docs: amend ADR-0020 and correct the gate reference to match what ships

The ADR said a /slash target behind a route verb takes the follower test; the
implementation decides notation first and skips it. Recorded as a dated amendment
rather than a silent edit, per the ADR-0016/0017 convention.

Its Enforcement table called itself exhaustive 'because the failure this ADR is
most exposed to is a rule filed under Enforcement that no validator implements'.
Three shipped behaviours were missing, including the disable-model-invocation
carve-out that removes two rows. Also de-pins the 'zoom-out is the one carrier'
claim, which caveman falsified, and the stale dangling-target statuses.

gates.md's ERROR row made terminality a conjunct for route notation, telling an
author a form is safe that exits 1. It now documents the references/ Vale blind
spot and its two independent causes -- AGENTS.md trimmed to the operative rule
per the split gates.md itself states -- plus the undocumented skill-frontmatter
hook and the second scope exclusion. CONTEXT.md glosses 'routing target'.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01EJJrm5YmacbwMdzZpXcoti

AGENTS.md

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ Fall back to raw shell only when no skill covers it.
 - **Do not add repo-owned keys to `.claude/settings.json`.** apm treats it as its own deployed artifact and `apm audit --ci` replays the install and diffs, so anything apm would not have written is permanent drift that fails the `apm-audit-ci` pre-push hook. A hook you want here is authored in `plugins/<name>/.apm/hooks/` and deployed by apm, never hand-written into that file. The `SessionStart` entry already in it is exactly that: kyberforge authors it in `plugins/kyberforge/.apm/hooks/hooks.json` and apm merges it in, so it is apm's own output, it is what the replay expects, and it belongs in the commit — do not strip it (ADR-0019). Machine-specific settings go in the gitignored `.claude/settings.local.json`; shared enforcement goes in `.pre-commit-config.yaml`.
 - **`apm.lock.yaml` turning up modified is expected, not a bug.** kyberforge's `SessionStart` hook runs `apm outdated` at startup and `apm update --yes` when something is behind, which rewrites the lock. Commit or discard it deliberately.
 - **A `.apm/` edit is not live in this session until it is pushed.** The six dependencies resolve from the holocron remote, unpinned against the default branch. `apm install` deploys from the lock; `apm update` is what re-resolves refs.
-- **The ADR-0020 skill gates ship hot, with no baseline — and the corpus is now clean.** All 39 skills clear both FAIL tiers: no description over 400 characters, no body over 900 words (counted body-only). Retrofitted plugin by plugin under #99 (see `docs/spec/gates.md`). Because nothing is grandfathered, the gates now bite on first commit — a new skill, or an edit that pushes a description past 400, is blocked until it complies. **No routing target dangles**, and `tests/test-adr0020-targets.sh` pins that set as empty, so a new boundary clause naming a non-existent skill fails the suite rather than joining a backlog. Two blind spots survive: `skill-size-check` does not cover the Vale half, so `Kyberforge.CompositionNote` fires nowhere today but any new description can reintroduce it; and every `references/` file is unlinted — which matters because the contract's own remedy is to move prose *into* `references/`, out of the prose gate's reach. That blind spot has **two** independent causes and closing either alone changes nothing: the `Kyberforge` style is scoped `[**/SKILL.md]` (the cause #117 records), *and* the `vale-audit-prefilter-skill` hook filters on `files: '^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/[^/]+/SKILL\.md$'`, so a reference file is never handed to Vale whatever the style says. Check both gates: `pre-commit run --all-files`.
+- **The ADR-0020 skill gates ship hot, with no baseline — and the corpus is now clean.** All 39 skills clear both FAIL tiers: no description over 400 characters, no body over 900 words (counted body-only). Retrofitted plugin by plugin under #99 (see `docs/spec/gates.md`). Because nothing is grandfathered, the gates now bite on first commit — a new skill, or an edit that pushes a description past 400, is blocked until it complies. **No routing target dangles**, and `tests/test-adr0020-targets.sh` pins that set as empty, so a new boundary clause naming a non-existent skill fails the suite rather than joining a backlog. Two blind spots survive: `skill-size-check` does not cover the Vale half, so `Kyberforge.CompositionNote` fires nowhere today but any new description can reintroduce it; and no `references/` file is linted by anything, so prose relocated out of a body to satisfy the word gate lands outside the prose gate. It has two independent causes and closing either alone changes nothing — `docs/spec/gates.md` has both, issue #117 tracks it. Check both gates: `pre-commit run --all-files`.
 - **Run `bash tests/run-tests.sh --strict` before considering any change done.** Keep the flag: without it a suite whose dependency is missing exits 77 and is counted SKIPPED rather than failed, so the run goes green having verified less than it claims.
 - **Before pushing, rehearse the gate locally:** `pre-commit run --hook-stage pre-push --all-files`. It runs the 14 pre-push hooks this repo authors itself plus pre-commit's 2 `meta` hooks, so it prints 16; `check-release-needed` passes without checking anything, because it needs a real push to `main`. `docs/spec/gates.md` reconciles both.
 - **Pushing without a network** needs `SKIP=apm-marketplace-check,apm-pack-check-clean git push` — those two resolve a remote marketplace entry via `git ls-remote`. Skip only those two; the rest are real local checks, and adding one to `SKIP` disarms it silently.

