fix(#3771): scope row 48's quick/steps guard away from plan-checker-loop.md

tests/gsd-quick-batch-quick-regression.test.cjs's row 48 (#3676) flagged
this branch's quick-batch/steps/plan-checker-loop.md migration (the agy
HIGH finding) as a violation, because it also edits
quick/steps/plan-checker-loop.md for the same underlying #3771 protocol
fix.

Verified against git history before scoping: 2f64e6230 (#3676's own
landing commit) CREATED quick-batch/steps/plan-checker-loop.md as a new,
independent 119-line file, never a call-site into quick/'s copy. Row
48's "shared primitives, never edits the ordinary quick command" premise
was never about this specific file -- it was always meant to carry its
own per-flow copy of whatever revision-loop contract applies, same as
ui-phase.md/verify-work.md throughout this PR. This is the same
false-positive class the row's own comments already document scoping
away twice (#3730, #2529 round 40); excluded plan-checker-loop.md from
its touched-quick-steps check with the same evidence trail.

* chore(#3771): point changeset pr field at upstream PR 3916

---------

Co-authored-by: davdittrich <davdittrich@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: CI Rebase Check <ci@gsd-redux>
Co-authored-by: Test <test@test.com>
Co-authored-by: Tom Boucher <trekkie@nomorestars.com>
2026-09-05 15:16:38 -04:00

26 KiB
Raw Blame History

Generate a UI design contract (UI-SPEC.md) for frontend phases. Orchestrates gsd-ui-researcher and gsd-ui-checker with a revision loop. Inserts between discuss-phase and plan-phase in the lifecycle.

UI-SPEC.md locks spacing, typography, color, copywriting, and design system decisions before the planner creates tasks. This prevents design debt caused by ad-hoc styling decisions during execution.

<required_reading> @~/.claude/gsd-core/references/ui-brand.md </required_reading>

<available_agent_types> Valid GSD subagent types (use exact names — do not fall back to 'general-purpose'):

  • gsd-ui-researcher — Researches UI/UX approaches
  • gsd-ui-checker — Reviews UI implementation quality </available_agent_types>

1. Initialize

_GSD_SHIM_NAME="gsd-tools.cjs"; _GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT="${RUNTIME_DIR:-$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)}"; GSD_TOOLS="${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}"; _gsd_at() { for _p; do if [ -f "$_p" ]; then GSD_TOOLS="$_p"; return 0; fi; done; return 1; }; if _gsd_at "${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/.claude/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${_GSD_RUNTIME_ROOT}/.codex/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}"; then gsd_run() { node "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; elif unset -f gsd_run; _G="$(command -v gsd_run)"; then GSD_TOOLS="$_G"; gsd_run() { "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; elif _gsd_at "${CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.claude}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${CURSOR_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.cursor}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${GEMINI_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.gemini}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${COPILOT_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.copilot}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${WINDSURF_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.codeium/windsurf}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${AUGMENT_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.augment}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${TRAE_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.trae}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${QWEN_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.qwen}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${CODEBUDDY_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.codebuddy}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${CLINE_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.cline}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${GROK_AGENTS_HOME:-$HOME/.agents}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${ANTIGRAVITY_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.gemini/antigravity}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${OPENCODE_CONFIG_DIR:-${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/opencode}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}" "${KILO_CONFIG_DIR:-${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/kilo}/gsd-core/bin/${_GSD_SHIM_NAME}"; then gsd_run() { node "$GSD_TOOLS" "$@"; }; else echo "ERROR: gsd-tools.cjs not found at $GSD_TOOLS and gsd_run is not on PATH. Run: npx -y @opengsd/gsd-core@latest --claude --local" >&2; exit 1; fi; GSD_IDENTITY_STATUS=unverified; case "$(gsd_run runtime-identity --raw 2>/dev/null || true)" in '{"packageName":"@opengsd/gsd-core"'*'}') GSD_IDENTITY_STATUS=ok;; esac; export GSD_IDENTITY_STATUS; [ "$GSD_IDENTITY_STATUS" = ok ] || echo "WARNING: \"$GSD_TOOLS\" did not prove it is @opengsd/gsd-core - it is either a different package or an @opengsd/gsd-core older than the runtime-identity verb. See docs/how-to/diagnose-a-foreign-gsd-tools.md" >&2; if [ -n "${CLAUDE_ENV_FILE:-}" ] && [ -n "${GSD_TOOLS:-}" ]; then printf "export PATH='%s':\"\$PATH\"\n" "${GSD_TOOLS%/*}" >> "$CLAUDE_ENV_FILE" 2>/dev/null || true; fi
INIT=$(gsd_run query init.plan-phase "$PHASE")
if [[ "$INIT" == @file:* ]]; then INIT=$(cat "${INIT#@file:}"); fi
AGENT_SKILLS_UI=$(gsd_run query agent-skills gsd-ui-researcher)
AGENT_SKILLS_UI_CHECKER=$(gsd_run query agent-skills gsd-ui-checker)

