Checkwright

Checkwright v0.8.0

2026-07-19

Checkwright is the verification layer under agent orchestration, and this release splits amendment authoring out of the scoping stage into its own optional stage. Scoping a unit set and authoring the amendment that specifies one are different work — one bounds, the other generates — and carrying both in a single session means the authoring context rides along through every scoping decision. spec is the stage that separates them. It is opt-in: the kit default roster is unchanged, so an upgrade that ignores this release entirely keeps behaving exactly as it did.

Tightened gates

None.

Renamed knobs

None.

Behavior changes

  • lifecycle-kit/templates/skills/spec.md — a new optional amendment-authoring stage template: the generative half of design, split out from scope (the ontology being that scope bounds the units, the authoring stage authors the amendments, the audit stage independently verifies them). It is a full stage — it invokes enter-stage.sh and stamps — and is trigger-gated exactly like the audit stage: it runs only when an iteration promotes a feature to author, it appends rather than resets the evidence file, and it takes scope as its predecessor without being named any stage’s mandatory predecessor. The kit default roster does not bind it; a consumer activates it through LIFECYCLE_KIT_STAGES and LIFECYCLE_KIT_PREDECESSOR. If you do not opt in, nothing in your tree moves.
  • lifecycle-kit/templates/skills/scope.md — scope’s conditional authoring step no longer carries the authoring how-to inline; it points at spec.md, which now single-sources that content (causal completeness and canon-kit’s bidirectional queue pairing). A default-roster scope still authors amendments exactly as before and simply reads the how-to there, so this is a single-sourcing move rather than a change in what scope does. If you have copied scope.md out, your copy still holds — but it now duplicates prose the kit owns in one place.
  • lifecycle-kit/templates/lead.md — gains a tier-each-stage-to-its-work-class rule for dispatchers running stages as separate sessions: a stage whose work is mechanical oracle-running (running a fixed battery and reporting its verdict) is tier-downgradeable to a cheaper model via a model override on that stage’s dispatch, while a stage whose work is generative or verificational judgment — bounding a unit set, authoring an amendment, cross-spec audit, implementation — is not, because the judgment is exactly what the tier buys. Which stages fall on each side stays the consumer’s binding; the rule supplies only the work-class test, and it asks you to re-judge every assignment when the harness model roster churns.
  • canon-kit and the stage-referring templates — prose and one gate message are stage-neutralized: check-amendment-queue’s error text now reads “spec-writing is an authoring-stage activity” rather than naming the scope stage, and the same neutralization lands in canon-kit’s SPEC and README, lifecycle-kit’s align.md, and delegation-kit’s dispatch checklists. No assertion changed — every gate accepts and rejects exactly what it did before. The wording is what moved, so that the rules read correctly on a roster that splits an authoring stage out and on one that does not.

Upgrading

Sync the vendored kit directories wholesale at v0.8.0, then regenerate the generated artifacts — the pre-commit hook (bash gate-sdk/bin/gen-pre-commit.sh --write) and the graph projection (bash gate-sdk/checks/check-graph.sh --emit > docs/check-graph.html) — and run the full battery.

No allowed reds. This release tightens no gate, so a clean upgrade turns nothing red. If you want the new stage, activate it after the sync by adding spec to LIFECYCLE_KIT_STAGES and giving it a scope predecessor in LIFECYCLE_KIT_PREDECESSOR — set the roster and the predecessor map together, since a roster member absent from the predecessor map fails config-load validation. Leave both alone and you keep the five-stage default.

The behavior changes above are declared for reading, not a mechanical scan. If a gate reds that this note does not name, the upgrade smoke was supposed to catch it first — open an issue, because that is a defect in the release rather than work for you.