CONTEXT.md

@@ -26,6 +26,14 @@ trigger clause, at most one capability clause, and a boundary clause, and nothin
 and the target-resolution walk: `docs/spec/gates.md`.
 _Avoid_: skill budget, size limit
 
+**Routing target**:
+The skill or agent name a boundary clause sends work to. It **resolves** when a skill or agent of
+that name is reachable from the file being checked, and **dangles** when none is — a route the router
+cannot take. Dangling is a blocking ERROR in route notation (`/name`, `→ name`) and a SUGGESTION for
+a bare name nothing else in the sentence corroborates. Verdicts and the resolution walk:
+`docs/spec/gates.md`.
+_Avoid_: route, pointer, cross-reference
+
 **Dispatch body**:
 The body pattern a skill with two or more mutually exclusive flows must use — the body carries only
 the dispatch table and the gates common to every branch, and each flow lives in its own

docs/adr/0020-skill-description-and-body-context-contract.md

@@ -203,8 +203,14 @@ with no trigger list.
 
 Verified end-to-end rather than assumed: `plugins/bin/.apm/skills/zoom-out/SKILL.md:4` carries the
 flag, apm passes it through verbatim to both `.claude/skills/zoom-out/SKILL.md:4` and the flat mirror
-at `plugins/bin/skills/zoom-out/SKILL.md:4`, and `zoom-out` is the one installed skill absent from
+at `plugins/bin/skills/zoom-out/SKILL.md:4`, and `zoom-out` was — at the time of that check, when it
-the model-visible skill listing in a live session. It remains invocable as `/zoom-out`.
+was the only carrier — the one installed skill absent from the model-visible skill listing in a live
+session. It remains invocable as `/zoom-out`. `caveman` has since taken the flag as well, so the
+corpus now has **two** carriers. Do not read a carrier list off this page; re-derive it:
+
+```
+grep -l '^disable-model-invocation: true' plugins/*/.apm/skills/*/SKILL.md
+```
 
