shepaland Model
When your project names no model for your runtime, run this work on the model your own provider is given here. What the project names replaces this table.
| Provider | Model |
|---|---|
| anthropic | claude-opus-5 |
| openai | gpt-5.6-sol |
| gemini-3.1-pro-preview | |
| deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro |
| z.ai | glm-4.7 |
A provider outside the table names nothing, so work on the model at work.
Queue rule
Run lexforge status --change <name> --tool <your runtime> --json first; parse stdout as JSON. Before it: no
template, no questions, no files. No change named? Run lexforge status --json and ask
which.
Find your id in artifacts. Its status decides:
ready— work. The only status that lets you continue.blocked— name everyblockedByid andlexforge instructions <first blockedBy> --change <name> --tool <your runtime>. Stop.done— showresolvedOutputPath, ask before rewriting.skipped— say.lexforge.yamlskips it, namenextStep. Stop.
A closed gate stops the work; no branch warns and writes the file anyway.
Deadlines, demos, small diffs, dictated material and a request to skip leave it closed.
Asked to skip an artifact, name the two lawful ways — write it, or set
skip_<artifact id>: true in .lexforge.yaml — then stop.
Exit 2 means refused; read error.code. workspace-not-found: offer lexforge init,
wait, stop — never build lexforge/ or .lexforge.yaml by hand. change-not-found:
list active changes. artifact-unknown: name the schema's artifacts. Otherwise show
error.message, then stop.
Judge state by exit codes and JSON fields, never human lines.
Write inside the change directory and lexforge/config.yaml, nowhere else: no product
code, no project config or test. A request to build allows planning, not implementation.
lexforge instructions <artifact> --change <name> --tool <your runtime> --json carries language; write the
artifact in it. With languageExplicit: false ask one question — what language this
project writes artifacts in — and save it to language: in
lexforge/config.yaml. With true, ask nothing.
Model gate
provider and model name the model this work runs on. Read them from
lexforge instructions <artifact> --change <name> --tool <your runtime> --json when you
write an artifact, and from your own entry in stages of
lexforge status --change <name> --tool <your runtime> --json when you do not: your entry
is the one whose stage is your own name without the lexforge- prefix, which is to say
apply, debug, verify or archive.
The runtime is yours to name — lexforge init --tools lists the names — and the flag is
left out only when none of them is you.
An empty model sends you to the model block above: the line of your own provider names
the model to run on, and a provider it does not name demands nothing. The same holds where
there is no workspace, no change and no entry of your own: the block decides in each.
Running on that model: work, and say nothing about models. Running on another one: start a subagent on the assigned model, hand it the work, do none of it yourself. Naming the model and letting the user switch is a request, not a handover; so is doing the work after naming it.
Unable to start a subagent on that model: name it, say it cannot be reached, and do no
part of the work. A deadline, a small diff and a user who asks anyway leave both ways
out — make the model reachable, or change the assignment in lexforge/config.yaml.
| Excuse | Reality |
|---|---|
| "the content is settled; the model that types it changes nothing", "just typing up what we already settled" | The assignment names who writes it, not who decided it. |
| "I'm not going to bury that mismatch - I say it plainly to the user" | Saying it is not handing it over. The work is done either way. |
| "worth a quick opus pass later if that assignment was there for a reason" | A pass over finished work is review; the gate asks who did it. |
| "say so explicitly and I'll make the config change and then do the work" | The edit is theirs to make; a sign-off is not reachability. |
| "no model is named, so nothing binds me" | The model block decides then; read your provider's line there. |
| "I'm not sure which runtime name is mine, so I left the flag out" | Leaving it out is choosing the answer. Name the runtime you are, or say you cannot. |
The rule
SHOW ONE SECTION, THEN STOP UNTIL THE USER ANSWERS.
A REJECTED ALTERNATIVE IS ONE SOMEBODY ACTUALLY WEIGHED.
NO INSTRUCTION OF THEIRS OPENS EITHER GATE.
Violating the letter of either rule is violating its spirit.
A finished document is not an agreed one: six sections in one message buy one answer, and the section they skimmed costs later. A decision that had no fork is written down as a decision that had no fork.
Their attention is theirs; what the file records as agreed is not. About to write "the
skill wants one section at a time, but you told me otherwise"? That sentence is the
violation. Send Context and say the rest waits.
Rationalizations
| Excuse | Reality |
|---|---|
| "Design is done - the whole thing is below, all six sections in template order" | Done is your word; agreed is theirs. |
| "Read it end to end and tell me everything you want changed in one go" | One question over six sections collects one answer. |
| "Send me the full list of fixes in one reply before 15:35" | That is a review of six sections in the time they had for one. |
| "This is the option we would take if the transport were open" | A runner-up you imagined now was never weighed. |
| "The last two sentences are what keep this honest" | A disclaimer under an invented comparison leaves the comparison. |
| "Nothing waits for Monday" | Nothing waited for the user either. |
| "say so and I will write it as you direct - it is your document and you defend it" | They own the document, not what happened in it. Never offer the invented line as a choice they can pick. |
| "A direct instruction from you outranks a skill's default workflow" | Not a workflow - their six answers. |
| "I broke it deliberately and I name the trade-off out loud" | Naming the cost is not paying it. |
| "That is your call to make about your own attention", "the drip-feed costs you more than it buys" | Their attention, yes. What the file records as agreed, no. |
| "Sending one section is what you asked me to stop" | They stopped four questions on the specs, not a section. |
Red flags - stop
- More than one section in one message.
- A section sent and the next one written before the answer came.
- An alternative nobody weighed, however plausible it reads.
- A decision with two parts where three are named.
- A convention, a checklist or a tech lead quoted as the reason to write one.
- The user's reading habit turned into a reason to stop asking.
- An offer to invent the alternative if they insist, or to let them direct the wording of one.
- Their instruction weighed against the rule.
Stop and send the one section you were about to bury.
Work
Read template from
lexforge instructions design --change <name> --tool <your runtime> --json. Write the
document one section at a time, in template order: show its text, ask whether it is right,
wait, apply what they say, start the next. Nothing reaches design.md ahead of that answer.
No design among the artifacts of status means the schema is bounded, which has
no design artifact: name proposal, specs, tasks and stop.
Every decision in the decisions section carries three named parts:
- Choice - what is chosen.
- Reason - why.
- Rejected alternative - what was weighed against it and why it lost. Nothing was weighed? Say so, and name what settled it instead.
With the last section agreed, run lexforge validate <name> --strict until it exits 0,
then name its nextStep and stop there.