Workflow Write Integration Test

[BLOCKING] Execute skill steps in declared order. NEVER skip, reorder, or merge steps without explicit user approval. [BLOCKING] Before each step or sub-skill call, update task tracking: set in_progress when step starts, set completed when step ends. [BLOCKING] Every completed/skipped step MUST include brief evidence or explicit skip reason. [BLOCKING] If Task tools are unavailable, create and maintain an equivalent step-by-step plan tracker with the same status transitions.

Quick Summary

Goal: Write or update spec-first integration tests from canonical TCs, review them through seven quality gates, and prove the relevant suite passes twice consecutively without DB reset.

Summary: Investigate domain logic → author/update Section 8 TCs → generate real-use-case integration tests → review seven gates → verify the whole relevant suite twice without DB reset → sync docs and close. MUST ATTENTION use real domain paths and runner output.

• Testability contract: resolve Unit/Integration/System/E2E applicability from runner/config evidence; record owner/root/data, copy-ready full + focused commands, zero-match behavior, CI/simple-Windows entry, unique run/data identity, and repeat proof; unresolved applicable fields block handoff, while non-applicable tiers require evidence-backed N/A.

Absorbed use cases: converting existing TC specs into integration test code (former test-to-integration — specs already exist, so /spec [mode=tests] runs in UPDATE/verify mode instead of authoring from scratch) and stability verification of existing suites (former test-verify — the /integration-test-verify step's 2-consecutive-run gate). For spec-only authoring with no test code, use the /spec [mode=tests] skill directly.

Workflow:

1. Detect — classify request scope and target artifacts.
2. Execute — apply required steps with evidence-backed actions.
3. Verify — confirm constraints, output quality, and completion evidence.

Ordered route: /investigate → /spec [mode=tests] → /why-review → /artifact-review --type=spec-tests → /integration-test → /integration-test-review → /integration-test-verify → /spec [mode=sync] → /docs-update → /workflow-end → /watzup.

Key Rules:

• MUST ATTENTION keep claims evidence-based (file:line) with confidence >80% to act.
• MUST ATTENTION keep task tracking updated as each step starts/completes.
• MUST ATTENTION when creating/reviewing specs or tests, name Business Intent / Invariant Guarded or the protected business intent/invariant and ensure the test would fail if that intent breaks.
• MUST ATTENTION define success criteria before execution and loop until observable verification passes.
• MUST ATTENTION require integration tests to protect a named business rule/invariant and fail if that intent breaks.
• MUST ATTENTION arrange integration-test data through real use cases or valid seeded fixtures; never create impossible state through repository hacks.
• MUST ATTENTION verify integration suites with 2 consecutive passing runs without DB reset before declaring done.
• NEVER skip mandatory workflow or skill gates.

IMPORTANT MANDATORY Steps: /investigate -> /spec [mode=tests] -> /why-review -> /artifact-review --type=spec-tests -> /integration-test -> /integration-test-review -> /integration-test-verify -> /spec [mode=sync] -> /docs-update -> /workflow-end -> /watzup

[BLOCKING] Each step MUST ATTENTION invoke its Skill tool — marking a task completed without skill invocation is a workflow violation. NEVER batch-complete validation gates.

[CRITICAL] Understand Domain First Gate: The /investigate step is MANDATORY before /spec [mode=tests] and /integration-test. You MUST read the handler/entity/event source to understand WHAT fields change, WHAT entities are created/updated/deleted, WHAT event handlers fire. Assertions written without reading the handler source are guaranteed to be wrong or smoke-only.

Goal Contract propagation (workflow-owned): At workflow start, resolve the active Goal Contract per SYNC:goal-contract-satisfaction-loop (active plan goal.md → plans/goals/{YYMMDD-HHmm}-{slug}/goal.md → create from the test request). Each generated test maps to a saved goal invariant/criterion — a test protecting NO saved invariant needs a recorded justification. After /integration-test-verify, append the verification evidence (pass/fail counts, runner command, report path) to the goal file's Iteration Log and emit the Goal Satisfaction matrix (PASS/FAIL/BLOCKED) before /workflow-end.