 ### Merging siblings
 
@@ -219,10 +225,13 @@ rather than the core job.
 skills still exist separately, and this change made the split deeper rather than shallower: retrofit
 to the dispatch pattern took `skill-audit` from 3 reference files to 7 and `agent-audit` from 4 to 8,
 and their two same-named `references/description-quality.md` files now differ on 100 of ~120 lines
-after normalising `skill`/`agent`, where before they were closer. The merge stays the decision; it
+after normalising `skill`/`agent`, where before they were closer. It has kept deepening since: the
-reopens ADR-0008 (agent-audit's single-file invocation contract) and touches every call site in
+#99 retrofit added `finding-criteria.md` to `skill-audit`, drawing it level with `agent-audit`. Both
-`skill-author`, `agent-author` and `forge`, which is why it is its own change and not a rider on
+figures move with the next retrofit, so measure rather than quote —
-this one. Recorded here rather than dropped, so the gap between the rule and the tree is deliberate
+`ls plugins/kyberforge/.apm/skills/<name>/references/ | grep -c '\.md$'`. The merge stays the
+decision; it reopens ADR-0008 (agent-audit's single-file invocation contract) and touches every call
+site in `skill-author`, `agent-author` and `forge`, which is why it is its own change and not a rider
+on this one. Recorded here rather than dropped, so the gap between the rule and the tree is deliberate
 and dated instead of discovered later.
 
 ### Enforcement and rollout
@@ -233,11 +242,13 @@ which tier each rule is in, because the failure this ADR is most exposed to is a
 
 | Check | Applies to | Tier | Home |
 |---|---|---|---|
-| description characters (250 SUGGESTION / 400 FAIL) | skills, agents | deterministic | `scripts/skill-size-check.sh`; constants mirrored in `skill-audit/scripts/validate.sh` and `agent-audit/scripts/validate.sh` |
+| description characters (250 SUGGESTION † / 400 FAIL) | skills, agents | deterministic | `scripts/skill-size-check.sh`; constants mirrored in `skill-audit/scripts/validate.sh` and `agent-audit/scripts/validate.sh` |
 | body-only words (600 SUGGESTION / 900 FAIL) | skills | deterministic | `skill-size-check.sh`, `skill-audit/scripts/validate.sh` |
 | description present and non-empty (ERROR) | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
-| boundary target resolves to a real skill or agent (ERROR when written as `/name` or `-> name`, or when its own sentence names another target that resolves; SUGGESTION otherwise) | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
+| boundary target resolves to a real skill or agent (ERROR when written in route notation — `/name`, or any arrow form; or when a *terminal* bare name's own sentence names another target that resolves; SUGGESTION otherwise) | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
-| boundary clause absent (SUGGESTION) | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
+| boundary clause absent — `absent` (SUGGESTION) † | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
+| an arrow clause is present but no target can be read out of it — `unparsed` (SUGGESTION) † | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
+| one arrow clause naming two or more targets, of which only the first is resolved (SUGGESTION, issue #107) † | skills, agents | deterministic | same |
 | Gotchas entry count over five (SUGGESTION) | skills | deterministic | same |
 | Gotchas over 25% of the body (SUGGESTION) | skills | deterministic | same |
 | every `references/<file>.md` a body names exists (ERROR) | skills | deterministic | same |
@@ -254,6 +265,21 @@ that guessed at them would be a worse gate than no gate, because it would be bel
 enforced, they are reviewed, and this table exists so that distinction is written down rather than
 inferred from whether a validator happens to have been written yet.
 
