The chain observed configuration across repos but presented every write it then
proposed as though it landed where the session stands. STATE named two arms;
measuring found five, and two of them are worse than the two already known:
- implement — the approval prompt named NO path at all, only a count, so a plan
editing ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md and one editing ./CLAUDE.md produced byte-identical
prompts.
- rollback — the file list rendered `.claude/settings.json`, a repo-relative
FORM, while the restore writes to the absolute original. The other arms were
silent; this one pointed the wrong way.
- fix — paths were visible but unclassified, and --global mixed machine-wide and
project rows into one unmarked table.
The gate's strength comes from the target's scope class, never from the command
asking: five command-owned policies would drift apart the way five copies of the
lever table did. SCOPE_CLASSES is one source for class, gate, wording and
predicate; templates render `disclosures[]` from the CLI instead of restating
what a class means.
Two orderings in that table are load-bearing, and both were measured:
- plugin-managed before user-scope. Both ~/.claude/config-audit/ and the legacy
~/.config-audit/ are live, and every command writes session state there. The
other order fires the gate on every write ever made and gets it switched off,
which is worse than no gate.
- user-scope before cross-repo. ~/.claude/.git EXISTS, so a plain .git-upward
walk answers "another repo" for ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md and silently downgrades
the strongest gate on the subtraction axis's primary target to disclosure.
disclose is not require-ok: campaign export is cross-repo by design, so the gate
there says so rather than refusing. Distinct from require-target-dir.mjs, which
asks whether a scan ROOT is readable (exit 3) — a different invariant, left
unmerged along with its four inline copies.
Also structural, both found while building this: the hand-maintained GUARDED
list in the unknown-flag sweep now derives its completeness from the directory
(measured complete at 14 of 14 first, so nothing was hiding — but the 15th CLI
would have been swept by nothing); and prose shape-guards use whitespace-
tolerant patterns, after one went red against a command file that did say the
right thing, line-wrapped.
Gated: implement, fix, rollback, plan, campaign export. Suite 1596 -> 1625/0,
frozen v5.0.0 and default-output baselines 0 changed files. No new GAP dimension,
no lever, no finding code — utilization denominators untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_013941cEohSD5Aw56FVAtBgZ
Dogfooding `/config-audit` (the router) against the repo, fasit written before
any run (docs/router-fasit.local.md, untouched). Every claim below is measured
behaviour, not a reading of the source.
1. Bare `<target-path>` inside the step-3 fence is a shell REDIRECTION, not an
argument. Measured in zsh: both CLIs failed before starting, no output file
was written, and the echoed status was 1 — inside the band the router's own
gate calls "continue normally". Quoting makes an unsubstituted placeholder
reach argv, so it fails in the CLI where the exit code means something.
Swept the whole class: 30 sites across 12 further command files, since a
defect in one file is a class until the opposite is measured. New guard:
command-placeholder-shell-safety.test.mjs.
2. The orchestrator's exit code was discarded. Two commands on one line share a
single trailing `echo $?`, which reports only the last: measured, an
orchestrator exit 3 echoed as posture's 0, so the "3 -> stop" gate could
never fire. Both statuses are now captured and echoed.
3. "Running 12 configuration scanners" — the orchestrator registers 16. The new
test binds the narrated count to the registry so the next scanner added
cannot re-stale it silently.
4. The Area Breakdown table hardcoded 7 rows; posture emits 9 quality areas.
Token Efficiency (a B on this repo) and Plugin Hygiene never reached the
user. Rows added, and the row set is now asserted against lib/scoring.mjs.
Label aligned: "MCP Servers" -> "MCP", as posture emits it.
5. Step 6 rendered "the headline line from the humanized stderr scorecard" and
forbade deriving a replacement — while step 3 sent posture's stderr to
/dev/null, as UX rule 2 requires, and the prose is absent from the JSON
payload (measured). The slot could only be improvised. posture's stderr now
goes to a file in the session dir, as commands/posture.md already did; the
user still never sees raw scanner output.
Also: `grep -q -- "--raw"` matched any argument CONTAINING --raw (measured on
`--rawdog` and on a path with --raw in it) — anchored to whole arguments.