Parse JSON for: phase_dir, phase_number, phase_name, phase_slug, padded_phase, has_context, has_research, commit_docs, response_language.

If response_language is set: All user-facing output of this workflow — narration between tool calls, status updates, progress notes, findings, questions, prompts, and explanations — MUST be presented in {response_language}. Technical terms, code, file paths, and subagent prompts stay in English — only user-facing output is translated.

File paths: state_path, roadmap_path, requirements_path, context_path, research_path.

Detect sketch findings:

SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH=$(ls ./.claude/skills/sketch-findings-*/SKILL.md 2>/dev/null | head -1 || true)

Resolve UI agent models:

UI_RESEARCHER_MODEL=$(gsd_run query resolve-model gsd-ui-researcher --raw)
UI_CHECKER_MODEL=$(gsd_run query resolve-model gsd-ui-checker --raw)

Check config:

UI_ENABLED=$(gsd_run query config-get workflow.ui_phase --raw 2>/dev/null || echo "true")

If UI_ENABLED is false:

UI phase is disabled in config. Enable via /gsd:settings.

Exit workflow.

If planning_exists is false: Error — run /gsd:new-project first.

2. Parse and Validate Phase

Extract phase number from $ARGUMENTS. If not provided, detect next unplanned phase.

PHASE_INFO=$(gsd_run query roadmap.get-phase "${PHASE}")

If found is false: Error with available phases.

3. Check Prerequisites

If has_context is false:

No CONTEXT.md found for Phase {N}.
Recommended: run /gsd:discuss-phase {N} first to capture design preferences.
Continuing without user decisions — UI researcher will ask all questions.

Continue (non-blocking).

If has_research is false:

No RESEARCH.md found for Phase {N}.
Note: stack decisions (component library, styling approach) will be asked during UI research.

Continue (non-blocking).

If SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH is not empty:

⚡ Sketch findings detected: {SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH}
   Validated design decisions from /gsd:sketch will be loaded into the UI researcher.
   Pre-validated decisions (layout, palette, typography, spacing) should be treated as locked — not re-asked.

4. Check Existing UI-SPEC

UI_SPEC_FILE=$(ls "${PHASE_DIR}"/*-UI-SPEC.md 2>/dev/null | head -1)

Text mode (workflow.text_mode: true in config or --text flag): Set TEXT_MODE=true if --text is present in $ARGUMENTS OR text_mode from init JSON is true. When TEXT_MODE is active, replace every AskUserQuestion call with a plain-text numbered list and ask the user to type their choice number. This is required for non-Claude runtimes (OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI, etc.) where AskUserQuestion is not available. If exists: Use AskUserQuestion:

  • header: "Existing UI-SPEC"
  • question: "UI-SPEC.md already exists for Phase {N}. What would you like to do?"
  • options:
    • "Update — re-run researcher with existing as baseline"
    • "View — display current UI-SPEC and exit"
    • "Skip — keep current UI-SPEC, proceed to verification"

If "View": display file contents, exit. If "Skip": proceed to step 7 (checker). If "Update": continue to step 5.