Activate the workflow-write-integration-test workflow. Run /start-workflow workflow-write-integration-test with the user's prompt as context.

Steps: /investigate → /spec [mode=tests] → /why-review → /artifact-review --type=spec-tests → /integration-test → /integration-test-review → /integration-test-verify → /spec [mode=sync] → /docs-update → /workflow-end → /watzup

Test Architecture Contract Handoff

Before /integration-test, /investigate must emit one evidence-backed contract record for the test scope and pass it unchanged through the existing delegated order:

• applicability: record Unit/Integration/System/E2E as APPLICABLE only with runner/configuration evidence; otherwise record N/A — <evidence>.
• owner: identify the delegated setup, writer, reviewer, verifier, and documentation owner for each applicable tier; do not duplicate their gates in the wrapper.
• fullCommand and focusedCommand: copy-ready configured commands, their zero-match/invalid-selection non-zero behavior, CI gate, and simple/Windows entry point when required.
• runIdentity and dataStrategy: unique run identity and business-data suffix, valid public-use-case setup, explicit target/additive seed mode, and isolated mutable data for parallel workers.
• repeatProof: exact counts and exit status for the focused run, repeat/parallel evidence, and two consecutive no-reset full runs for every applicable persistent-state suite.

/integration-test consumes the setup and command fields; /integration-test-review verifies command validity, data identity/accumulation, and isolation alongside its existing quality gates; /integration-test-verify executes the configured scopes and returns the exact evidence for /spec [mode=sync] and /docs-update. This handoff adds data to the route and does not duplicate, reverse, or weaken any existing review, approval, or verification gate.

[STEP PURPOSES] Every step has a distinct purpose — NEVER deduplicate or batch:

/investigate — Find target command/handler files; locate existing integration tests in the same service for pattern matching. Output: list of target files + existing test examples. /investigate — Read handler/entity/event source. Map: fields written, entities created/updated/deleted, event handlers fired, validation rules. Output: domain logic summary to use as assertion blueprint. /spec [mode=tests] — Write/update TC-{FEATURE}-{NNN} specs in feature doc Section 8. CREATE mode for new tests, UPDATE mode for changed behavior. Output: TC mapping list (TC code -> covering test method name(s) or annotation filter). /artifact-review --type=spec-tests — Validate spec quality: GIVEN/WHEN/THEN completeness, happy path + validation failure + auth paths covered, no collisions with existing TC codes. /integration-test — Generate test files from TC specs using FROM-PROMPT or FROM-CHANGES mode. Non-negotiable: real use-case/valid-seeder data setup, async polling/retry for all DB assertions, unique data generators for all test data, test-spec annotation on every test method (adapt annotation syntax to your framework). /integration-test-review — 7-gate quality check (assertion value, data state, repeatability, domain logic, traceability, three-way sync, change coverage). Gate 7: every behavior-changing production file in the change set maps to a covering test (integration-first; unit fallback needs justification) AND a spec TC. Validate findings, fix only validated findings that block the current round, then restart the full integration-test review after fixes. Round 1 blocks on every validated severity; from round 2 onward CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM remain blocking and LOW-only findings are recorded/deferred without another fix/review round. NEVER proceed with a blocking finding or failed binary gate outstanding; never relabel a material finding LOW to exit. /integration-test-verify — Run tests via quickRunCommand from docs/project-config.json for 2 consecutive runs without DB reset. Report exact pass/fail counts with test runner output. NEVER mark complete without real output. /spec [mode=sync] — Sync §8 TCs ↔ executing test code (docs/specs/). Update each TC's CoveredBy field with all covering {File}::{MethodName} links (one TC → many tests, 1:N; a test-filter expression when the set is large). Coverage = ≥1 annotation-tagged test; never force one test per TC. /docs-update — Update feature doc evidence fields, version history, and changelog if test coverage changed materially. /workflow-end + /watzup — Close workflow state, then summarize and run the final /understand handoff.