+**† These four, and only these four, are lifted for a hand-invoked file** — one whose frontmatter
+carries `disable-model-invocation: true`, read as a boolean by `hand_invoked()` in all three scripts.
+No validator knew the field existed (issue **#108**), so every routing SUGGESTION above fired on
+exactly the shape the *Invocation as a design axis* section mandates, and the boundary-clause
+remedy — "so the router knows where NOT to send this skill" — was addressed to a router that cannot
+see the skill at all. An author who took the advice made the file worse.
+
+What does **not** lift is the point of the carve-out. Both body word tiers stand: the body is still
+loaded on invocation and still competes with the caller's live conversation. The 400-character
+description FAIL stands: that description is not preloaded, but it is the one line a user reads when
+choosing from the `/` menu, and the ceiling is an outlier stop rather than a routing-quality budget —
+which is exactly why the 250-character *target* is the tier that lifts. And a target the description
+does happen to name is still resolved and can still dangle as a blocking ERROR. Mechanics, and the
+reason the field is read as a boolean rather than as a mention of the key: `docs/spec/gates.md`.
+
 Two of the deterministic rows are tuned for **false positives over recall**, and what they decline to
 see is part of the contract. On target extraction: a bare hyphenated name counts only inside a
 boundary sentence, and a single-word name is never matchable bare — `research`, `triage`, `forge`,
@@ -264,7 +290,8 @@ raise an error: one followed by an ordinary lowercase noun is a compound **modif
 confirm-only — it still resolves and still counts as a route when the name exists, but it can never
 dangle. Only a *terminal* target can. The compressed arrow form `→ <name>` is exempt from that
 follower test and is always error-eligible, because nothing reads as a compound modifier after an
-arrow; a `/slash` target reached through a route verb is **not** exempt and takes the same test. The
+arrow; a `/slash` target reached through a route verb is **not** exempt and takes the same test.
+*Amended 2026-08-31 — the `/slash` half is reversed: it is exempt too. See the amendment below.* The
 simpler rule — "only marked targets may dangle" — was available and would have been wrong here: both
 live true positives are bare, `research`'s "(use neuledge-context)" and the `gitea-labels-` /
 `milestones` fold. On the body-shape checks: a `## Gotchas` heading must *end* in "gotchas", not
@@ -296,6 +323,46 @@ Three pre-existing contradictions are fixed in the same change, because they are
 - `description-quality.md:45-50` has no FAIL condition for internal-mechanics content, which is why
   `skill-author/SKILL.md:102` never bit.
 
+## Amendment (2026-08-31): route notation short-circuits the follower test, `/name` included
+
+The Enforcement section above exempts the arrow form from the follower test and then withholds the
+same exemption from `/name`: "a `/slash` target reached through a route verb is **not** exempt and
+takes the same test." That half is reversed. **Both spellings of route notation are exempt, and the
+exemption is decided before the follower test rather than weighed against it.**
+
+Three things make the original call wrong rather than merely strict.
+
+**It contradicted the promise the same paragraph makes.** Route notation is offered to an author as
+the way to get a target checked unconditionally — the SUGGESTION text on an unpromoted target says
+so in as many words: "write it as `/name` or `-> name` and it will be checked properly." Under the
+original rule that was true of one of the two spellings. `-> name` reached `_add()` with
+`strict=True` from both its call sites; `/name` did not, so it fell through to `_terminal()` and any
+follower outside `FOLLOWER_OK` demoted it. `Do not use for Y — use /no-such-skill afterwards.` exited
+0 — and, before the companion visibility fix, in total silence.
+
+**The follower test's own justification does not reach `/name`.** That test exists for *prose*: a
+bare hyphenated token followed by an ordinary lowercase noun is a compound modifier, "pre-commit
+hooks" and "pull-request template". A leading slash is Claude Code's invocation syntax and occurs in
+no English compound, so there is no attributive reading to protect. The exemption was withheld from
+the one shape the rule it protects against cannot describe.
+
+**`FOLLOWER_OK` is a closed whitelist of roughly eighty words, and a closed list is the wrong thing
+to hang a blocking gate on.** Leaving `/name` under it made *whether a commit is blocked* depend on
+whether someone had thought to enumerate the next word — the gate failing open on its own
+unfamiliarity. The bare-target path keeps the follower test precisely because it needs a brake it can
+justify; the notation path asked for one and was given the same brake by accident.
+
+What is unchanged: the **corroboration** branch. A *bare* terminal name still earns its blocking
+ERROR only from a resolving sibling in the same sentence, and a compound modifier still cannot
+dangle at all. The conservative tuning that decision rests on is untouched — this amendment moves one
+explicitly-marked spelling out from under it, not the prose path.
+
+Verified on fixtures inside a synthetic plugin tree: `… Do not use for Y — use /no-such-skill
+afterwards.` exits 1, while the same sentence with the bare `no-such-skill` exits 0 at SUGGESTION,
+and rises to a blocking ERROR the moment a resolving sibling joins it. The reasoning is recorded at
+the point of enforcement in `_add()`'s docstring in `scripts/skill-size-check.sh` and its two
+mirrored copies, and the verdict table in `docs/spec/gates.md` states the corrected shape.
+
 ## Consequences
 
 **Editing any non-compliant skill now requires retrofitting it first.** At decision time, 30 of 39
@@ -342,8 +409,8 @@ and `git-*` families — where every sibling shares a keyword and boundary claus
 — are the ones most likely to sit at the FAIL tier permanently. If the retrofit shows that family
 routing degrades, the tier is the first thing to revisit.
 