5. Spawn gsd-ui-researcher

Display:

### GSD ► UI DESIGN CONTRACT — PHASE {N}

◆ Spawning UI researcher... (runs in a subagent — no output until it returns, ~1–5 min; expected, not a freeze)

Build prompt:

Read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-ui-researcher.md for instructions.

<objective>
Create UI design contract for Phase {phase_number}: {phase_name}
Answer: "What visual and interaction contracts does this phase need?"
</objective>

<required_reading>
- {state_path} (Project State)
- {roadmap_path} (Roadmap)
- {requirements_path} (Requirements)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS from /gsd:discuss-phase)
- {research_path} (Technical Research — stack decisions)
- {SKETCH_FINDINGS_PATH} (Sketch Findings — validated design decisions, CSS patterns, visual direction from /gsd:sketch, if exists)
</required_reading>

${AGENT_SKILLS_UI}

<output>
Write to: {phase_dir}/{padded_phase}-UI-SPEC.md
Template: ~/.claude/gsd-core/templates/UI-SPEC.md
</output>

<config>
commit_docs: {commit_docs}
phase_dir: {phase_dir}
padded_phase: {padded_phase}
</config>

Omit null file paths from <required_reading>.

Runtime-aware dispatch (#2508 Phase 4). GSD workflows dispatch specialized subagents by role. Before dispatching on a built-in-only runtime (kimi-code — three built-ins only), resolve the role to a built-in via gsd_run query resolve-dispatch-type --requested <role> --raw. On named-dispatch runtimes (Claude/OpenCode/…) the role is returned unchanged; on kimi-code it maps to coder/explore/plan by role-suffix. The persona rides ${AGENT_SKILLS_<ROLE>} (Phase 3) regardless. See @gsd-core/references/runtime-aware-dispatch.md.

Model omission (#2517). Omit the model parameter entirely when the value it would carry (UI_RESEARCHER_MODEL, UI_CHECKER_MODEL) is "inherit" or empty. An empty value 404s on runtimes without native tier aliases — the default on non-Claude runtimes. Omitting it inherits the orchestrator's model. See @gsd-core/references/model-profile-resolution.md.

Agent(
  prompt=ui_research_prompt,
  subagent_type="gsd-ui-researcher",
  model="{UI_RESEARCHER_MODEL}",
  description="UI Design Contract Phase {N}"
)

ORCHESTRATOR RULE — CODEX RUNTIME: After calling Agent() above, stop working on this task immediately. Do not read more files, edit code, or run tests related to this task while the subagent is active. Wait for the subagent to return its result. This prevents duplicate work, conflicting edits, and wasted context. Only resume when the subagent result is available.

6. Handle Researcher Return

If ## UI-SPEC COMPLETE: Display confirmation. Continue to step 7.

If ## UI-SPEC BLOCKED: Display blocker details and options. Exit workflow.

7. Spawn gsd-ui-checker

Display:

### GSD ► VERIFYING UI-SPEC

◆ Spawning UI checker... (runs in a subagent — no output until it returns, ~1–5 min; expected, not a freeze)

Build prompt:

Read ~/.claude/agents/gsd-ui-checker.md for instructions.