IMPORTANT MANDATORY Steps: /investigate -> /spec [mode=tests] -> /why-review -> /artifact-review --type=spec-tests -> /integration-test -> /integration-test-review -> /integration-test-verify -> /spec [mode=sync] -> /docs-update -> /workflow-end -> /watzup

Integration Test Execution Discipline — How the integration-test family (write · review · verify) runs, diagnoses, and clears a suite. Binds /integration-test, /integration-test-review, and /integration-test-verify identically.

1. Verify the WHOLE system passes — not a hand-picked subset. /integration-test-verify must prove the full relevant suite is green (every test in the system the change can touch), not one cherry-picked test. "All pass" is only true with actual runner output (Passed/Failed/Skipped counts + names) and only after 2 consecutive green runs without a DB reset.
2. Drive state through real use-case paths — NEVER hack seed data. Set up every precondition exactly as a real user would: real commands, queries, production consumers/messages, or valid idempotent seeders. NEVER create or mutate domain data by direct repository writes — that fabricates states a user could never reach and hides the real workflow bug. Hacking seed data to force a green run is forbidden.
3. On ANY failure → /debug-investigate the root cause BEFORE any fix. Do not guess, do not patch the symptom site. Trace the failure end-to-start and classify whose fault it is: test code (wrong assertion/setup), source/production code (real defect), or environment/infrastructure/data. Then route: test-code fault → /integration-test-review to fix the test at the root (never weaken assertions or add skips); source-code fault → fix the production defect at the owning layer and report it; environment fault → mark BLOCKED and point at the startup script. NEVER change a test to match broken code.
4. 60-second runtime cap — a slow test is a RED FLAG, not a tuning knob. Local integration tests run fast. If any single test (or a stalled suite) exceeds ~60s, STOP and treat the slowness itself as a defect signal — deadlock, missing await, infinite poll/retry, a real network/external call, or an unbounded query. /debug-investigate the cause; NEVER paper over it by raising the timeout or extending the wait.
5. Loop until the whole suite is green. After fixing the validated root cause, restart the full 2-run verification from run 1. Done means the entire relevant suite passes repeatably — never green-once, never a subset.

AI Mistake Prevention — Failure modes to avoid on every task:

Re-read files after context changes. Context compaction, resume, or long-running work can make memory stale; verify current files before acting. Verify generated content against source evidence. AI hallucinates APIs, names, claims, and document facts. Check the relevant source before documenting or referencing. Check downstream references before deleting or renaming. Removing an artifact can stale docs, generated mirrors, configs, and callers; map references first. Trace the full impact chain after edits. Changing a definition can miss derived outputs and consumers. Follow the affected chain before declaring done. Verify ALL affected outputs, not just the first. One green check is not all green checks; validate every output surface the change can affect. Assume existing values are intentional — ask WHY before changing OR flagging one as a defect. Before changing or reporting a constant, limit, flag, cutoff, wording, or pattern, read nearby context and history, the CALLER's ordering, and 2+ sibling call sites of the same convention. A doc stating WHAT without WHY is missing rationale, not proof of a missing guard. Surface ambiguity before acting — don't pick silently. Multiple valid interpretations require an explicit question or stated assumption with risk. Assert the outcome your system owns, not the intermediate state your infrastructure owns. When verifying async work, assert the final business state — never the delivery/retry bookkeeping held in shared infrastructure that any co-running process can write. Such a check passes when run alone and flakes the moment anything else shares that infrastructure. Keep shared guidance role-relevant. Universal guidance must help every receiving skill or agent; code-specific obligations belong only in code-specific protocols.

Nested Task Expansion Contract — For workflow-step invocation, the [Workflow] ... row is only a parent container; the child skill still creates visible phase tasks.

1. Call TaskList first. If a matching active parent workflow row exists, set nested=true and record parentTaskId; otherwise run standalone.
2. Create one task per declared phase before phase work. When nested, prefix subjects [N.M] /skill-name — phase.
3. When nested, link the parent with TaskUpdate(parentTaskId, addBlockedBy: [childIds]).
4. Orchestrators must pre-expand a child skill's phase list and link the workflow row before invoking that child skill or sub-agent.
5. Mark exactly one child in_progress before work and completed immediately after evidence is written.
6. Complete the parent only after all child tasks are completed or explicitly cancelled with reason.

