refactor(skills): retrofit the corpus to the ADR-0020 context contract (#129)

Retrofits all 39 skills to ADR-0020's description/body context contract, then fixes what six rounds of independent review found in that retrofit — including four ways the hot gate itself failed open.

Closes #99, #107, #108, #110, #111, #114, #115, #120.

## The retrofit (waves 1-5)

| | Start | Now |
|---|---|---|
| Description FAILs (>400 chars) | 26 | **0** |
| Body FAILs (>900 words, body-only) | 9 | **0** |
| Dangling routing targets | 2 | **0** |
| `Kyberforge.CompositionNote` | 10 | **0** |
| Preload tax | 21,005 chars | **~10,500** |

Under the 12,000-char success criterion. Per-wave detail is on #99.

## The review fixes

**The gate failed open four ways, three of them found after the retrofit shipped.** An unrecognised follower token made a dangling target vanish. A skill directory with no `SKILL.md` resolved as a valid target, so a commit could be green locally and red in a fresh clone — three existing fixtures were relying on that, one of which made the install-leak A/B pass vacuously. Then the free-standing `/name` sweep turned out to be gated on the sentence carrying a boundary marker, so route notation in any other sentence was invisible — not an ERROR, not a SUGGESTION, not an INFO — which left the documented "`/name` always blocks" promise false from a second direction. All four fixed and pinned.

**Two checks were silently not running.** `validate-provenance.sh` checks 7-8 were dead across nine skills. Waking them exposed a deeper problem: they assume `Research doc:` names a source index, but 30 of 121 entries point at topic content documents, so every new check-7 INFO was a false positive and check 8 was saved from a false-FAIL flood only by an *unannounced* skip. Checks 7/8 are now scoped to source indexes and every skip announces itself (#121).

**The retrofit's own anti-goal, four times.** ADR-0020 warns that a blunt gate gets satisfied by deleting content rather than relocating it. `diagnose` and `skill-audit` relocated prose and then read it unconditionally; `prototype` and `vale-config` deleted rules outright that survived nowhere. All four addressed.

## Verification

- `bash tests/run-tests.sh --strict` — 24 suites, 0 skipped, 0 failed
- `bash tests/run-bats.sh` — 325 tests, 0 failures
- `pre-commit run --all-files` — 17/17
- `pre-commit run --hook-stage pre-push --all-files` — 16/16, with `apm marketplace check` and `apm pack --check-clean` run against the remote, not skipped
- `scripts/skill-size-check.sh` over all 39 skills — rc 0, 0 ERROR/FAIL, SUGGESTION-only
- Preload tax measured at **10,498 chars**, max description 390 — both inside budget
- Every new test proven non-vacuous by a deliberate mutation of the behaviour it covers

**Per-commit sync, stated accurately:** the ten commits from the latest review round each pass `check-plugin-content-sync` in isolation, verified by checking each out in a detached worktree with a clean between. The earlier gitea window (`dfacf05..bedbd1d`, nine commits) does **not** — its mirror was regenerated in one batch at `bbc7300`. An earlier revision of this description claimed the property held for every commit; it does not, and a bisect through that window lands on a red commit. **Squash-merge** to collapse it, or accept that this range is not bisectable.

## Version bump

Six plugins and the catalog take a **patch**, not a minor. The branch is **89 commits — 40 `fix` / 30 `refactor` / 12 `docs` / 5 `chore` / 2 `test` — zero `feat`, zero `!`, zero `BREAKING CHANGE`** — and adds no skill, agent, command or hook. (Two earlier revisions of this section cited a stale histogram, most recently 78 commits; the figures above are measured at HEAD.) Both rules this repo ships (`forge/references/version-bump.md`, landing in this PR, and `git-commits/references/conventional-commits-spec.md`) make that a patch, and the catalog set is unchanged at 7 entries.

Not settled by that: four published files were removed from the installed tree, three moved, and `caveman` gained `disable-model-invocation`, retiring its old triggers. Under a strict reading those are major-class and currently ship under `refactor:` with no marker. Whether the deployed skill surface is a public contract is written down nowhere — worth deciding, but it outlives this PR.

## Deliberately not in scope

#112 (cherry-pick ownership, now resolved in favour of `git-commits`), #113 (`rtk git` normalisation), #116 (research fan-out), #101 (audit-skill merge), #122 (non-spec skill-root files), #123 (no PRD producer) stay open. #117 is the one worth reading: the contract's remedy is to move prose into `references/`, which is exactly where neither the size gate nor Vale looks — and the blind spot is wider than #117 currently records, since there is no root `.vale.ini` at all, so every ADR, `CONTEXT.md` and `README.md` is unlinted too.