<objective>
Validate UI design contract for Phase {phase_number}: {phase_name}
Check all 7 dimensions. Return APPROVED or BLOCKED.
</objective>

<required_reading>
- {phase_dir}/{padded_phase}-UI-SPEC.md (UI Design Contract — PRIMARY INPUT)
- {context_path} (USER DECISIONS — check compliance)
- {research_path} (Technical Research — check stack alignment)
</required_reading>

${AGENT_SKILLS_UI_CHECKER}

<config>
ui_safety_gate: {ui_safety_gate config value}
</config>
Agent(
  prompt=ui_checker_prompt,
  subagent_type="gsd-ui-checker",
  model="{UI_CHECKER_MODEL}",
  description="Verify UI-SPEC Phase {N}"
)

ORCHESTRATOR RULE — CODEX RUNTIME: After calling Agent() above, stop working on this task immediately. Do not read more files, edit code, or run tests related to this task while the subagent is active. Wait for the subagent to return its result. This prevents duplicate work, conflicting edits, and wasted context. Only resume when the subagent result is available.

8. Handle Checker Return

If ## UI-SPEC VERIFIED: Display dimension results. Proceed to step 9.5.

If ## ISSUES FOUND: Display blocking issues. Proceed to step 9.

9. Revision Loop (Max 2 Iterations)

Track revision_count (starts at 0).

If revision_count < 2:

  • Re-spawn gsd-ui-researcher with revision context. revision_count is incremented on the researcher's RETURN, not here — a return of ## REVISION_CONFLICT must not spend an iteration, and an increment made before dispatch cannot be withheld afterwards:
<revision>
The UI checker found issues with the current UI-SPEC.md.

### Issues to Fix
{paste blocking issues from checker return}

`required_property` + evidence + severity BIND. `fix_hint` is ONE non-binding example route: a
smaller or different mechanism reaching the same property resolves the issue in full — say which
you used. Re-check the user's locked answers, capability guidance (CLAUDE.md, project skills) and
the constraints this UI-SPEC already encodes BEFORE editing; if a hint would contradict one, or
the property is unreachable without breaking one, return `## REVISION_CONFLICT` with the conflict
and the alternatives rather than applying or working around it — see your `## Revision Conflict`
section for its shape.

Read the existing UI-SPEC.md, resolve ONLY the listed issues, re-write the file.
Do NOT re-ask the user questions that are already answered.
</revision>
  • If the researcher returns ## REVISION_CONFLICT: do NOT increment revision_count and do NOT re-spawn the checker — a conflict is not resolvable by re-running the same loop. Present the conflict and its alternatives to the user and ask which to take: adopt a named alternative / override the named constraint and apply the hint / amend the constraint itself. Every option resolves the conflict — accepting the spec with the BLOCK still open is NOT offered here, because the blocking required_property still fails; that choice belongs to the cap escalation below. Re-spawn the researcher with the chosen resolution and return to this step.

    Bounded: a conflict naming the SAME required_property twice in a row (no successful revision in between) is a stall, and so is the THIRD conflict return of this loop whatever property it names — alternating property names would otherwise never trip the repeat rule. Stop re-spawning and route it to the same cap escalation below, so declining to spend an iteration cannot make this path unbounded.

  • On any other return: increment revision_count, then re-spawn checker (step 7)

If revision_count >= 2:

Max revision iterations reached. Remaining issues:

{list remaining issues}

Options:
1. Force approve — proceed with current UI-SPEC (FLAGs become accepted)
2. Edit manually — open UI-SPEC.md in editor, re-run /gsd:ui-phase
3. Abandon — exit without approving

Use AskUserQuestion for the choice.

On "Force approve": proceed to step 9.5 (the UI-consideration probe still runs on the accepted UI-SPEC, so state coverage is recorded even when quality FLAGs were accepted), then step 10. On "Edit manually" / "Abandon": exit without running the probe.

9.5. UI-Consideration Probe (post-verification)

Run AFTER the checker approves the UI-SPEC (VERIFIED, or force-approved at step 9) — never inline during authoring, so a revision-loop researcher rewrite (step 9) cannot clobber the section and the ## UI Considerations block is committed with the FINAL UI-SPEC. This is the visual analog of spec-phase Step 5.5's edge probe, retargeted to the UI element/state axis. Reference: @~/.claude/gsd-core/references/ui-consideration-probe.md.