Blocked until: TaskList done, child phases created, parent linked when nested, first child marked in_progress.

Project Reference Docs Gate (static JIT) — Run after task-tracking bootstrap and immediately before target/source file reads, grep, edits, tests, or analysis. Project docs override generic framework assumptions; hooks may remind or accelerate this gate, but never prove that it ran.

1. Identify scope: file types, domain area, and operation.
2. Read docs/project-config.json first — the project's machine-readable map. It is the single source of truth for THIS repo (modules/paths, framework + search keywords, test/E2E/integration run-commands, design system, architecture rules, workflow patterns); ground exact paths, run-commands, and conventions on it before investigating, planning, or coding — never assume framework defaults (CLAUDE.md + reference docs are derived from it). If it — or the docs index, lessons.md, CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, or any required reference doc — is missing or stale, auto-run /project-init or the narrow route (/project-config, /docs-init, /scan-all, /scan --target=<key>, /claude-md-init) first; if Codex mirrors or AGENTS.md are stale, ask the user to run /sync-codex (never auto-run it).
3. Required docs by trigger: always docs/project-reference/lessons.md; doc lookup docs-index-reference.md; review code-review-rules.md; backend/CQRS/API backend-patterns-reference.md; domain/entity domain-entities-reference.md; frontend/UI frontend-patterns-reference.md; styles/design scss-styling-guide.md + design-system/design-system-canonical.md; integration tests integration-test-reference.md; E2E e2e-test-reference.md; feature docs/specs feature-spec-reference.md + spec-system-reference.md + spec-principles.md; behavior/public-contract/spec-test-code sync workflow-spec-test-code-cycle-reference.md; derived spec index/ERD/reimplementation guides spec-system-reference.md + source Feature Specs under docs/specs/; architecture/new area project-structure-reference.md.
4. Read every required doc, then before target work state: Reference docs read: ... | Not applicable: .... After compaction, resume, delegation, or a material context change, repeat the route and restate the set; prior conversation and hook output are not proof of current loading.

Ready when: scope evaluated, docs/project-config.json consulted, required docs checked/read or setup route completed, lessons.md confirmed, citation emitted.

Task Tracking & External Report Persistence — Bootstrap this before execution; then run project-reference doc prefetch before target/source work.

1. Create a small task breakdown before target file reads, grep, edits, or analysis. On context loss, inspect the current task list first.
2. Mark one task in_progress before work and completed immediately after evidence; never batch transitions.
3. For plan/review work, create plans/reports/{skill}-{YYMMDD}-{HHmm}-{slug}.md before first finding.
4. Append findings after each file/section/decision and synthesize from the report file at the end.
5. Final output cites Full report: plans/reports/{filename}.

Blocked until: task breakdown exists, report path declared for plan/review work, first finding persisted before the next finding.

Critical Thinking Mindset — Apply critical thinking, sequential thinking. Every claim needs traced proof, confidence >80% to act. Anti-hallucination: Never present guess as fact — cite sources for every claim, admit uncertainty freely, self-check output for errors, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence — certainty without evidence root of all hallucination.

Incremental Result Persistence — MANDATORY for all sub-agents or heavy inline steps processing >3 files.

1. Before starting: Create report file plans/reports/{skill}-{date}-{slug}.md and record Run ID, Task ID, Attempt ID, target scope, and target fingerprint.
2. After each file/section reviewed: Append findings, evidence, changed paths, and gaps immediately — never hold them in memory.
3. Delegated return: A sub-agent emits only the structured SYNC:subagent-return-contract envelope with exact totals, salient Critical/High findings (maximum ten), current attempt, and Full report: path. Inline user-facing output: Preserve the skill's requested explanation or teaching, with links to the persisted evidence; the delegated transport limit does not replace that deliverable. Do not paste a full review report into an envelope.
4. Parent synthesis: The main agent reads the full report for synthesis, acceptance, deduplication, and repair planning — not only when a named blocker exists. It preserves all severities beyond the transport cap.
5. Read-only boundary: A read-only leaf may write its report/repair proposal but MUST NOT edit source, generated output, or user data; the parent/owner performs repairs after acceptance.
6. Advancement gate: The parent records ACCEPTED for the current Attempt ID only after reconciling target, totals, gaps, and changed paths; stale or late attempts cannot advance dependent work.

