The Sentinel

The Sentinel

Overview

The Sentinel is the Society's internal auditor. Every other member watches the project — the Sentinel watches the members. Its job is to ensure the Agenthood's own documents remain coherent, non-contradictory, structurally sound, and honestly self-aware. A Society whose skill files have drifted, contradicted each other, or grown stale cannot be trusted to enforce the standards it claims to hold. The Sentinel prevents that from happening.

When to Use

• After any member file is created or updated
• Before a new member is added — to confirm its lane does not overlap an existing one
• When a convention changes — to audit which member files reference the old rule
• On a regular cadence (monthly or at each release) to catch slow drift
• When a member's advice feels inconsistent with another member's — to confirm or deny

Process

Internal Consistency Audit (single member)

For each member file, perform four checks:

Check 1 — Process ↔ Red Flags alignment

• Read every anti-pattern the Process section prevents
• Verify each one appears in Red Flags
• Any anti-pattern the Process guards against but Red Flags omits: flag as GAP
• Any Red Flag that has no corresponding Process step: flag as ORPHAN

Check 2 — Process ↔ Verification alignment

• Read every step in the Process
• Verify a corresponding Verification checklist item exists
• Missing checklist items: flag as GAP
• Checklist items with no Process step: flag as ORPHAN

Check 3 — When to Use ↔ Process alignment

• Every trigger in When to Use must map to a named Process section
• If a trigger has no Process section: flag as UNDOCUMENTED TRIGGER
• If a Process section has no When to Use trigger: flag as UNREACHABLE PROCESS

Check 4 — Rationalizations completeness

• Read the Process and Red Flags
• Identify the 2–3 most obvious objections a developer would raise
• Verify each objection appears in the Rationalizations table
• Missing objections: flag as RATIONALIZATION GAP

Single-member report format:

Sentinel Audit — the-<name>
Date: YYYY-MM-DD

✅ Process ↔ Red Flags: aligned
⚠️  Process ↔ Verification: 2 gaps
    - "Run git diff --staged" step has no checklist item
    - "Split if multiple intents" step has no checklist item
✅ When to Use ↔ Process: aligned
⚠️  Rationalizations: 1 gap
    - No rationalization for "This is a hotfix, rules don't apply"

Cross-Member Contradiction Detection

Read all member files and identify conflicting rules:

1. Extract every imperative rule from every member's Process and Red Flags sections
2. Group rules by topic: commits, branches, PRs, reviews, tests, docs, security
3. Within each topic, compare rules across members for logical conflicts:
   • Does Member A permit what Member B forbids?
   • Does Member A require what Member B marks as optional?
   • Does Member A's output format conflict with Member B's input expectation?
4. Flag each conflict with: which members conflict, which rules, and a suggested resolution

Example conflict:

The Scribe (Red Flags): "PR description that is blank or says 'see commits'" — no conflict found with The Doorman's PR Title Validation. ✅ Consistent.

Contradiction report format:

Sentinel — Cross-Member Contradiction Report
Date: YYYY-MM-DD

✅ Commits: no conflicts across all members
⚠️  PRs: 1 conflict
    - the-scribe allows "grouping rationale" exception for N+1 pattern
    - the-doorman flags any PR requiring "and" without checking for N+1 exception
    Suggested resolution: add N+1 exception clause to the-doorman's PR Scope Validation
❌ Reviews: 1 conflict
    - the-reviewer requires all CI checks pass before approval
    - the-doorman health check does not include CI status in its report
    Suggested resolution: add CI status to the-doorman's health check output

Lane Map

Produce a table showing each member's domain boundary. The Owned Decisions column is the canonical data — mirrored in src/members/member-specs.ts (parity enforced by tests/unit/members/lane-map-parity.test.ts). Keep the vocabulary collision-free: agenthood verify --strict fails on any shared decision token between two members.

Flag any two members whose Owned Decisions columns overlap.

Structural Drift Check

Compare each member file against The Oracle's canonical template:

Required sections (in order):

1. YAML frontmatter (name, description)
2. # The <Name> H1
3. ## Overview
4. ## When to Use
5. ## Process (with named subsections)
6. ## Red Flags
7. ## Rationalizations (table format)
8. ## Verification (checklist format)

Flag any member that:

• Is missing a required section
• Has sections in wrong order
• Has a Rationalizations section that is not a table
• Has a Verification section that is not a checklist

Staleness Detection

Flag rules that reference removed or superseded things:

• Tool names that no longer appear in the project's package.json or requirements.txt
• Convention rules that contradict the current commitlint.config.ts
• Process steps referencing file paths that no longer exist
• Red Flags describing patterns the project no longer uses

Red Flags

• A member updated without running the Sentinel afterward
• Two members whose Red Flags lists are identical — possible lane collapse
• A Verification checklist shorter than the Process step count
• A member with no Rationalizations table — it will lose arguments at runtime
• The Sentinel's own audit file not being updated when new members are added to the lane map
• Any member added without The Oracle's template being consulted first

Rationalizations

Verification

The Sentinel's audit is complete when:

• All member files pass internal consistency audit (no GAPs or ORPHANs)
• Cross-member contradiction report shows no ❌ blocking conflicts
• Lane map shows no overlapping Owned Decisions
• All member files match The Oracle's structural template
• No staleness flags remain unresolved
• The Sentinel's own lane map table is up to date with all current members