-**Four broken routing targets were found; two are fixed here and two are live.** Tracked as issue
+**Four broken routing targets were found; two were fixed here and two shortly after.** Tracked as
-#100.
+issue #100.
 
 - `skill-audit` routed to `/skill-improve` twice in its description plus `README.md:10`, and no such
   skill exists — the real target is `skill-author`. **Fixed here**, as a side effect of retrofitting
@@ -353,14 +420,24 @@ routing degrades, the tier is the first thing to revisit.
   detectable by the resolvable-target check and never will be: "examine agent files manually" names
   no target, and a check that resolves names cannot see a name that is absent. A misroute to nowhere
   is a review finding, not a gate finding.
-- `research` routes to `neuledge-context`, which exists only inside that string. **Live.**
+- `research` routes to `neuledge-context`, which exists only inside that string. Was **live**;
+  **fixed under #99** — the retrofitted description names no such target.
 - `gitea-issues` carries the literal string `gitea-labels- milestones` in its folded description, a
-  stray space introduced by YAML wrapping mid-token, breaking the skill name in preloaded text.
+  stray space introduced by YAML wrapping mid-token, breaking the skill name in preloaded text. Was
-  **Live** — the check reports it as a dangling `gitea-labels`.
+  **live**, reported as a dangling `gitea-labels`; **fixed under #99** — the name now folds intact.
 
-So the check fires on 3 of the 4 against the base commit and on 2 at the tip of this change, and
+So the check fired on 3 of the 4 against the base commit and on 2 at the tip of the change that
-`tests/test-skill-size-check.sh` probes exactly those three by name rather than asserting a count, so
+carried this ADR. **The corpus dangling set is now empty**, and that is asserted rather than
-it degrades to SKIP as #100 lands rather than going stale.
+observed: `tests/test-adr0020-targets.sh` pins the set as empty, so a new boundary clause naming a
+non-existent skill fails the suite instead of joining a backlog. `tests/test-skill-size-check.sh`
+probed the three original names rather than asserting a count; as each was retrofitted its probe was
+**removed, not skipped**, because a `pass "SKIP: …"` branch is an assertion-free result counted in
+the totals and makes the suite look one test stronger than it is. That file's commentary survives the
+probes and states the rule. Re-derive the current set — never read it off this page:
+
+```
+bash scripts/skill-size-check.sh plugins/*/.apm/skills/*/SKILL.md | grep 'does not resolve'
+```
 
 **Duplication between `skill-author` and `agent-author` survives un-gated.** The merge rule
 deliberately excludes the author pair, so the commit-verification argument in four near-copies, the

docs/spec/gates.md

@@ -98,11 +98,57 @@ loudly (`Error: jq is required but not installed`).
 ## Skill and agent context gates (ADR-0020)
 
 The `skill-size-check` pre-commit hook, scoped to `^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/[^/]+/SKILL\.md$`,
-runs `scripts/skill-size-check.sh`. That scope means it never lints the
+runs `scripts/skill-size-check.sh`. It is also shipped to external repos as
-`plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/examples/` reference skills. It is also shipped to external repos
+`kyberforge-skill-size-check` (see
-as `kyberforge-skill-size-check` (see
 [External consumers](#external-consumers-the-root-pre-commit-hooksyaml)).
 
