skills-staging: session-derived campaign-ops skill library (2026-07-30)

[F-e-u-e-r]

What this is

Entry point: skills-staging/2026-07-30-campaign-ops/START-HERE.md
(nothing always-loaded points into a gitignored directory — this PR
is the pointer).

A project skill library distilled from the 2026-07-29/30 maintainer
session — the contributor-PR campaigns that produced #90 (a148180),
#93 (92077a7), #97 (79ca49c) and issue #92 — authored under the
retiring-architect protocol: extract rules from the session transcript,
verify every repo-facing claim against the repository, ship only what
verification supports, quarantine the rest in an uncertainty register.

All changes live under skills-staging/2026-07-30-campaign-ops/:

• START-HERE.md — router: canonical-source map, current-state triage,
  precedence vs the older local library.
• contribution-gate-playbook/ — the combined-PR pipeline end to end
  (campaign-set pinning, ascending merges, integration fixes, gate
  cadence, CI, owner-authorized merge, post-merge duties).
• gate-adjudication-and-folds/ — judging lens verdicts: reproduce
  before folding, rejections with in-repo counter-evidence, executed
  verification for runtime-semantics findings, opposite-fix
  adjudication, TRIPLE PROCEED vs bounded-loop close.
• doctrine-change-conventions/ — covenant marker+Provenance pairing,
  line/glyph norms (and what checks.py does NOT check), Provenance
  house style, the no-bump-for-doctrine version policy.
• repo-boundaries-and-sync/ — published vs private zones, the
  permanently dirty-adjacent working tree, pathspec-only staging,
  no-owner-quotes rule, the three-copy sync model and its current
  expected state.
• failure-archaeology/ — the session's dead ends and residue with
  disposition tags, plus the deliberately-not-done list.
• MANIFEST.md — per-skill evidence and verification status.
• UNCERTAINTY.md — 9 entries, each with a safe default.

What was extracted, and what was rejected or downgraded

Extracted from chat-history.md (local untracked transcript of session
session_01WMbbZQ8ZMMsNRGyV2nvJR8 — the id already stamped in the
campaign commits' trailers). The transcript was treated as evidence,
not ground truth; every repo-facing claim was re-verified on 2026-07-30
against: PR #90/#93/#97 bodies and merge commits, issue #92, evaluation
comments (sampled on #85/#94/#96), commits f529014/814d116/
6fa6154/5fa241b/83a038d/1560b97/32c6929/92314a6/8f8413f/
c15c29d, .github/checks.py and workflows/checks.yml,
.gitignore/git check-ignore, the version sites, git tag -l,
live-install diffs, git branch -vv, and gh pr view reviewDecision
fields.

Rejected or downgraded during verification (details in UNCERTAINTY.md):

• "bump the version every substantive PR" (2026-07-12-era convention)
  → historically-valid only; Combined integration: #77-#80 + #82 through a seven-round tri-lens gate #84–Combined #94-#96: pairwise independence, single-arm replication, non-interactive-shell env + append-key clobber #97 doctrine merges kept 0.1.16.
• The older local staging library's 2026-07 reviewer lineup →
  historically-valid; the current lineup ships date-stamped volatile.
• Session-memory phrase "evals/round4 … COMMITTED" → unsupported;
  evals/ is gitignored with zero tracked files (UNCERTAINTY 8).
• "installed copies cmp-verified at the merge SHA" → verified WITH the
  skill-vetting exception the session itself disclosed
  (UNCERTAINTY 4).
• The standing gate-cadence wording → partially-verified: the pattern
  holds across all three campaigns, but the governing rule text is
  owner-set and session-recorded (UNCERTAINTY 2).

Delivery-model note (the gitignore interaction)

skills-staging/ is gitignored by owner decision (92314a6,
"retiring-architect scratch, not shipped"). This delivery follows the
explicit retiring-architect task instruction — deliver through GitHub
with all changes under ./skills-staging/ — so the new subdirectory
was force-added; .gitignore itself is untouched, and nothing else
under skills-staging/ (the 2026-07-12 local library) is included.
Once merged, tracked files behave normally regardless of the ignore
rule. If keeping staging local is still preferred, closing this PR
loses nothing from the repo.

