Rite Polish

/rite-polish: finish before review

Polish code for every feature. When the feature touches UI, normalize and polish the UI as well. Complete this self-review before /rite-review. The code and UI phases live in reference/code.md (anti-ai-slop.md, backend-polish.md) and reference/ui.md (browser-polish-evidence.md, design-system-discovery.md, harden-checklist.md); read only the phase in scope.

Operating rules

• Functionality complete first. Polish runs after /rite-prove (full feature proven).
• Follow the shared candidate-integrity.md. Polish owns every candidate-affecting correction and durable rollup before Review.
• Feature scope only.
• For UI, normalize before polishing. Do not add decoration on top of drift.
• Bounded polish passes. Verification runs in bounded passes, not a loop: after the Phase 4 assessment, at most one more correction round for new findings, then stop — residual subjective preference is recorded in polish-report.md, not re-polished. Failing case: the same surface reopened a third time with no new failing evidence.
• Root selects; wright edits. The controlling chat assesses and reconciles, but every accepted source/test correction is dispatched to the sole writer, devrites-slice-wright, through agents.md. Never edit source inline or run two correction writers concurrently.

Polish axes (C3 — completeness vs craft)

Score separately; conflating them hides gaps:

Incomplete comparison is not agreement. Record axis deltas in polish-report.md.

Orchestration

0. Read .claude/skills/devrites-lib/reference/standards/core.md first (the always-on operating rules). The per-phase rule files (coding-style.md, error-handling.md, …) load on demand from reference/code.md / reference/ui.md when their phase runs; for UI scope also read .claude/skills/devrites-lib/reference/standards/browser-proof-checklist.md. Then read the explicit or active workspace's state.md directly.
1. Read state.md, touched-files.md, the current candidate digest, and the git diff for the active workspace (or $ARGUMENTS if a target was given).
2. Detect UI scope: UI is touched if the diff or touched-files.md contains any of: .tsx, .jsx, .vue, .svelte, .html, .css, .scss, .sass, .less, .styl, component dirs (components/, pages/, routes/, app/, views/, screens/), Storybook stories, or design-token files. When in doubt, look for visual changes that need verification.
3. Always read reference/code.md and assess Phase 1 (code polish); if backend was touched, assess Phase 2 (backend polish) from the same file. Reconcile the findings, then send accepted corrections as one bounded wright contract.
4. If UI scope detected read reference/ui.md, and read design-brief.md if present so the polish follows the direction and states established by devrites-ux-shape and refined by devrites-frontend-craft. Read the ## Visual Verdict table in browser-evidence.md if present: its FAIL and PARTIAL rows are the normalize/quality-bar worklist: identify the root cause of each (a missing state, an off-token CTA, or an anti-slop hit) rather than hiding it with decoration. Assess Phase 3 (normalize) → Phase 4 (UI polish), then send accepted UI corrections to the wright (which invokes the relevant craft skill). Honor argument modes:
   • bolder | quieter | distill | harden: passed to Phase 4 as the emphasis dial.
   • normalize-only: assess Phase 3 and stop (no Phase 4).
5. Finish durable rollups before Review. Apply the capability ledger when requirements changed, the optional UI design memory, and durable ADR promotion. Add every changed project path to the candidate manifest; none of these writes waits for Ship.
6. Re-prove and close. After all accepted code/UI corrections and rollups, run devrites-engine check candidate <slug>. Any digest change requires affected real re-proof using the approved commands, fresh proof-runner validation, refreshed evidence/browser bindings, and an updated candidate manifest. Record a Re-verification: line in polish-report.md. Close the candidate for Review only after these checks are green.
7. Aggregate output: each phase appends to the single polish-report.md.

Refinement modes

Pass the requested UI direction to Phase 4. Modes do not bypass normalization or the quality bar; they apply after the system is aligned. See reference/ui.md.

Mid-flight discipline. When tempted to polish UI without normalize, cite clean lint as proof of quality, skip Phase 2 on a backend diff, or delete a Chesterton's Fence: see anti-patterns.