Skip conditions: if --auto and the UI-SPEC already carries a resolved ## UI Considerations section (re-run), the write-back is idempotent (it REPLACES that section, never appends). If the runtime is non-Claude and the probe engine cannot be resolved, the shim FAILS LOUD (below) — it never silently no-ops (a silent skip would drop the whole state-coverage axis).

Runtime coverage compute — resolve and invoke ui-consideration-probe.cjs:

# Resolve the compiled ui-consideration-probe.cjs against the GSD install dir via RUNTIME_DIR
# (#448) — NOT the consuming project's git root — falling back to git toplevel / $HOME/.claude.
# Mirrors spec-phase.md Step 5.5's edge-probe resolution idiom verbatim (same candidate paths).
_GSD_RT="${RUNTIME_DIR:-$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null || pwd)}"
UI_PROBE_JS=$(for _c in \
  "$_GSD_RT/gsd-core/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
  "$_GSD_RT/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
  "$_GSD_RT/.claude/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
  "$HOME/.claude/gsd-core/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
  "$HOME/.claude/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs"; do
  [ -f "$_c" ] && { echo "$_c"; break; }
done)

# Graceful degradation — never a silent skip. Build ONLY when $_GSD_RT is a verified GSD source
# checkout (has tsconfig.build.json + src/ui-consideration-probe.cts), pinned with --prefix so we
# never trigger the CONSUMING project's own build during a ui-phase. Real installs ship the
# compiled .cjs via prepublishOnly, so this path only matters in a GSD dev checkout.
if [ -z "$UI_PROBE_JS" ]; then
  if [ -f "$_GSD_RT/tsconfig.build.json" ] && [ -f "$_GSD_RT/src/ui-consideration-probe.cts" ]; then
    npm --prefix "$_GSD_RT" run build:lib 2>/dev/null || true
    UI_PROBE_JS=$(for _c in \
      "$_GSD_RT/gsd-core/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
      "$_GSD_RT/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
      "$_GSD_RT/.claude/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
      "$HOME/.claude/gsd-core/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs" \
      "$HOME/.claude/bin/lib/ui-consideration-probe.cjs"; do
      [ -f "$_c" ] && { echo "$_c"; break; }
    done)
  fi
  if [ -z "$UI_PROBE_JS" ]; then
    echo "ERROR: ui-consideration-probe.cjs not found — reinstall GSD or run \`npm run build:lib\` in your GSD checkout." >&2
    exit 1
  fi
fi