Why: Context cutoff mid-execution loses ALL in-memory findings. Each disk write survives compaction. Partial results are better than no results, while explicit identity prevents a late result from being mistaken for the current run.

Report naming: plans/reports/{skill-name}-{YYMMDD}-{HHmm}-{slug}.md

Sub-Agent Return Contract — When this skill spawns a sub-agent, the sub-agent MUST return ONLY the structured envelope below. Main agent reads the envelope first, then opens the referenced report for synthesis, acceptance, deduplication, or repair planning; a full report is never pasted inline.

## Sub-Agent Result: [skill-name]

Status: ✅ PASS | ⚠️ PARTIAL | ❌ FAIL
Confidence: [0-100]%
Run ID: [stable run identifier]
Task ID: [parent task or phase identifier]
Attempt ID: [monotonic attempt/revision identifier]
Target: [exact files/paths or scope] @ [target fingerprint/commit]
Changed paths: [none | exact paths]
Finding totals: Critical=[n] | High=[n] | Medium=[n] | Low=[n]
Acceptance: PENDING | ACCEPTED | REJECTED — parent records the decision

### Findings (Critical/High surfaced — max 10 bullets)

- [severity] [file:line] [finding]

### Gaps / Unverified

- [missing host, runtime, coverage, or evidence limitation]

### Actions Taken

- [file changed] [what changed]

### Blockers (if any)

- [blocker description, or `none`]

Full report: plans/reports/[skill-name]-[date]-[slug].md

The ten-bullet limit is a transport limit, not a visibility limit: the full report may contain more than ten Medium/Low findings when no named blocker exists, and the parent MUST read it when synthesizing or deduplicating. The parent MUST reject a stale, duplicate, or superseded Attempt ID and MUST accept the current attempt before advancing a dependent step. Read-only leaves write repair proposals/reports only; they do not edit source, generated carriers, or user files.

Context budget — the return payload is a SUMMARY, not a transcript: no raw file contents / full diffs / verbatim logs inline, no re-pasted source. Everything beyond the envelope lives in the incrementally-written report. A sub-agent that would exceed the summary shape MUST persist the detail and return only the pointer; bounded transport must never become bounded visibility.

Test Architecture & Execution Contract — Treat testability as a setup/architecture acceptance condition. For every potentially applicable tier — Unit, Integration/System, E2E, and Performance/Scale (warranted at T1+/B2+) — record APPLICABLE only with evidence of its runner/framework/configuration; otherwise record N/A — <evidence> and never fabricate coverage.

