Rite Vet

/rite-vet: review the plan before build

Vet every plan before code for scope, architecture, quality, proof, performance, failure modes, and writer safety. Cite findings; fold accepted technical hardening into planning artifacts; design Build tests. Temper owns product scope, Vet owns implementation; current $ARGUMENTS (--full) feeds the depth triggers in reference/depth.md; profiles never remove the exact plan-reviewer gate (orchestration-profiles.md).

Rules

Read the active standard from: principles.md, patterns.md, coding-style.md, testing.md, spec-grammar.md, performance.md, error-handling.md, development-workflow.md, afk-hitl.md, one-shot-actions.md, developer-experience.md, elicitation.md, and definition-of-done.md. Load repository topology, data integrity, and integration reliability only when triggered. Before classifying any Reslice, read .claude/skills/devrites-lib/reference/standards/acceptance-preserving-reslice.md. When a plan declares a root-authored executable workflow file, read workflow-artifacts.md.

• FOLD → fold technical topology; invalidate Vet/readiness; affected Vet before Build.
• GUARD_AND_REPAIR → no planning writes; Spec Drift Guard → Clarify → Plan repair → affected Vet.
• BLOCKED_INPUT → no planning writes; exact diagnostic; recover input; reclassify.

Invariants

• Review implementation, not ambition. Challenge creep, complexity, proof, and risk without changing accepted product scope.
• Root alone asks, decides, folds, writes, and sets readiness. Reviewers judge; they add no route policy. Cite every finding and confidence; suppress unverified or confidence ≤4 findings under review-axes.md. Lens arrows in eng-lenses.md are heuristics; band findings only under the four review-axes.md names.
• Auth, migration, public API, and data-model changes use maximum caution and the irreversible-risk stop. Project principles never become trade-offs.
• Governance-protected paths (.devrites/**, pack skill/agent trees, NOTICE.md generator regions, CI/hook config named in repo docs) require explicit human approval before plan slices may edit them. A slice touching a protected path without approval → Vet NEEDS CLARIFICATION. Failing case: plan edits another feature's state.md without recorded approval → fail closed.
• Use the lowest axis band; never average or round thin to ready. Search before asking and resolve reversible technical choices. Ask only human-owned choices.
• Preserve a valid technical return cursor. Agent-owned NEEDS REPLAN returns internally to its caller, not to the human.
• Recovery recheck is bounded. A valid cursor plus open fingerprint enters Recovery recheck; it does not start another Full Vet or repeat unaffected axes/reviewers.

Workflow

0. Orient. Read core. Resolve active slug, require state, and read plan, tasks, spec, decision coverage, optional strategy/design brief, decisions, assumptions, and state. Require approved Plan and Decision coverage: CLEAR; otherwise stop for Define or Clarify. Use code intelligence for placement, blast radius, and reuse.

1. Select depth. Apply reference/depth.md exactly; never skip. Every initial pass records an engineering verdict and test-plan coverage. A valid Recovery recheck retains prior depth and enters 1b. 1a. Independent initial pass. Freeze candidate and dispatch exact fresh read-only plan reviewer. Add developer-experience reviewer for developer surfaces and current strategy reviewer after significant Temper. Missing required account blocks. 1b. Recovery recheck. Require valid return cursor, accepted prior finding, exact fingerprint/reproduction, repaired candidate identity, changed paths/criteria, and affected drift/evidence. Freeze that packet and dispatch each exact owning reviewer once, fresh/read-only, limited to it. Do not rerun broad inventory or unaffected reviewers. Close the prior fingerprint only with discriminating evidence. Otherwise record one no-progress outcome. A different Critical/Important invariant needs exact evidence and a new fingerprint; a Suggestion, Nit, or FYI cannot keep recovery open. Reconcile shared artifact/readiness gates and return to caller or next repair.

2. Challenge scope. Apply review-axes §0 and search accepted decisions. Harden to the smallest contract-complete plan, using marked topology action. Then verify bidirectional ID-and-meaning traceability across spec/plan/ tasks/test-plan/traceability, acceptance, terms, principles, anti-slop, and conventions; every slice and test-plan row maps to a live requirement and vice versa. Critical gaps and unexcepted principle breaches block; record the challenge result in eng-review.md §2 (Scope challenge) after recheck.