Reviews run before delivery

Three fresh-context reviews (factual / doctrine / usability) ran over
the staged files on 2026-07-30. Totals: 2 BLOCKING (one root cause),
11 IMPORTANT, 17 MINOR. Every BLOCKING and IMPORTANT finding was
applied before this PR opened. Notable dispositions:

• BLOCKING (both reviews, same root): the transcript-disposition
  issue was referenced before it existed — resolved by creating issue
  Working tree carries untracked private session transcripts — disposition pending (gitignore pattern or relocation) #100 first and backfilling every reference, and by re-wording the
  START-HERE triage so its counts stay true after this delivery.
• Factual: the failure-archaeology claim that squash merges defeat
  git branch --merged was CONTRADICTED by observation in this repo
  (true merge commits; 37/37 local branches list as merged) and
  rewritten to the observed mechanics; an unreproducible "36
  occurrences" figure was replaced by a re-derived count (107 →
  hits in skills/*/SKILL.md at the pre-Combined #85-#89: probe results + trigger repair, bare-probe environment/tier/leakage/reasoning clauses, adoption + citation + staging rules, blanket-go scope, grader token collision #90 main); cadence quotes
  re-attributed to their real sources (Combined #94-#96: pairwise independence, single-arm replication, non-interactive-shell env + append-key clobber #97's cadence line lives in
  its constituents' evaluation comments, not its body); the
  remaining transcript-only specifics (the r8 close pre-declaration,
  the fold-introduced attribution) are now labeled in place.
• Doctrine: the bounded-loop close was realigned with
  cross-model-review §4 (owner-surfaced close; runs past the
  2–3-round cap only under the owner's standing mandate); the merge
  step now requires an ask whose words cover MERGING plus the
  CI-pending rule, and frames the observed review-bypass as a record,
  not a norm; the House covenant is quoted verbatim ("probe or
  trap"); the lens lineup is framed as a dated operating record with
  cross-model-review §1 canonical; the old-library overlap map was
  completed, including a frontmatter NAME COLLISION on
  failure-archaeology between the two staged libraries.
• Usability: the post-merge sync instruction no longer silently
  installs skill-vetting (a temporary per-directory overlay is
  documented, README named canonical); a description collision
  between the two folding-related skills was resolved; the expected
  sync state is single-homed in repo-boundaries-and-sync.
• MINOR: applied (placeholders, verbatim marker form, de-drifted
  quotes, privacy trimming) except one accepted as-is:
  failure-archaeology carries no Done definition (reference file;
  its Re-verify serves that role).

Adjudications recorded on reviewer prompting: the House covenant's
probe/marker regime governs the pack roots — this staged library
ships under the MANIFEST/UNCERTAINTY regime instead, and this
delivery is not precedent for markerless pack rules; the lens lineup
appears here as an operating record, not pack text.

Validations performed

• python3 .github/checks.py green with these files staged (the
  hidden-directive sweep covers every tracked file, now including
  these).
• Body lines ≤80 characters across all eight files (frontmatter
  descriptions are single-line per house style).
• Cross-references to canon skills resolved against the current files
  (cross-model-review §3/§4 headings; operational-rigor §2/§5).
• Not run locally: hook suites and the gate template (this diff cannot
  affect them; CI runs both on the PR).

Remaining uncertainty and issues

• UNCERTAINTY.md carries 9 entries, each with a safe default; the
  only one needing an owner decision plus a change outside
  skills-staging/ is the untracked-transcripts disposition, filed
  as Working tree carries untracked private session transcripts — disposition pending (gitignore pattern or relocation) #100: Working tree carries untracked private session transcripts — disposition pending (gitignore pattern or relocation) #100

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01GhLu6NCGzM9HxnqNb87MAx