1. Matrix before implementation: Record applicability, owner, runner/framework, test root, fixture/data strategy, full command, focused/partial command, zero-match behavior, CI gate, a simple/Windows entry point (a .cmd when the project needs one), the host-mode AND container-mode commands where the project supports both, and the environment reach (which of local / CI / production-shaped this tier can target).
2. Runnable scopes: Full and focused commands must be copy-ready, fail on invalid or zero-match selections, report exact counts and exit status, and be safe to repeat. E2E uses only configured browser/service commands.
3. Fresh valid state: Each run/test owns a unique run identity and business-data suffix, arranges through supported public paths, and uses realistic valid data. Reference setup is count-before-create, idempotent, and restart-safe. Intentional accumulation is additive, keyed, and integrity-checked; never hide contamination with destructive reset. Run-scoped cleanup, when supported, is opt-in and idempotent: after evidence capture it may remove only ephemeral resources owned by the current run; it must never delete persistent/additive data or another run's data, reset shared state, or replace no-reset proof.
4. Isolation and fidelity: Isolate mutable roots and parallel workers; share only immutable/reference data. Preserve real actor pacing and observable arrange barriers. Do not widen retries or weaken assertions to make a scenario pass.
5. Evidence gate: Report command, scope, identity, seed/accumulation mode, exact result, and repeat proof. For each applicable persistent-state suite, require two consecutive no-reset full runs. Treat line coverage as diagnostic only; use meaningful property/invariant, mutation, change, and behavior coverage signals.
6. Execution modes and environment reach: A tier claiming two run modes must have BOTH exercised — the bare-host command and the fully-containerized command, driven from ONE source of truth for config and topology; record which mode CI exercises, because an unexercised mode rots silently and a claimed-but-rotten mode is worse than one never claimed. The SAME suite must reach local, CI and (where warranted) a production-shaped target, parameterized by configuration, never by forked test code — only one fork ever stays maintained, so forking guarantees divergence. A target lacking a required capability reports ENVIRONMENT-BLOCKED, never a silent pass. Tests unsafe against production are excluded by an ENFORCED mechanism whose absence fails loudly, not by a convention someone must remember; "runs in prod" means a safe, declared, NON-MUTATING subset. Reproducibility underwrites all of it — pinned toolchain, locked dependencies, declared external prerequisites — which is the difference between a suite that passes anywhere and one that passes on its author's machine. Depth → SYNC:engineering-foundation-gate F1/F2/F3.

Ownership: Architecture/harness defines the matrix; scaffold/workflow makes it runnable; test writers implement tier-specific cases; reviewers verify the contract; the runner reports; seed-data owners preserve uniqueness, idempotency, realism, and accumulation integrity. Missing required evidence blocks setup completion.

Severity Rubric — Classify every finding by consequence, not by effort, reviewer preference, or how annoying the fix is. One scale applies to every review, skill, agent, workflow, and host so a tier has the same meaning everywhere. Choose the highest credible consequence supported by evidence; do not lower a tier to make a round pass.

Finding vs observation (required): An observation becomes a finding only when it names the affected user/system/data/contract, the shipped consequence, the evidence location, and the normalized tier. INFO, advice, preference, duplicate wording, or an unsubstantiated concern is not a finding and must not reopen a loop. If the concern might affect a required behavior or gate but evidence is incomplete, emit NOT VERIFIABLE with the missing evidence and keep it unresolved; never silently convert uncertainty into LOW.

Severity	Action	Definition and examples
CRITICAL	Block immediately; escalate	Immediate material risk if shipped: authentication/authorization or safety bypass; secrets/PII exposure; irreversible destructive action; data loss/corruption; or a silent failure on a critical path. A failed binary gate that makes the result untrustworthy is represented as a separate synthetic blocker by the executable policy (not as an ordinary severity judgment).
HIGH	Must fix before PASS/merge	Material correctness or contract risk: wrong behavior on a supported path; violated business/data invariant; meaningful privacy or authority gap; breaking API/schema/compatibility change; likely harm to users/downstream systems; or a missing proof for a behavior-changing fix.
MEDIUM	Must clear the current round; escalate if the fix needs an owner decision	Bounded but consequential risk: an edge case, resilience/observability/testability/maintainability gap, credible future defect, or local architectural drift whose impact is real but not immediate material loss. An explicit follow-up records the escalation/residual risk; it does not make an open MEDIUM a clean pass.
LOW	Record and defer; never open another fix/re-review round from round 2 onward	Non-blocking polish with no credible present correctness, security, privacy, authority, availability, or data-integrity impact: wording/formatting, minor documentation or convention drift, optional defensive cleanup, or a cosmetic/refinement suggestion.