That blind spot let this branch carry two `level: error` `Kyberforge.SentenceOpenerThereIs` violations into `references/` files it created — `provider-adapter-author/references/provider-matrix.md:31` and `agent-audit/references/finding-criteria.md:95`. Both are reworded in `afadaae`, confirmed by routing each file through the audit's own `vale-wrap.sh` (1 error each before, 0 after). Five further occurrences sit in `references/` files already on `main`; those are the pre-existing corpus and stay with #117, which is the real fix.

Also unfixed and not this PR's: `apm install` appends a duplicate `SessionStart` entry to `.claude/settings.json`, so a fresh clone cannot get pre-push green without an edit AGENTS.md warns against. Reproduces identically on `main`.

Co-authored-by: Defame1297 <gitea@rkdr.net>
Reviewed-on: https://git.dev.rkdr.net/Defame1297/holocron/pulls/129
Co-authored-by: Claude Code AI - Gitea MCP <claude@noreply.git.dev.rkdr.net>
Co-committed-by: Claude Code AI - Gitea MCP <claude@noreply.git.dev.rkdr.net>

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/README.md

@@ -10,8 +10,9 @@ Additional documentation agents load on demand.
 
 | File | Purpose |
 |------|---------|
-| `description-quality.md` | Rubric for the description dimension — three-part shape, the 250/400-character budget, the hand-invoked contract, and the internal-mechanics FAIL. |
-| `body-and-delegation.md` | Rubric for the body, delegation and comment-discipline dimensions — the delegation FAIL, why agents take no body word gate, and what an agent body is for. |
+| `finding-criteria.md` | Every dimension's FAIL and SUGGESTION criteria — the one Step 3 file read on every run; it decides which rubrics below are worth loading. |
+| `description-quality.md` | Rubric for the description dimension — why the description is the expensive part, the hand-invoked contract, the three-part shape, indirect triggers, and near-miss exclusions. |
+| `body-and-delegation.md` | Rubric for the body, delegation and comment-discipline dimensions — the core test, the delegation FAIL, why agents take no body word gate, and what an agent body is for. |
 | `scope-plugin-apm.md` | Contract for a single vendor-neutral `.apm/agents/<name>.agent.md` file — allowlist, dimension routing, and the dimensions that do not apply. |
 | `scope-project-user.md` | Contract for a Claude Code / Copilot file pair — counterpart derivation, provider field rules, and pair consistency. |
 | `validation-scripts.md` | Loaded only when a Step 1 script fails or cannot run — scope-detection walk-up, manual fallback checks, and known script failures. |

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/body-and-delegation.md

@@ -98,24 +98,8 @@ to a shipped file. At plugin/APM scope the stakes are higher than tidiness: `apm
 frontmatter verbatim to every target, `<!-- ... -->` is not valid YAML, and `validate.sh` FAILs a
 frontmatter block that still contains one.
 
-## Auditing guidance
+## Where the criteria live
 
-Flag as FAIL if:
-
-- The body restates a procedure owned by a skill the agent can invoke — Fix: invoke `<skill>`
-  instead
-- A sentence answers "no" to the core test — it is padding
-- A decision point presents a menu of options with no default
-- An instruction repeats content already in the description
-- Frontmatter comments are template scaffolding rather than instruction, or are HTML comments at
-  plugin/APM scope
-- A prescriptive sequence is used where flexibility is fine, or the reverse
-
-Flag as SUGGESTION if:
-
-- The body does not open with a direct role instruction
-- The body specifies no error handling — nothing tells the agent what to do with malformed,
-  missing or contradictory input
-- The job the agent describes is unbounded, or bounded only implicitly
-- A rationale is missing from a rule the agent is expected to enforce — present but unexplained
-- Comments are useful but verbose enough to bury the field they annotate
+Every FAIL and SUGGESTION criterion for these dimensions is in `references/finding-criteria.md`,
+which Step 3 reads on every run. This file is the reasoning behind them, loaded only when that file
+puts the body, delegation or comment-discipline dimension in play.

