# Post-Release Assessment — Cycles #331 + #333 (combined)

**Date:** 2026-05-09
**Cycles:** #331 (PR #332), #333 (PR #333)
**Mode:** docs-only (both cycles)
**Assessed by:** Cycle #335 (retroactive)

## §1 Summary

Cycles #331 and #333 landed 9 combined patches to the CDD skill package. All patches are correct and present on `cnos:main`. Neither cycle produced any close-out artifacts (self-coherence, beta-review, alpha/beta/gamma-closeout, cdd-iteration, PRA, CHANGELOG rows, branch cleanup).

## §2 What shipped

### Cycle #331 (PR #332 — 6 patches, +202/−11)
1. `review/SKILL.md` §3.13 — honest-claim verification
2. `issue/SKILL.md` — mode declaration + MCA preconditions
3. `release/SKILL.md` §2.5b — docs-only disconnect
4. `post-release/SKILL.md` — review-rounds + finding-class metrics
5. `release/SKILL.md` §3.8 — honest-grading rubric
6. `CDD.md` §5.3a/b, `post-release/SKILL.md` Step 5.6b, `gamma/SKILL.md` §2.10 row 14 — cdd-iteration.md as canonical self-iteration home

### Cycle #333 (PR #333 — 3 patches, +10/−5)
1. `alpha/SKILL.md` §2.6 rows 11–13 — artifact enumeration, caller-path trace, test assertion count
2. `operator/SKILL.md` — `--output-format stream-json` required for dispatches
3. `CDD.md` §1.6b — re-dispatch prompt complexity note

## §3 Process Learning

**Central failure mode: protocol-skip.** Both cycles were authored and merged without β review, without self-coherence artifacts, without close-outs, without PRA, without CHANGELOG rows, and without branch cleanup. The patches were applied directly from a cross-repo bundle (#331) and authored inline (#333) — both bypassing the full CDD triad.

**Root cause:** The cycles were treated as "just docs patches" and merged under operator urgency without the protocol artifacts the patches themselves require. This is the recursive irony: the rules that mandate close-out artifacts were shipped without close-out artifacts.

**Why it matters:** If the protocol's own authoring cycle skips the protocol, every future cycle has a defensible precedent to skip too. The §3.8 rubric that cycle #331 introduced applies to cycle #331 itself.

## §4a Honest Grading per §3.8

### Cycle #331

| Axis | Grade | Justification |
|------|-------|---------------|
| α (implementation) | B | Clean diff, verbatim patch application, correct commit messages. No self-coherence artifact at implementation time. |
| β (review) | D | No β review occurred. No beta-review.md. No enforcement of closure gate. |
| γ (coordination) | D | No PRA, no closure declaration, no triage, no branch cleanup. |
| **C_Σ** | **C−** | ≥10 drift items per the audit in #335. Patches correct; process absent. |

### Cycle #333

| Axis | Grade | Justification |
|------|-------|---------------|
| α (implementation) | B | Clean patches, correct content, proper commit messages. No self-coherence. |
| β (review) | D | No β review occurred. |
| γ (coordination) | D | No PRA, no closure declaration, no branch cleanup. |
| **C_Σ** | **C−** | ≥10 drift items. Same failure pattern as #331. |

**Note on patch quality vs process quality:** The patches themselves are A-tier work — well-sourced from empirical evidence, correctly structured, accurately targeted. The grades above reflect *cycle execution*, not *patch content*. The protocol exists to ensure patch quality is verifiable, not to question it after the fact.

## §4b Cycle Iteration (§9.1 trigger)

**§9.1 triggers fired:**
1. Loaded skill failed to prevent a finding — the CDD skills were loaded (implicitly, as the patches modified them) but the closure gate was not enforced.
2. Recurring failure mode — identical protocol-skip pattern across both cycles.

**Disposition:** Retroactive remediation via cycle #335. The structural fix is cultural, not mechanical — δ must enforce the closure gate even for "just docs" cycles. No new skill patch addresses this; it's an operator-discipline finding.

## §5 Round count

| Cycle | Rounds | Target (docs ≤1) | Met? |
|-------|--------|-------------------|------|
| #331 | 0 (no review) | ≤1 | n/a — no β review occurred |
| #333 | 0 (no review) | ≤1 | n/a — no β review occurred |

## §6 Recommendations

1. Even "just docs" cycles must produce at minimum: self-coherence.md, a β review pass, and a PRA.
2. δ should treat the §2.5b docs-only disconnect path as the *minimum* protocol, not a skip-the-protocol shortcut.
3. Future cross-repo bundle applications should be treated as full cycles, not patch-apply-and-merge operations.