# Element extraction (MANUAL BY DESIGN — not an oversight): the agent reads the researcher-authored
# UI-SPEC prose (the described surfaces — the Design System / Copywriting rows and any element the
# researcher named) and writes ONE object per UI element/surface: {"id","text"} where text is the
# prose describing it. This mirrors spec-phase Step 5.5's edge-probe REQS_JSON step VERBATIM — a
# hand-populated heredoc guarded by the fail-loud <replace:> check below — the established, shipped
# pattern for feeding a probe from a prose spec. It is NOT mechanized on purpose: a UI-SPEC has no
# single machine-parseable "elements" column — surfaces are distributed across design-token tables
# (Design System / Typography / Color), the Copywriting section, and prose the researcher names, so a
# regex/table parse would fail-OPEN (miss a prose-named surface, or feed a design-token row as a bogus
# element). The agent-authored heredoc + fail-loud guard is the conservative choice, identical to the
# requirement-side edge-probe path (RR-04). If a future UI-SPEC gains a canonical element table,
# revisit to parse it. Populate the heredoc from the UI-SPEC; the guard below fails loud on a
# forgotten substitution (never a no-op).
ELEMENTS_JSON=$(mktemp "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/ui-probe-elements-XXXXXX") && mv "$ELEMENTS_JSON" "${ELEMENTS_JSON}.json" && ELEMENTS_JSON="${ELEMENTS_JSON}.json" || exit 1
cat > "$ELEMENTS_JSON" <<'JSON'
[
  { "id": "E1", "text": "<replace: element/surface description from the UI-SPEC prose>" }
]
JSON
if ! node -e 'const a=require(process.argv[1]);if(!Array.isArray(a)||a.length===0)process.exit(1);if(a.some(e=>typeof e.text!=="string"||!e.text.trim()||e.text.includes("<replace:")))process.exit(1)' "$ELEMENTS_JSON" 2>/dev/null; then
  rm -f "$ELEMENTS_JSON"
  echo "ERROR: ui-probe elements JSON is empty/invalid or still holds the <replace: …> placeholder — populate \$ELEMENTS_JSON from the UI-SPEC's described surfaces before this step runs." >&2
  exit 1
fi
# Invoke the compiled engine and CAPTURE its report. FATAL-INVOKE GUARD: use `if ! COVERAGE=$(…)`,
# NEVER a bare `COVERAGE=$(node …)` — a bare capture swallows the engine's exit 2 (invalid shape /
# bad input) and falls through to prose re-derivation: fail-OPEN at the exact boundary the engine
# validation protects.
if ! COVERAGE=$(node "$UI_PROBE_JS" "$ELEMENTS_JSON"); then
  rm -f "$ELEMENTS_JSON"
  echo "ERROR: ui-consideration-probe engine failed (invalid shapes or bad input) — fix the element(s) and re-run; never proceed with empty coverage." >&2
  exit 1
fi
rm -f "$ELEMENTS_JSON"
# Malformed-report guard: exit 0 but garbage. The report must parse as { items[], coverage{} }.
if ! printf '%s' "$COVERAGE" | node -e 'let s="";process.stdin.on("data",d=>s+=d).on("end",()=>{let r;try{r=JSON.parse(s)}catch{process.exit(1)}if(!r||!Array.isArray(r.items)||typeof r.coverage!=="object"||r.coverage===null)process.exit(1)})'; then
  echo "ERROR: ui-consideration-probe produced an unparseable or malformed coverage report — refusing to proceed with the resolution loop." >&2
  exit 1
fi
# Zero-applicable guard: a report where NO category applied across ANY element is far more likely a
# classification miss (or malformed elements) than a genuinely state-free UI. Surface it loudly.
APPLICABLE=$(printf '%s' "$COVERAGE" | node -e 'let s="";process.stdin.on("data",d=>s+=d).on("end",()=>{let n=0;try{n=JSON.parse(s).coverage.applicable}catch{n=0}process.stdout.write(String(n))})')
if [ "$APPLICABLE" = "0" ]; then
  echo "WARNING: ui-consideration-probe proposed ZERO applicable categories across all elements — likely a classification miss or malformed elements, not a genuinely state-free UI. Do NOT silently write an empty UI Considerations section." >&2
fi

If $APPLICABLE is 0, do NOT proceed silently: ask via AskUserQuestion ("The UI probe found no applicable state considerations — is this genuinely a state-free surface, or should we revisit the element descriptions?"). Only write an empty section after explicit confirmation.

Propose-then-confirm (the partial-cue mitigation — load-bearing). For each element, the engine reports the DETECTED element kinds (classifyElement over the built .cjs). The prose classifier is heuristic and LOSSY: a surface that is genuinely both a form and a list, but whose prose trips only the form cue, under-covers — and because SOMETHING classified, no unclassified signal fires. So SURFACE the detected kinds to the user (AskUserQuestion) and ask whether any real element kind was missed. If the user ADDs a kind, re-run that element with an authored elements override (the union of detected + added) so the missed categories are raised. A single tripped cue is a SIGNAL, not proof the element is only that kind — the confirm step, not the heuristic, is what makes coverage sound.

Resolution loop (mirror spec-phase 5.5): resolve each applicable consideration via AskUserQuestion — Specify (→ resolved, verification: explicit; write a concrete truth) / Dismiss (reason required) / Backstop (→ resolved, verification: backstop; a held-out/visual UI-state test) / Defer (→ unresolved). An unclassified row is a manual-review nudge, not a hard block. Text mode (workflow.text_mode / --text) → numbered lists.