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/description-quality.md

@@ -82,49 +82,8 @@ description: >
   dispatched and safety-gated. Not conversational git help -> git-workflow.
 ```
 
-## Auditing guidance
+## Where the criteria live
 
-Flag as FAIL if:
-
-- **Over 400 characters.** Measured on the folded YAML value, not the raw source lines.
-  `validate.sh` reports the number; do not re-derive it, but do point the Fix at what to cut. Agent
-  descriptions have no platform-documented ceiling of their own — unlike a skill's 1,024-character
-  spec limit, the 400-character house ceiling is the only hard limit there is, so do not go looking
-  for a backstop behind it.
-- **Internal mechanics appear in the description.** Any of:
-  - capability enumeration or a feature list;
-  - output-format detail ("Produces a compact findings report with Why and Fix per finding");
-  - composition or architecture notes ("composes X rather than duplicating Y", "a cross-cutting
-    shared agent", "the human-facing entry point", "replaces the old flat invocation");
-  - implementation detail ("self-validates via a bundled deterministic script").
-
-  None of it can change a routing decision and all of it is preloaded.
-  `Kyberforge.CompositionNote` catches the common phrasings deterministically; the rest is
-  judgment. This is the rule that deflates a description, so apply it before reaching for length.
-- **The same trigger stated twice in two registers** — a verb list, then the same verbs re-quoted
-  as user phrasings, usually in the same order. One register, whichever routes better.
-- **Descriptive rather than imperative phrasing** (`This agent ...`, `This is the ...`).
-  `Kyberforge.DescriptionOpener` catches any opener matching `^This`. There is no action-verb rule
-  here and never was a defensible one: an `Orchestrates ...` or `Audits ...` opener is a catalogue
-  entry, not a trigger.
-- **Vague capabilities** ("helps with agents" where "audits an agent definition pair" was
-  available). `Kyberforge.VagueWording` catches the known filler; imprecision outside that list is
-  judgment.
-- **A boundary clause naming a target that does not resolve** to a real skill directory or agent
-  file in the authoring source. `validate.sh` resolves this for agent files at both scopes and
-  reports each unresolved target itself — take its verdict rather than re-resolving the name by
-  hand, because a hand-walk over a different universe can contradict it. What is left to you is
-  semantic and the script cannot reach it: whether a target that *does* resolve is the right
-  sibling to exclude, and whether a clause naming no target at all ("examine the files manually")
-  should have named one.
-- **`Use proactively` in a Copilot or vendor-neutral description.**
-  `KyberforgeCopilot.ProactivePhrase` catches it. The phrase steers the Claude Code runtime and
-  does nothing anywhere else, so in a `.agent.md` it is preloaded text that buys no behaviour.
-- **Trigger-list, boundary or indirect-trigger content on a hand-invoked agent** — see Step 0.
-
-Flag as SUGGESTION if:
-
-- **Over 250 characters** but at or under 400. This tier is what moves the corpus average; the FAIL
-  tier only stops outliers. Report it rather than treating a 399-character description as clean.
-- A near-miss exclusion is present but targets a weak near-miss.
-- An indirect trigger is present and warranted but could name the omitted phrasing more precisely.
+Every FAIL and SUGGESTION criterion for this dimension is in `references/finding-criteria.md`,
+which Step 3 reads on every run. This file is the reasoning behind them, loaded only when that file
+puts the description dimension in play.

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/field-inventory.md

@@ -38,9 +38,9 @@ whose vocabulary differs per harness — Claude Code names its own tools, Copilo
 other, and `apm compile` copies frontmatter verbatim with no per-target integrator to reconcile
 them. `disallowedTools` is a **denylist**, and denying by name is safe under verbatim copy: a name
 the other harness does not recognise denies nothing, so the worst case is that the fence is absent
-there, never that the wrong capability is granted. Claude Code honours it for plugin subagents —
-`docs/research/docs/claude-code-plugins/agent-definition.md:99` names the fields plugin agents
-silently ignore (`hooks`, `mcpServers`, `permissionMode`) and `disallowedTools` is not among them.
+there, never that the wrong capability is granted. Claude Code honours it for plugin subagents: its
+plugin agent-definition reference names the fields plugin agents silently ignore (`hooks`,
+`mcpServers`, `permissionMode`), and `disallowedTools` is not among them.
 
 `disallowedTools` also appears in `claude-code-only-fields` above, and that stays correct: at
 project/user scope it is still a Claude-only field and must not appear in a Copilot `.agent.md`.

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/finding-criteria.md

@@ -0,0 +1,98 @@
+---
+source_keys:
+  - context7-websites-code-claude
+  - claude-code-plugins-docs
+  - claude-code-subagents-docs
+  - context7-github-en-copilot
+  - github-custom-agents-configuration
+---
+