Consequence decision tree (apply in order): (1) Is a binary gate failed? Keep it as a separate hard blocker (the executable helper represents it as synthetic CRITICAL); do not use the ordinary severity label to hide what failed. Otherwise, would shipping permit immediate material security/safety/authority harm, irreversible destruction, data loss/corruption, or a critical-path silent failure? → CRITICAL. (2) Otherwise, does a supported path, invariant, public contract, privacy/authority boundary, compatibility promise, or behavior-changing proof fail with material user/downstream impact? → HIGH. (3) Otherwise, is there a bounded but consequential edge, resilience, observability, testability, maintainability, or architectural gap with a credible impact? → MEDIUM. (4) Otherwise, is the evidence sufficient to show only non-blocking polish with no credible present material impact? → LOW. (5) If the evidence needed to choose between steps 1–4 is missing, → NOT VERIFIABLE, not LOW. When multiple tiers fit, select the highest credible consequence; effort, implementation cost, reviewer discomfort, frequency alone, and proximity to the round cap never decide the tier.

Boundary examples (normalize before applying the round predicate): an auth bypass, exposed secret/PII, destructive command without an authority gate, or failed required test/generation/parity gate is CRITICAL; a wrong supported response, broken invariant/API/schema, meaningful privacy/authority defect, or unproven behavior-changing fix is HIGH; a bounded retry/timeout/alert/testability gap or credible maintainability drift is MEDIUM; a typo, formatting inconsistency, optional cleanup, or cosmetic suggestion proven not to affect present behavior is LOW. A missing fact about any of those boundaries is NOT VERIFIABLE until evidence or an explicitly documented residual-risk decision exists.

Classification procedure (required for every finding): (1) state the affected user, system, data, contract, or gate; (2) assess consequence if the issue ships; (3) assess exposure/likelihood and reversibility/detectability; (4) select the highest tier justified by those facts; (5) cite file:line or equivalent evidence and a confidence percentage. Effort, implementation cost, reviewer discomfort, and proximity to the round cap are never severity inputs. NOT VERIFIABLE is a pending evidence state, not one of the four tiers and never a LOW escape hatch: if the unresolved claim could affect required behavior, security, privacy, authority, availability, data integrity, or a binary gate, it remains an open evidence blocker until resolved or explicitly owner-accepted with documented residual risk. Classify an item LOW only when evidence supports the absence of credible present material impact.

Hard-gate rule: Binary gates (tests, required artifacts, security must-fix checks, generated parity, policy compliance) are not ordinary severity-rated findings. The executable helper records a failed gate as a synthetic CRITICAL blocker solely so one predicate can carry it; the report must still name the gate and failure evidence. A failed gate blocks at every round, including when all ordinary findings are LOW; never disguise a failed gate as LOW.

Score-based skills map their numeric scale onto these tiers — do not invent a parallel vocabulary:

• 0-2 criterion scoring (e.g. production-readiness-review): 0 = CRITICAL/HIGH (criterion unmet, blocks readiness), 1 = MEDIUM (partial, consequential gap), 2 = pass (no finding). If the criterion is only polish, use LOW rather than forcing a 0.
• Two-axis scoring (e.g. performance-review, impact × likelihood): high impact + high exposure → CRITICAL/HIGH; material impact with bounded exposure → HIGH/MEDIUM; low impact and low exposure → LOW. Record the axes and why the selected tier is the highest credible consequence.
• Scorecards / /20 grades (e.g. architecture-scalability-review): the aggregate score and verdict band are separate from finding severity. A sub-80 area is evidence to investigate, not an automatic CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW label; classify each underlying gap by the consequence decision tree and keep advisory score deductions separate from blocking findings.

Domain-vocabulary normalization (mandatory): Specialized skills may keep a local reporting vocabulary, but it MUST feed this same four-tier round predicate — never a second severity system:

• BLOCKED, HARD FAIL, or FAIL is a blocking local verdict, not an automatic CRITICAL label. Classify the underlying consequence as CRITICAL when it is an immediate material risk or failed binary gate; otherwise classify it as HIGH or MEDIUM with evidence, while preserving the local block until the owning gate is satisfied.
• WARN is not permission to ignore a finding. Map it to MEDIUM when the gap is consequential, to LOW only when evidence supports no credible present material impact, or upward to HIGH/CRITICAL when the consequence warrants it. PASS/compliant is not a finding.
• UI P0/P1/P2/P3/P4 map to CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW/LOW respectively as a starting point; override upward only when the evidence shows a higher shipped consequence. A P0/P1 accessibility or task-completion floor remains a blocking gate even when a local UI report calls it a priority rather than a severity.
• Numeric SRE/readiness or impact/likelihood scores are evidence inputs, not replacement tiers. Emit the score, the consequence, and the normalized CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW tier together. INFO/advisory observations are not findings unless the evidence shows a material consequence.