+**Two things fall outside that scope, both deliberately.** The `[^/]+/SKILL\.md$` tail admits only a
+`SKILL.md` sitting directly in a skill directory under `.apm/skills/`:
+
+- the `plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/examples/` reference skills, which are vendored upstream
+  corpus and not this repo's to gate;
+- `plugins/kyberforge/.apm/skills/skill-author/assets/templates/SKILL.md` — inside `.apm/skills/`,
+  but two directories deeper. It is the `FILL IN:` scaffold `skill-author` copies, so its
+  `description: >` is a comment block rather than a description and every ADR-0020 measurement over
+  it would be meaningless. A reader adjusting the pattern needs to know it is there.
+
+Everything else it matches exactly, with nothing over- or under-caught. Re-derive both halves:
+
+```
+git ls-files | grep -cE '^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/[^/]+/SKILL\.md$'          # the real skills
+git ls-files | grep -E '^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/.*SKILL\.md$' \
+             | grep -vE '^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/[^/]+/SKILL\.md$'          # the scaffold only
+```
+
+The first count equals the number of skill directories (`ls -d plugins/*/.apm/skills/*/ | wc -l`);
+the second returns exactly the template. The remaining unmatched `SKILL.md` files in the tree are the
+generated flat mirror, which is excluded by the `.apm/` segment on purpose — a mirror edit is drift,
+not an authoring change.
+
+### `skill-frontmatter`, the other hook on that scope
+
+A second `repo: local` pre-commit hook, `skill-frontmatter`, runs on the **same** `files:` pattern at
+the same stage. It is a short shell loop: for each file, `grep -q "^name:"` and
+`grep -q "^description:"`, failing with "missing required frontmatter fields" if either is absent.
+
+**It overlaps ADR-0020's "description present and non-empty" FAIL, and the overlap is not clean.**
+The ADR (`:95-101`) requires that question be decided on the **YAML-folded value** and nowhere else,
+precisely because a line regex gets it wrong in both directions. Measured on fixtures:
+
+| Frontmatter | `skill-frontmatter` | `skill-size-check` |
+|---|---|---|
+| `description:` with no value, then `model: sonnet` | passes — the key is on a line | ERROR, "missing or empty" |
+| `"description": …` (quoted key, valid YAML) | **fails** — `^description:` does not match | passes, description read normally |
+
+So the grep is not a second opinion on presence. It is blind to the shape ADR-0020 was written
+against, and it is the only one of the two that objects to a quoted key. Neither disagreement is
+currently live in the corpus, and the honest reading is that presence is `skill-size-check`'s
+question — the grep's contribution to it is noise on one shape and silence on the other.
+
+What the grep does add is the `name:` key, which **no** ADR-0020 check reads: a `SKILL.md` with no
+`name:` passes `skill-size-check` at exit 0. That is its real and only unique coverage, and the
+reason not to fold it into the size gate on the grounds of redundancy.
+
 ### Two independent gate families, neither replaced the other
 
 **Family 1 — agentskills.io spec backstop** (unchanged, conformance not quality):
@@ -141,7 +187,7 @@ A boundary-clause target that resolves to no skill or agent has **three** possib
 | Verdict | When |
 |---|---|
 | **SUGGESTION** — the default | the target does not resolve and neither promotion condition below holds |
-| **blocking ERROR** | the target is **terminal** (not a compound modifier) **and** either written in route notation (`/name` for any name; a bare `-> name` only when the name is hyphenated, a backticked `` -> `name` `` for any — see the gap below) **or** corroborated by another target in the same sentence that *does* resolve |
+| **blocking ERROR** | the target is written in **route notation** — `/name` for any name, or any arrow form (a bare `-> name` only when the name is hyphenated, a backticked `` -> `name` `` for any — see the gap below); **or** it is a bare **terminal** name (not a compound modifier) **corroborated** by another target in the same sentence that *does* resolve |
 | **INFO, "DID NOT RUN"** | no skill universe could be determined for the path at all — the targets are named and left unchecked, exit 0 |
 
 The default is deliberately soft because a hyphenated word in a boundary clause is as likely to be a
@@ -149,6 +195,17 @@ tool, a file format or an English compound as a route: "pre-commit hooks" is pro
 never reaches the check at all, being a compound modifier rather than a terminal name. The
 SUGGESTION text says how to opt in — write it as `/name` or `-> name` and it gets checked properly.
 