+# Finding Criteria
+
+Every FAIL and SUGGESTION criterion, for every qualitative dimension, and nothing else. The
+reasoning each criterion stands on, its worked examples and its house rules stay in that
+dimension's rubric, which Step 3 loads only for a dimension this file puts in play.
+
+Two rules on using it:
+
+- A criterion that plainly applies is a finding. Write it up citing file and line.
+- A criterion that might apply, or whose call the wording here does not settle, is a reason to load
+  that dimension's rubric — never a reason to drop the candidate. This file decides which rubrics
+  to read; it does not settle a close call on its own.
+
+## description — `references/description-quality.md`
+
+Flag as FAIL if:
+
+- **Over 400 characters.** Measured on the folded YAML value, not the raw source lines.
+  `validate.sh` reports the number; do not re-derive it, but do point the Fix at what to cut. Agent
+  descriptions have no platform-documented ceiling of their own, so 400 is the only hard limit
+  there is — do not go looking for a backstop behind it.
+- **Internal mechanics appear in the description.** Any of:
+  - capability enumeration or a feature list;
+  - output-format detail ("Produces a compact findings report with Why and Fix per finding");
+  - composition or architecture notes ("composes X rather than duplicating Y", "a cross-cutting
+    shared agent", "the human-facing entry point", "replaces the old flat invocation");
+  - implementation detail ("self-validates via a bundled deterministic script").
+
+  None of it can change a routing decision and all of it is preloaded.
+  `Kyberforge.CompositionNote` catches the common phrasings deterministically; the rest is
+  judgment. This is the rule that deflates a description, so apply it before reaching for length.
+- **The same trigger stated twice in two registers** — a verb list, then the same verbs re-quoted
+  as user phrasings, usually in the same order. One register, whichever routes better.
+- **Descriptive rather than imperative phrasing** (`This agent ...`, `This is the ...`).
+  `Kyberforge.DescriptionOpener` catches any opener matching `^This`.
+- **Vague capabilities** ("helps with agents" where "audits an agent definition pair" was
+  available). `Kyberforge.VagueWording` catches the known filler; imprecision outside that list is
+  judgment.
+- **`Use proactively` in a Copilot or vendor-neutral description.**
+  `KyberforgeCopilot.ProactivePhrase` catches it. The phrase steers the Claude Code runtime and
+  does nothing anywhere else, so in a `.agent.md` it is preloaded text that buys no behaviour.
+- **Trigger-list, boundary or indirect-trigger content on a hand-invoked agent** — see Step 0 of
+  `references/description-quality.md`.
+
+Flag as SUGGESTION if:
+
+- **Over 250 characters** but at or under 400. This tier is what moves the corpus average; the FAIL
+  tier only stops outliers. Report it rather than treating a 399-character description as clean.
+- A near-miss exclusion is present but targets a weak near-miss.
+- An indirect trigger is present and warranted but could name the omitted phrasing more precisely.
+
+**An unresolved boundary target is not graded here.** `validate.sh` resolves boundary targets for
+agent files at both scopes and tiers the verdict itself — route notation (`/name`, an arrow form)
+is an ERROR, the bare prose form a SUGGESTION unless a second target in the same sentence resolves.
+Step 1 has already filed it under `### Structure` at that tier. Take the script's verdict rather
+than re-resolving the name by hand, and do not re-grade it under description: a hand-walk over a
+different universe can contradict the script, and re-grading puts one target in the report twice.
+What is left to judgment is semantic and the script cannot reach it: whether a target that *does*
+resolve is the right sibling to exclude, and whether a clause naming no target at all ("examine the
+files manually") should have named one.
+
+## body, delegation and comment-discipline — `references/body-and-delegation.md`
+
+Flag as FAIL if:
+
+- The body restates a procedure owned by a skill the agent can invoke — Fix: invoke `<skill>`
+  instead
+- A sentence answers "no" to the core test — it is padding
+- A decision point presents a menu of options with no default
+- An instruction repeats content already in the description
+- Frontmatter comments are template scaffolding rather than instruction, or are HTML comments at
+  plugin/APM scope
+- A prescriptive sequence is used where flexibility is fine, or the reverse
+
+Flag as SUGGESTION if:
+
+- The body does not open with a direct role instruction
+- The body specifies no error handling — nothing tells the agent what to do with malformed,
+  missing or contradictory input
+- The job the agent describes is unbounded, or bounded only implicitly
+- A rationale is missing from a rule the agent is expected to enforce — present but unexplained
+- Comments are useful but verbose enough to bury the field they annotate
+
+**Never report an agent body as too long on a word count.** ADR-0020 gates a skill body at
+600/900 words and deliberately gates an agent body at nothing, because an agent body *becomes* the