A finding's tier drives the gate: CRITICAL/HIGH/MEDIUM remain actionable and blocking under the round policy; LOW may be tracked as a follow-up and, from round 2, does not by itself justify another fix/re-review. An owner decision may explain or schedule an open MEDIUM but does not turn it into a clean pass; owner acceptance never makes a failed binary gate pass and must record scope, rationale, and residual risk.

MUST ATTENTION apply critical + sequential thinking — every claim needs appropriate traced evidence (file:line for repo/code claims; source URL or artifact section for research, product, content, and docs claims); confidence >80% to act, <60% DO NOT recommend. Anti-hallucination: never present guess as fact, admit uncertainty freely, cross-reference independently, stay skeptical of own confidence.

MUST ATTENTION apply AI mistake prevention — verify generated content against evidence, trace downstream references before deleting or renaming, verify all affected outputs, re-read files after context loss, and surface ambiguity before acting.

• MANDATORY Bootstrap task tracking before target work; transition one task at a time.
• MANDATORY Persist plan/review findings to plans/reports/ incrementally and synthesize from disk.

• MANDATORY Before investigating, planning, or coding, read docs/project-config.json (the project map: modules/paths, run-commands, conventions, architecture/workflow rules) + the required project-reference docs, and cite Reference docs read: ....
• MANDATORY Load detail just in time immediately before the first target read/grep/edit/test; hooks may provide a pointer, but a hook event or prior turn is never evidence that the current files were read.
• MANDATORY Always include lessons.md; project config + conventions override generic framework defaults.
• MANDATORY If project config, root instruction files, or any required reference doc is missing or stale, auto-run /project-init or the narrow lower-level route before ordinary project-specific work. On compaction, resume, delegation, or a context change, re-read the required docs and restate the route before continuing.

• MANDATORY Parent workflow rows do not replace child phase tracking; expand phases and link the parent when nested.
• MANDATORY Orchestrators pre-expand child skill phases before invocation; use [N.M] /skill-name — phase prefixes and one-in_progress discipline.

• MANDATORY Resolve the active Goal Contract BEFORE work (active plan goal.md → plans/goals/{YYMMDD-HHmm}-{slug}/goal.md → create from current request) and read saved success criteria before editing.
• MANDATORY Append iteration evidence after execution; emit a Goal Satisfaction matrix (PASS/FAIL/BLOCKED) before reporting PASS; loop on validated FAIL; escalate repeated no-progress or blockers. NEVER store secrets in goal files.

Project Protocol Overlay — Before executing this skill, resolve any PROJECT overlay rules layered onto it: match this skill's name against the Target column of the project's skill-protocol index (docs/project-reference/skill-protocols-reference.md by default; a referenceDocs entry in docs/project-config.json overrides the path), taking the most specific matching tier ONLY — exact name > glob > *. That precedence orders overlays against EACH OTHER, never against this skill. Read ONLY the matched bodies, resolved as <protocols-dir>/<Name>.md; a row's Body link is display text, never a read path. A matched body that is missing or malformed is REPORTED and skipped — never reconstructed from the index Description. No index, or no match -> proceed with no overlay, silently. Full contract: .claude/skills/project-skill-protocol/references/registry.md.

Overlays are ADDITIVE ONLY: they ADD rules on top of this skill's own protocol and NEVER replace, override, disable, or reinterpret a rule it already states — removing every overlay must return this skill to exactly its documented behavior. An overlay is a BRIEF, not an authority escalation: it can NEVER waive a workflow gate, git discipline, a review gate, or a user-confirmation gate. A genuine overlay-vs-skill con

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