# Jkheadley Instar Instar > iterative-converging-audit — Audit to Convergence, Not to Exhaustion-of-Patience - Skill: `tomevault-io/jkheadley-instar-instar` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tomevault-io/jkheadley-instar-instar` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tomevault-io/jkheadley-instar-instar/raw - Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS) - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Security - Author: tomevault-io (https://skillmd.com/u/tomevault-io) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tomevault-io/jkheadley-instar-instar --- # iterative-converging-audit — Audit to Convergence, Not to Exhaustion-of-Patience A single audit pass is never thorough. The first sweep has blind spots; the fixes themselves reveal new instances or introduce new ones; and "I looked once and stopped finding things" usually means "I got tired," not "there is nothing left." The only honest definition of a complete audit is a **converged** one: a re-run that finds **zero new discoveries**. This skill turns that into a structurally enforced loop. It applies to ANY "find all instances of X" task — security audits, safety audits, code reviews, research sweeps, compliance checks, dependency audits, dead-code hunts, "are there other places we do this wrong" investigations. This skill enforces the **Iterative Audit to Convergence** constitution standard (`docs/STANDARDS-REGISTRY.md`). You do not declare an audit complete on round 1. You track rounds. You re-audit after every fix batch. --- ## When to Activate This Skill - Any request to "find all", "audit", "sweep", "review everything", "make sure we got everything". - After fixing a bug, when the same class of bug likely exists elsewhere ("where else do we do this?"). - A security or safety audit where a missed instance is dangerous. - A research/review question where one source or one angle is not enough. - Whenever you catch yourself about to say "I checked, looks clean" after a SINGLE pass. --- ## The Loop (do not skip steps) ### Step 0 — Frame the audit (write this down first) Before sweeping, define — explicitly, in the audit ledger: 1. **Target pattern** — what exactly are you finding? Be precise. "Silent LLM fallbacks in gating paths", not "bad error handling". 2. **Search surface** — where could instances live? List the angles/locations. The first list is always incomplete; you will add to it. 3. **Classification rule** — for each finding, what are the buckets? (e.g. DANGEROUS / MITIGATED / ADVISORY-OK). A finding is not "done" until it is classified. 4. **Fix policy** — what does "fixed" mean per bucket? (remediate / annotate-as-accepted-with-reason / escalate). 5. **Convergence criterion** — usually: a full re-sweep surfaces zero findings not already in the ledger. State it concretely. ### Step 1 — Audit pass (round N) Sweep the search surface for the target pattern. Record EVERY finding in the ledger with: location, current behavior, bucket. Cast wide — false positives are cheap to classify out; missed instances are the failure mode this skill exists to prevent. Use multiple search angles (by-name, by-content, by-structure); one angle is blind to what the others catch. ### Step 2 — Fix pass For each finding, apply the fix policy: remediate it, OR classify it as accepted with an explicit written reason (an accepted finding is a DECISION, not a TODO). Capture the diff. **Fixing changes the code**, which is exactly why you must re-audit. ### Step 3 — RE-audit (round N+1) Sweep again — the FULL surface, not just what you touched. Two things happen on a real re-audit: - Your search surface grew (round N taught you new places/angles to look). Add them. - The fixes may have moved, masked, or created instances. Catch them. Record any NEW findings. If there are new findings → back to Step 2. If a re-sweep finds **nothing not already in the ledger** → **converged**. ### Step 4 — Declare convergence (honestly) Only now may you say the audit is complete — and you state it as: "Converged after K rounds; round K surfaced no new findings. Ledger: X total, Y fixed, Z accepted-advisory (each with a reason)." If you stopped for any reason OTHER than a clean re-sweep (ran out of time, budget, patience), say so explicitly — that is an INCOMPLETE audit, not a converged one. Never dress up an exhausted audit as a thorough one. ### Step 5 — Leave a standing guard (so it stays converged) A converged audit decays the moment new code lands. Where possible, encode the target pattern as a **ratchet** (a test/lint that fails when a new instance appears) so the audit does not silently un-converge. The ledger of accepted findings becomes the ratchet's allowlist. (Example: the `no-silent-llm-fallback` test is the standing guard for the LLM-fallback audit.) --- ## The Ledger (the durable artifact) Keep a written ledger for the audit — a markdown table or a structured file — with one row per finding: `location | round-found | behavior | bucket | disposition (fixed → commit / accepted → reason)`. The ledger is what makes "converged after K rounds" a verifiable claim instead of a feeling. Track the per-round count; a healthy audit shows the new-findings-per-round curve falling to zero. --- ## Anti-Patterns (this skill exists to forbid these) | Anti-pattern | Why it fails | The fix | |---|---|---| | **"I checked, looks clean"** (one pass) | Round 1 always has blind spots | Re-audit at least once; converge | | **"Fixed the 3 I found, done"** | Fixes reveal/create new instances | Re-sweep AFTER fixing | | **Re-auditing only what you touched** | New instances hide in untouched code | Re-sweep the FULL surface every round | | **Treating an accepted finding as a TODO** | It silently rots; later reader can't tell reviewed-OK from missed | Every accepted finding carries a written reason | | **Declaring "thorough" when you stopped for time/budget** | Dishonest; the gap reads as "covered" | Say "incomplete — stopped at round K with N open", never "thorough" | | **One search angle** | Each angle is blind to what others catch | Sweep by-name AND by-content AND by-structure | | **No standing guard** | The audit un-converges on the next commit | Leave a ratchet (test/lint) keyed on the pattern | --- ## Relationship to other tools - For a fan-out across many files where you only need the conclusion, delegate the per-angle sweeps to subagents and converge their findings — but the convergence loop (re-audit until clean) is still yours to run. - The **Coherence Gate** and **DegradationReporter** are about runtime behavior; this skill is about pre-merge thoroughness. - When the audit's pattern is enforceable in CI, pair this skill with a `no-*` ratchet test (the standing guard from Step 5). **The principle:** thoroughness is not how hard you looked once — it is whether a fresh look finds anything new. Audit until the fresh look comes back empty. --- > Source: [JKHeadley/instar](https://github.com/JKHeadley/instar) — distributed by [TomeVault](https://tomevault.io).