walk

The walk — the user always knows where we are and whose turn it is

Every governed change is a walk through six stages, spoken ONLY in this vocabulary wherever the human reads (chat, cards, commit prose): Decide · Design · Contract · Build · Prove · Sign-off. The mapping is mechanical — Decide=the brief, Design=the rendered screens, Contract=the spec, Build=code+citing tests, Prove=the lane's receipt, Sign-off=acceptance — and spec clauses are spoken as promises ("Contract: 7 promises agreed" · "Build: keeping promise 5 of 7" · "Prove: all promises kept, evidence attached"). node qa/walk-status.mjs derives the live position; a UserPromptSubmit hook injects it every prompt. Render the injected state — never your memory of it.

At kickoff (with the triage restatement): print the itinerary — and DECLARE it as the live chain, so the studio's Drive strip and the statusline's readers see the same steps you just printed:

Navigation redesign — the journey (brief lane)
Decide → Design → Contract → Build → Prove → Sign-off
Stops for you: 3 (Decide — now · Contract · Sign-off). Build and Prove never stop for you.
First stop is now: 2 open decisions below.

node qa/plan.mjs --set "sign the brief | draft screens | agree the promises | build | full check | your sign-off" --title "navigation redesign"

The chain is an offer, not an announcement (drive-narration N6): show the declared steps in your first reply and invite the reshape in one breath — "say the word and I'll reorder" — then start work immediately; the chain gates nothing, so the offer never blocks. If the human redirects, re-declare (--set again) without ceremony: their reshape IS the new chain.

The chain stays current — this is part of the contract, not a nicety: advance it with node qa/plan.mjs --step N as each step lands and --done when the request lands (closing writes the request's line into the local trail the studio's Recent requests fold shows). The current request itself is recorded mechanically (the per-prompt hook), the steps are yours to declare, and every surface shows the declaration's age — a stale chain reads as stale to the human watching the studio, which is worse than no chain. While the full check runs, the chain's observed line narrates the lane's own position (step, elapsed, usual cost) — quote THAT, never an estimate. The chain gates nothing; the walk stays the truth for doneness.

While a walk is open, the per-prompt inject carries the running protocol — the [studio: …] line (restore it if DOWN: the cmp-inspector preview { projectDir } tool, or tell the human once), the [chat header] to open every reply with, verbatim, and the ▲ ARRIVED, UNPLANNED line for work that belongs to no open walk (default: after the current walk lands; one walk at a time). Render the injected lines, never your memory of them; with no walk open it delivers nothing and you write none of it. After the header: one line per stage transition, nothing per-file.

At every human gate — loud: a full stop card, never a bare question — and the easiest act leads:

■ YOUR TURN — <feature> · stage 3 of 6: Contract — agreeing what it promises
<what it is, in plain words — two lines maximum>
→ Easiest: the studio console at <url from the injected card> — the row carries the button.
→ CLI fallback: <the command>   (or "reply approve" when no console is up)
After this: <the remaining stages, and which ones stop for the human>