+system prompt of a fresh context rather than competing with a live conversation. No number exists
+to cite. The one length signal that applies is the Copilot runtime's 30,000-character body limit,
+which `validate.sh` already reports as a SUGGESTION. Length is judged through the delegation FAIL
+above instead.

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/sources.md

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ source_keys:
 - **URL:** context7:/websites/code_claude
 - **Research doc:** plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/claude-code-plugins/sources.md
 - **Description:** Official Claude Code documentation site indexed by Context7 — plugin manifest schema, subagent definition types, marketplace JSON format, agent markdown file format
-- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-project-user.md
+- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/finding-criteria.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-project-user.md
 - **Status:** `extracted`
 
 ## claude-code-plugins-docs
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ source_keys:
 - **URL:** https://code.claude.com/docs/en/plugins
 - **Research doc:** plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/claude-code-plugins/sources.md
 - **Description:** Official Claude Code plugin authoring guide — plugin structure, manifest fields, loading methods, skill namespacing, agent activation, marketplace submission
-- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-plugin-apm.md, references/validation-scripts.md
+- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/finding-criteria.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-plugin-apm.md, references/validation-scripts.md
 - **Status:** `extracted`
 
 ## claude-code-subagents-docs
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ source_keys:
 - **URL:** https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents
 - **Research doc:** plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/claude-code-plugins/sources.md
 - **Description:** Official Claude Code subagent reference — definition format, all frontmatter fields, scope priority, built-in agents, CLI flags, environment variables, known limitations
-- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-plugin-apm.md, references/scope-project-user.md, references/validation-scripts.md
+- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/finding-criteria.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-plugin-apm.md, references/scope-project-user.md, references/validation-scripts.md
 - **Status:** `extracted`
 
 ## context7-github-en-copilot
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ source_keys:
 - **URL:** context7:/websites/github_en_copilot
 - **Research doc:** plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/github-copilot-plugins/sources.md
 - **Description:** Official GitHub Copilot documentation indexed by Context7; covers CLI plugins, custom agents, SDK, and marketplace
-- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-project-user.md
+- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/finding-criteria.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-project-user.md
 - **Status:** `extracted`
 
 ## github-custom-agents-configuration
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ source_keys:
 - **URL:** https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/reference/custom-agents-configuration
 - **Research doc:** plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/github-copilot-plugins/sources.md
 - **Description:** Reference for cloud and IDE custom agent definition format — frontmatter fields, tool aliases, MCP server config, secrets interpolation, scoping hierarchy
-- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-plugin-apm.md, references/scope-project-user.md, references/validation-scripts.md
+- **Contributing files:** SKILL.md, references/finding-criteria.md, references/field-inventory.md, references/description-quality.md, references/body-and-delegation.md, references/scope-plugin-apm.md, references/scope-project-user.md, references/validation-scripts.md
 - **Status:** `extracted`
 
 ## github-cli-plugin-reference

plugins/kyberforge/skills/agent-audit/references/validation-scripts.md

@@ -34,8 +34,14 @@ first of these:
 `plugin.json` and no `apm.yml` falls through to project or user scope.
 
 `validate-provenance.sh` exits 0 silently when that walk does not land on a package root, and again
-when the package has no provenance data. Silence from it is a pass, not a skip you need to
-investigate.
+when the package has no provenance data. Check the exit code before you believe the silence:
+
+- **0** — a pass, not a skip you need to investigate. Both silent cases above land here.
+- **1** — real findings, on stdout with Why and Fix.
+- **2** — the check never ran. A missing, doubled, non-file or wrongly-named argument, an
+  undecodable `apm.yml`, or an absent `python3`, each with a diagnostic on stderr and no findings
+  at all. Report the `### Provenance` dimension as unverified and quote the reason. An exit 2 is
+  never a clean pass: empty stdout there means nothing was checked, not that nothing was wrong.
 
 ## Manual fallback