The ADR was written against base commit `f9b919d` and then not updated as the
implementation moved, so several of its numbers were measuring one thing and being
read as another — the exact conflation the ADR exists to stop, reproduced inside
it. Corrections, all reproducible now that each figure states its method:
- The preload tax is 23,427 chars / ~5,900 tokens, not 23,612 / ~6,200.
- `MAX_WORDS=2770` is a density proxy for the agentskills.io ~5,000-token ceiling,
not "2× p90". Neither percentile reaches it: 2× the body-only p90 is 2,698 and
2× the whole-file p90 is 3,052. Reading it as a percentile pairs a whole-file
gate against a body-only distribution.
- `apm-workflow` is a 421-word body; 554 is its whole-file count. `skill-author`
and `agent-author` were 2,623 and 2,582 body words — 2,760 and 2,758 whole-file,
which is where "within twelve words of the gate" comes from. Two numbers for one
file is the point, and only one of them is what either gate measures.
- Every `file:line` citation now says it resolves against `f9b919d`, since this
change rewrites most of the cited files.
Three things the ADR asserted that no validator implemented are now filed by tier
in an exhaustive enforcement table — deterministic, prose-pattern, or auditor
judgment — because a rule filed under "Enforcement" that nothing enforces is the
failure mode this ADR is most exposed to. The Gotchas entry count moves to
SUGGESTION to match the script; the paraphrase FAIL is marked as an auditor's,
since semantic equivalence is not pattern-matchable.
Two gaps recorded rather than quietly left:
- The agent body-gate exemption lives in `agent-audit`'s validator and in the
`skill-size-check` hook's `SKILL.md`-only `files:` pattern — *not* in
`scripts/skill-size-check.sh`, which measures whatever path it is handed and
today reports 900-word body FAILs on `git-orchestrate` (933),
`gitea-orchestrate` (1,199) and `apm-orchestrate` (1,080). Agents escape by file
pattern, not because the script knows the difference, so widening that pattern
would silently enforce a gate this ADR declines to set.
- The `skill-audit`/`agent-audit` merge is deferred to #101. This change made the
split deeper, not shallower: the dispatch retrofit took them from 3 and 4
reference files to 7 and 8, and their two same-named `description-quality.md`
files now differ on 100 of ~120 lines after normalising skill/agent. The merge
reopens ADR-0008 and touches every call site in `skill-author`, `agent-author`
and `forge`, so it is its own change. #100 carries the dangling-target fixes.
AGENTS.md and CONTEXT.md take the same corrections plus the two live setup
changes: PyYAML is now a hard requirement rather than an optional accelerator (a
fallback that mis-parses an unfamiliar scalar shape reports a clean pass on a file
it never measured), and `.claude/settings.json`'s `pretty-format-json` exclusion is
documented as load-bearing rather than as a tidy-up candidate.
LESSONS.md's autofix entry is corrected on its own provenance, which it got wrong
in both directions. `git log --date=iso` puts the introducing commit at 18:47 and
the fix at 21:54 — three hours, not "weeks" — and `git branch -a --contains` puts
the introducing commit on this branch only, not on main. It was manufactured
inside the same PR that diagnosed it. The added lesson is that "pre-existing" is a
claim about history and history is queryable: a defect found while working on a
branch feels inherited, and the feeling is not evidence.
Refs: ADR-0020, #99, #100, #101
Skill name+description pairs are preloaded into every session, costing
~6,200 tokens across 39 skills before any skill is invoked. The authoring
rules mandated that growth: skill-author:104 and description-quality.md:21
both required padding, while skill-author:102 (the deflating rule) had no
FAIL condition behind it.
Gates (blocking, no baseline file):
- description 250 chars SUGGESTION / 400 FAIL, measured on the folded
YAML value
- body-only 600 words SUGGESTION / 900 FAIL, independent of the unchanged
whole-file 2770-word / 500-line spec backstop
- every boundary-clause routing target must resolve to a real skill or
agent; catches skill-improve, neuledge-context and gitea-labels
- agents take the description gates but deliberately no body gate; a test
pins that absence
Vale: DescriptionOpener widened to ^This\b, new CompositionNote rule
banning architecture notes from descriptions. 10 hits, 0 false positives.
Kyberforge's own four skills retrofitted: descriptions 3,364 -> 938 chars
(-72%), bodies 8,306 -> 2,487 words (-70%), all via the apm-workflow
dispatch pattern. Fixes the skill-improve dangling route and the
agent-author misroute to manual review.
Also fixes a pre-existing false positive where any line-initial 'read '
was flagged as interactive input, which had already caused two scripts to
be rewritten around it.
Refs: ADR-0020
Every installed skill's name+description is preloaded every session -
23,612 chars (~6,200 tokens) across 39 skills. The authoring rules
optimised for triggering reliability with no counter-pressure on size:
skill-author:104 and description-quality.md:21 both mandate padding,
while skill-author:102 (the rule that would deflate it) is
judgment-only and absent from description-quality.md's FAIL conditions.
ADR-0020 sets the description shape (trigger + one capability +
boundary), two-tier size gates sitting below the unchanged
agentskills.io ceilings, a mandatory dispatch pattern for multi-branch
bodies, a Gotchas constraint, an agent-side delegation check, and
invocation as a design axis. Gates ship blocking with no baseline.
Adds five CONTEXT.md glossary entries: preload tax, skill context
contract, dispatch body, hand-invoked skill, delegation discipline.
Refs: ADR-0020