SCOPE_FLAGS renamed SCOPE_FLAG, since zsh does not word-split and the plural
invited the M-BUG-45 shape.
command-shell-state-shape.test.mjs only recognised line-initial assignments, so
it reported the idiomatic `node …; STATUS=$?` capture as never assigned. Widened
to assignments after a separator; verified it still fails on a real cross-block
reference before trusting it.
Suite 1477 -> 1483, frozen v5.0.0 snapshots untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDAwy1ZXRpZxht1wyCeSbF
Dogfooding `plan` + `implement` against a throwaway config surfaced one root
defect with many arms: the command templates treat consecutive fenced blocks as
one shell. They are not. Every ```bash fence runs as its own Bash call in its own
process, so a variable set in one block is empty in the next, and `$$` is a
different PID (measured: 21710 vs 22109).
The planner agent confirmed the sharpest arm at runtime, reporting that
`Mode: $RAW_FLAG` "arrived literally unsubstituted" — `--raw` was documented in
three command files while being functionally dead. A machine sweep found the same
root in 20 places across 9 files, well past the two the written fasit predicted:
- `$RAW_FLAG` read from non-shell agent prompts (analyze, plan, implement)
- `$TMPFILE` read across blocks (tokens, manifest, whats-active,
plugin-health) — each command could not read the file it had just written
- `$GLOBAL_FLAG` across blocks (fix)
- `$TODAY` never assigned in any block (campaign), passing
`--reference-date ""` to a write CLI in six places
- three `$$` temp paths handed to the Read tool (fix), which expands neither
All now follow the hardened drift.md pattern: a fixed literal path, or a
re-derivation inside each block that needs it.
Also fixed, all confirmed against ground truth rather than inferred:
- `implement` printed a rollback ID it never captured (the timestamp lived only
inside a command substitution) — the one message a user reads after a bad run
- `plan` reported "No analysis results found" for valid sessions, because Read
was pointed at a glob it cannot expand; now uses Glob and verifies the
analysis report exists before spawning the agent
- five phase commands wrote state.yaml with two of four required fields; since
the agent writes all four, a follow-up write silently deleted the rest
- `implement` promised rollback deletes created files; rollback deliberately
leaves them (M-BUG-26 still open) — the doc, not the engine, was wrong
- `implement` claimed a score delta with no pre-change measurement
- `verifier-agent` was told to write a report it has no tool to write
- dead `Task` tool name in always-loaded rule context; planner-agent template
demonstrated the inline file content its own line 110 forbids
The sweeps land as tests/commands/command-shell-state-shape.test.mjs, verified
red before the fix and proven able to fail by reintroducing the defect. Two
existing tests asserted the old bash-block mechanism rather than the intent and
were updated. Suite 1449/0; frozen v5.0.0 snapshots and all scanner code
untouched.
Not fixed, deliberately: neither command scope-gates its actions to the audit
target. The generated plan included an edit to a real file under ~/.claude,
outside the throwaway target, because the skill/agent scanners are machine-wide.
That is a design change, not a side fix.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0195udHgCcFegzm7ecKku2Yc
Pipeline step 4 dogfood. `/config-audit rollback` could not see a single one of
the four real backups on this machine, and reported "Backup not found" for one
that was sitting right there.
Four defects, one root: nothing agreed on where a backup lives or what its
manifest looks like.
- M-BUG-22 `lib/backup.mjs` resolved `~/.config-audit/backups` (pre-v2.2.0)
while every command, agent and doc uses `~/.claude/config-audit/backups`.
The auto-backup hook and fix-cli wrote to the first, implement to the second,
rollback read only the first. Canonical root now, with the legacy root kept
readable so older backups stay listable and restorable (`legacy: true`).
- M-BUG-25 `parseManifest` understood only the engine's quoted `original_path:`
spelling, but implement hand-builds its manifest with `- backup:`/`original:`/
`sha256:`. Every implement-made backup parsed to zero files and restoreBackup
returned `{restored: [], failed: []}` — a success-shaped no-op. Both formats
parse now, and a manifest with unparseable entries throws instead of
pretending to succeed.