Kind-confirmation under --auto. The propose-then-confirm step above is an AskUserQuestion, so under --auto it follows the spec-phase 5.5 convention (replace AskUserQuestion with Claude's recommended choice): Claude re-reads each element's prose and authors the elements override (the union of the detected kinds + any kind it identifies as missed) instead of prompting — so --auto recall rests on Claude's kind-identification, not the heuristic cue-match alone. This matters because autoResolve (below) is a RESOLUTION floor only: it resolves the detected categories and cannot recover a kind that was never surfaced, so recall is fixed HERE, at kind-confirmation, before resolution runs.

--auto mode (two layers). The adapter's autoResolve is the CODE floor: every applicable consideration auto-resolves with verification: backstop (carrying the taxonomy question as its resolution) and an unclassified candidate stays unresolved — it NEVER auto-dismisses and never auto-resolves an unclassified item with backstop (#1110). On top of that floor the workflow MAY upgrade an item to resolved (verification: explicit) when a defensible acceptance criterion can be written (the same judgment spec-phase 5.5 applies in prose). An auto --auto run therefore leaves un-upgraded items as resolved (verification: backstop): at verify time each one with no wired evidence routes to insufficient_spec → human_needed — never a silent pass (#1154). That surfacing is the intended honest-verifier behavior, not over-flagging.

Write-back. Populate a ## UI Considerations section in the UI-SPEC from the resolved considerations, in the format the shipped plan-phase ## UI Considerations lift rule reads: resolved (explicit) → a truth string; resolved (backstop) → a flat scalar { statement, verification: backstop }; unresolved → an explicit ⚠ unresolved — planner must treat as assumption row. Empty-state and error-state COPY stays in ## Copywriting Contract — the considerations section covers shape-rooted STATE coverage and REFERENCES those rows rather than restating the copy (de-dup). IDEMPOTENT: if a ## UI Considerations section already exists, REPLACE it — never append a duplicate.

10. Present Final Status

Display:

### GSD ► UI-SPEC READY ✓

**Phase {N}: {Name}** — UI design contract approved

Dimensions: 7/7 passed
{If any FLAGs: "Recommendations: {N} (non-blocking)"}

---

## ▶ Next Up — [${PROJECT_CODE}] ${PROJECT_TITLE}

{If CONTEXT.md exists for this phase:}
**Plan Phase {N}** — planner will use UI-SPEC.md as design context

`/clear` then: `/gsd:plan-phase {N}`

{If CONTEXT.md does NOT exist:}
**Discuss Phase {N}** — gather implementation context before planning

`/clear` then: `/gsd:discuss-phase {N}`

(or `/gsd:plan-phase {N}` to skip discussion)

---

11. Commit (if configured)

gsd_run query commit "docs(${padded_phase}): UI design contract" --files "${PHASE_DIR}/${PADDED_PHASE}-UI-SPEC.md"

12. Update State

gsd_run query state.record-session \
  --stopped-at "Phase ${PHASE} UI-SPEC approved" \
  --resume-file "${PHASE_DIR}/${PADDED_PHASE}-UI-SPEC.md"

<success_criteria>

  • Config checked (exit if ui_phase disabled)
  • Phase validated against roadmap
  • Prerequisites checked (CONTEXT.md, RESEARCH.md — non-blocking warnings)
  • Existing UI-SPEC handled (update/view/skip)
  • gsd-ui-researcher spawned with correct context and file paths
  • UI-SPEC.md created in correct location
  • gsd-ui-checker spawned with UI-SPEC.md
  • All 7 dimensions evaluated
  • Revision loop if BLOCKED (max 2 iterations)
  • Final status displayed with next steps
  • UI-SPEC.md committed (if commit_docs enabled)
  • State updated </success_criteria>