# Frozen Checks > Use when the strategist drafts per-issue graded checks after decomposition and before builder dispatch. Produces one check file per issue at `docs/checks//.md`, frozen in git, read-only after. - Skill: `danmcinerney/frozen-checks` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add danmcinerney/frozen-checks` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/danmcinerney/frozen-checks/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: danmcinerney (https://skillmd.com/u/danmcinerney) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/danmcinerney/frozen-checks --- # Frozen checks One check file per issue, at `docs/checks//.md`. Open it with purpose, a spec pointer, and a fix contract stating what a failure means and which file to fix — that header is the closing review's entire intent context for the issue. Write for a reader with no other memory of this run, in the codebase-design vocabulary (`skills/codebase-design/SKILL.md`). ## RUN grammar Normative from the shipped runner, `skills/architect/check-runner.ps1`; cite it, do not restate it divergently from `skills/architect/dispatch.md`'s `## Check-runner dispatch`. A graded item is exactly: ``- RUN: `command` -> exit:`` with optional trailing `match:""`. `match:` is a fixed, case-sensitive stdout substring — never a regex. A RUN item without an `-> exit:` expectation makes the runner exit 5 with no partial evidence kept; that is a check defect, not a builder defect. Every other line — rationale, judge-only intent items — is read by the closing review and the orchestrator, never graded by the runner. ## Falsifiable and atomic Each RUN item asserts exactly one falsifiable fact. Run every draft command against the current tree before freezing; a check that cannot fail is not a check. Attack-list, run before freeze: - Repo-name grep collisions — a pattern that matches unrelated hits because it contains the repo's own name. - Self-matching — a pattern that matches the check file itself, not just the intended target. - `git grep` is blind to a builder's untracked new files in a worktree that hasn't staged them; use filesystem `grep`/`test` there instead. - New artifact paths — run `git check-ignore `; a gitignored path never gets graded no matter what the check says. ## Dependency surface A RUN command's dependency set — the test files, validators, and scripts it executes — is part of the check's enforcement surface: agents that game a check edit the test, not the criteria file. Name that set in the check header. Decomposition keeps those files out of MAY TOUCH by default; when an issue legitimately owns one (a job writing the tests a RUN item runs), every builder edit to it must be disclosed in the job report, and the orchestrator re-verifies intent before trusting a green — the edited dependency must still fail a known-bad input. ## Freeze protocol All check files for a run commit to the factory branch before any builder is dispatched; record the freeze SHA on the tracking issue. After that commit, everything under `docs/checks/` is read-only to every builder and reviewer — an edit there is an automatic FAIL regardless of the rest of the job report. An intent change discovered after freeze is a ruling: it goes in the run's rulings file, never a rewrite of the frozen check. ## Duration hints An issue or check file may note a duration hint in prose (e.g. "full suite ~20m") so a monitor doesn't mistake legitimate long work for a stall. A hint is informative only — never a kill ceiling, never a RUN expectation.