- M-BUG-23 both session hooks watched `~/.config-audit/sessions`, which does not
exist; sessions live under `~/.claude/`. "Check for active sessions" had never
fired once. It fires now.
- M-BUG-24 the suite called createBackup() against the developer's real home —
it had left nine stray backups there, and cleanupOldBackups() deletes past ten.
Root is overridable via CONFIG_AUDIT_BACKUP_ROOT; both test files use it.
Rollback still cannot delete files implement CREATED — no backup can hold a file
that never existed. It no longer does so silently: manifests carry a `created:`
list, restoreBackup returns `createdNotRemoved`, and rollback.md requires the
report. Automatic deletion is a destructive action and needs its own design.
Verified against backup 20260717_032636 on a throwaway copy: all three files
restore byte-exact (sha256 match), zero writes outside the copy, backup dir
unmodified. Suite 1382 -> 1398/0; frozen v5.0.0 snapshots untouched.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01SejM9RQAa1Hfuq7Ek2WfFr
implement.md spawns implementer agents in parallel batches, all appending to
the same implementation-log.md. Dogfooding showed agents satisfying 'Append
result to:' with a full-file Write — the last writer clobbered 4 of 6 entries.
Pin the mechanism in both contracts: append with Bash >> heredoc, never the
Write/Edit tool on the shared log. Shape tests pin the instruction in both
files (empirically verified: agents given the >> instruction appended safely).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Wave 5 Step 15. Threads --raw plumbing through all seven action
command templates and adds a shape test covering structural plumbing
plus help.md's plain-language vocabulary.
- commands/fix.md: --raw flag parsed; fix-plan rendering groups by
userActionLanguage; humanized title/description/recommendation are
rendered verbatim from the cross-referenced scan envelope.
- commands/rollback.md: terminology pass — "manifest" → "list of
changes" in user-facing copy; the file name manifest.yaml is kept
as the machine contract; --raw threaded through.
- commands/plan.md: --raw forwarded to the planner-agent's prompt;
agent now instructed to group actions by userImpactCategory and
lead with userActionLanguage; bash block added for flag parsing.
- commands/implement.md: --raw forwarded to the implementer-agent's
prompt; progress-log lines now reference the humanized titles
already present in the action plan.
- commands/cleanup.md: --raw accepted as no-op (cleanup is
file-management only, no findings prose); bash block added.
- commands/help.md: full plain-language pass — "PreToolUse" and
"frontmatter" jargon removed from user-facing copy; new
vocabulary table surfaces the humanized userImpactCategory and
userActionLanguage labels ("Configuration mistake", "Conflict",
"Wasted tokens", "Missed opportunity", "Dead config" / "Fix this
now", "Fix soon", "Fix when convenient", "Optional cleanup",
"FYI"); --raw documented as global pass-through flag.
- commands/interview.md: --raw accepted as no-op; "unused hooks"
question phrased as "unused automation that runs at specific
events" in user-facing copy.
tests/commands/action-commands-shape.test.mjs (new, +6 tests, 780 → 786):
- structural: bash block + Read tool + --raw/$ARGUMENTS plumbing
across all 7 files
- help.md vocabulary: ≥3 userImpactCategory labels and ≥3
userActionLanguage phrases present
- help.md jargon: no bare "PreToolUse" or "frontmatter" in copy
Add /ultraresearch-local for structured research combining local codebase
analysis with external knowledge via parallel agent swarms. Produces research
briefs with triangulation, confidence ratings, and source quality assessment.
New command: /ultraresearch-local with modes --quick, --local, --external, --fg.
New agents: research-orchestrator (opus), docs-researcher, community-researcher,
security-researcher, contrarian-researcher, gemini-bridge (all sonnet).
New template: research-brief-template.md.
Integration: --research flag in /ultraplan-local accepts pre-built research
briefs (up to 3), enriches the interview and exploration phases. Planning
orchestrator cross-references brief findings during synthesis.
Design principle: Context Engineering — right information to right agent at
right time. Research briefs are structured artifacts in the pipeline:
ultraresearch → brief → ultraplan --research → plan → ultraexecute.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Kjell Tore Guttormsen