3. Preflight Build entry. Under reference/artifacts.md, verify exact command/cwd/tool/version/prerequisite; output filters must preserve upstream failure. Verify dependencies from authoritative source plus nearest manifest. Run parser-sensitive syntax only in isolated fixtures. Remeasure mutable facts; live evidence wins, conflict marks stale, and unmeasurable conflict is a gap. Record complete SHA-256 provenance. Every behavioral mapping names a positive discriminating assertion and decisive signal, never only exit zero.

   For each consumptive action, bind every reference/artifacts.md Consumptive action gates column; every fingerprint identifies one actionable seam; aliasing multiple emit sites is a gap. Preflight observes but need not make future behavior pass.

4. Audit readiness. Goal-backward map every requirement, criterion, NFR, interaction, edge/prohibition, and decision row to one slice and executable proof. Verify UX/spec/architecture alignment, contracts, dependency order, slice independence/wiring, prerequisites, failure/observability/rollback, and ownership. The plan's Shared contract proof names one reused boundary artifact plus two consuming tests for every changed API/event/schema/provider- consumer seam, or an explicit no-impact statement. Missing, one-sided, duplicated-contract, vague, or non-consuming proof fails closed.

   Technical gaps are NEEDS REPLAN and Plan repair. Product/risk gaps are NEEDS CLARIFICATION and Clarify. Neither becomes a Build qid.

5. Review axes. Apply review-axes.md through eng-lenses.md. Fold verified behavior-preserving technical findings; walk only human-owned decisions. Profile gate ceiling and Reslice marked action remain authoritative.

6. Write outputs. Produce every artifact in reference/artifacts.md. After editing intent/decision/assumption/question owners, re-scan affected coverage, assumptions, uncertainty, and gates. Keep state non-READY. Every scenario and criterion needs positive, discriminating proof; every slice must be one-pass implementable; developer plans need a predicted scorecard. Durable commands are portable repository commands, not host wrappers.

7. Narrow recheck after edits. Dispatch exact plan reviewer once per correction/fingerprint (per correction/fingerprint) with accepted findings, changed paths/criteria, and new identity. Within one correction, no broad third loop. If it changes plan, fold again. A closed input plus a distinct Critical/Important invariant returns that new fingerprint as progress. Then close matrix and rerun ID/meaning audit.

8. Build readback and readiness. Add a cited five-line readback to eng-review.md (artifacts.md §7 rows 1–5): outcome/ACs; IN/OUT/must-NOT; UI direction and architecture/ critical flow; slice order/first slice; decisive proof/action-time gates. A fresh implementer must need no product, architecture, or proof invention. Contradiction, ownerlessness, or material ambiguity blocks via Clarify or Plan.

   Write exactly one Implementation readiness: READY, NEEDS CLARIFICATION, or NEEDS REPLAN. Root alone sets READY after every account, checklist, preflight, and sweep is green. Write phase/next step and emit one Readiness inputs SHA-256 with devrites-engine check readiness --emit-binding <slug>; normal readiness check must pass. Technical failure records reproduction, not qid. Human gap awaits Clarify. Optional cross-model follows reference/cross-model.md.

   With READY, no pending remediation, and a valid technical return cursor, restore and consume the return cursor instead of defaulting to Build. Preserve it through admitted remediation. Only a real stop reaches the human.

9. Stop at the Vet boundary. Show Build readback, scope verdict, lowest axis, closed gaps, preflight, action checkpoints, and critical failures. Recommend Build only when READY.

Do not replace interactive review with artifacts, change acceptance through hardening, score without source evidence, or ignore unexplained complexity.

Phase exit (observable)

Complete when: eng-review.md records exactly one readiness verdict, readiness binding SHA-256 passes, and every required reviewer account is admitted.

Failing case: READY written while a required reviewer returned Outcome: gap → not complete; restore NEEDS REPLAN or dispatch missing reviewer.