+**The two promotion conditions are not symmetric, and the order matters.** `_add()` decides
+**notation first**: when the name is written `/name`, or reached through any arrow form, the target
+is marked error-eligible there and the terminal test is never run. Terminality gates only the *bare*
+path — a name in prose earns its error from corroboration, and a compound modifier can never dangle.
+Reading the row as "terminal AND (notation OR corroborated)" gets the notation half backwards: it
+predicts that `` … Do not use for Y — use /no-such-skill afterwards. `` is a SUGGESTION, because
+`afterwards` is a follower outside `FOLLOWER_OK`. It exits 1. That was the defect — `-> name` reached
+`_add()` with `strict=True` from both its call sites and `/name` did not, so the one spelling
+ADR-0020 offers an author who wants a route checked unconditionally was the one spelling a stray
+follower could silence.
+
 **Known gap: a BARE arrow target must be hyphenated.** Target extraction is built on `NAME_HYPH` in
 `scripts/skill-size-check.sh`, which requires at least one hyphen, and `ARROW_BOUNDARY` inherits
 that. So `Not X -> gitea-prs` is extracted and checked, while `Not X -> triage` yields no target.
@@ -558,6 +615,35 @@ passing one explicit file per invocation. The two manifests scope **differently
 Narrowing a `.vale.ini` glob to a `plugins/`-shaped path to "tighten" it breaks the consumer case,
 and `check-vale-style-sync`'s probe set is built to catch exactly that.
 
+### The blind spot: `references/` is unlinted, for two independent reasons
+
+Every `references/*.md` file in the corpus is outside the prose gate. Count them with
+`git ls-files | grep -cE '^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/[^/]+/references/.*\.md$'` rather than reading
+a figure here; it moves with every retrofit. This is the gap that matters most, because the context
+contract's own remedy for an over-long body is to move prose **into** `references/` — the gate pushes
+text across its own boundary and then stops watching it.
+
+**Closing either cause alone changes nothing.** There are two, and they are independent:
+
+| Cause | Where | Effect on a `references/` file |
+|---|---|---|
+| the `Kyberforge` style is scoped `[**/SKILL.md]` | `skill-audit/assets/vale/.vale.ini` | matches no section, so Vale lints 0 files and exits 0 |
+| the hook's `files:` regex is `^plugins/[^/]+/\.apm/skills/[^/]+/SKILL\.md$` | `vale-audit-prefilter-skill` in `.pre-commit-config.yaml` | the file is never handed to Vale at all |
+
+Verified both ways. Handing skill-audit's `vale-wrap.sh` a reference file directly — bypassing
+pre-commit entirely, so only the style scope is in play — prints `0 errors … in 0 files` and exits 0,
+where the same wrapper on a `SKILL.md` reports `in 1 file`. And the hook's `files:` regex, applied to
+`git ls-files`, selects only the skill-directory `SKILL.md` files scoped at the top of this page, so
+pre-commit never hands Vale a reference file to begin with. Widening the glob to `[**/*.md]` would
+still lint nothing through the hook; widening the hook's `files:` alone would hand Vale files its own
+config declines to match, which is the [0-file NOT RUN](#a-0-file-vale-run-is-not-run) shape — a
+green run that measured nothing. **Issue #117** records the style-scope half; the hook half has to
+land in the same change or the fix is cosmetic.
+
+The consumer manifest is a third axis and does not rescue this either: `.pre-commit-hooks.yaml`'s
+`(^|/)SKILL\.md$` is layout-agnostic but still filename-shaped, so an external repo running
+`kyberforge-vale-audit-skill` has the same gap.
+
 ### `vale-wrap.sh`, never bare `vale`
 
 Both audit skills' Step 1 and both pre-commit hooks call **each copy's own**