# β Close-Out — Cycle #266 (PR #267)

## Cycle summary

| | |
|---|---|
| Issue | #266 — `CDD process: committed dist/ + main-side package edits = merge race (L7 MCA candidate)`. **Closes** on merge of PR #267 (`Closes #266`). Filed by β during close-out of cycle #262; implemented in the very next cycle. |
| PR | #267 — `dist: move dist/ out of git — eliminate the rebase-race class (#266)` — squash-merged to main as `a05af27`. |
| Ships in | **unreleased.** Last tagged release is `3.57.0`; cycles #262, #264, #265, #266 + multiple CDD skill iterations have accumulated since. Next tagged release is a γ-side rollup decision. |
| Work shape | Substantial architecture/CI/docs (MCA, L7-shaped). Active tier-3 skills: `eng/go`, `design`, `cdd/design`, `eng/process-economics`. No code change — 10 file deletions, `.gitignore` + `coherence.yml` edits, 1 design doc (+270 lines), 1 migration-doc update. |
| Review rounds | **3** — Round 1: APPROVED + 3 mechanical findings (F1/F2/F3); Round 2 (narrow): REQUEST CHANGES — F1/F2 resolved, F3 partial, F3-bis posted; Round 3 (narrow): APPROVED final. |
| Findings total | **4** — F1 (C, mechanical, base drift with option-b amendment), F2 (B, mechanical, CI-green checkbox), F3 (A, mechanical, tarball count in one site), F3-bis (A, mechanical, two further sites of the same count error; includes a `.gitignore` "1 line added" A-polish). |
| Mechanical ratio | **4/4 = 100%** — above the 20% threshold but **below the 10-finding §9.1 floor**, so noted but not an automatic process-issue filing trigger. Every finding was an intra-doc surface-agreement defect, not code. |
| Diff | 14 files, 281+/105− · `git rm` of 10 tracked dist/packages files (8 tarballs + `index.json` + `checksums.txt`), `.gitignore` broadened from `dist/bin/` to `dist/` + comment, `.github/workflows/coherence.yml` I3 job removed (+ `notify.needs` / status-aggregation cleanup), `docs/alpha/package-system/BUILD-AND-DIST.md` §Migration step 2 marked accomplished, `docs/alpha/package-system/DESIGN-266-dist-out-of-git.md` added (270 lines, primary branch artifact). |
| Identity surface | Shared-identity review degradation — all three β rounds posted as `COMMENT` (native `APPROVE` / `REQUEST_CHANGES` unreachable when β token == α token). Tracked in `review/SKILL.md` §7.1 / issue #45 migration queue. |
| Concurrent main activity | Main moved 3 commits during review (`96453db`, `02cdb35`, `f85d0c3`, all in `src/packages/cnos.cdd/skills/cdd/`), then 4 more post-approval pre-merge (`2fd88646`, `60133289`, `f381ceb0`, `8b564d52`) — notably `f381ceb0 cdd: β step 3 — polling loop for PR existence` and `8b564d52 cdd: replace event subscription with periodic polling for all roles`, which patch the β-step-3 notification gap β independently flagged in this session's intake. |

## Findings

### Finding F1 — pre-review gate claim stale; rebase race is the failure class this PR eliminates (C, mechanical)

**Caught:** Round 1 via CDD §5.3 pre-review-gate row audit + `git rev-parse origin/main`.

PR body §Pre-Review Gate row 1 read: *"Rebased on current `main` (branch based at `3e850f3`, which is current `origin/main`)"*. At review time, `origin/main` was `f85d0c3` — 3 commits ahead of the PR base (`96453db`, `02cdb35`, `f85d0c3`, all in `src/packages/cnos.cdd/skills/cdd/{CDD,beta,gamma}`). The claim was true-at-claim-time but false-at-review-time. Meta-irony: this is the exact failure class the PR is filed to eliminate.

**Unique judgment this cycle:** offered α two resolutions and recommended (b):
- **(a)** Rebase onto current main + refresh CI — hygienic but re-runs the race (if main moves again during the new CI window, α loops again)
- **(b)** Amend the pre-review gate row to record the actual state honestly (base SHA, current main SHA, drift scope, mergeable_state, merge-tree clean, + the leverage-preservation rationale)

**Rationale for (b):** The PR's thesis is that this race class shouldn't require α discipline to close. Forcing a rebase perpetuates the failure class for exactly one more cycle to eliminate it — which defeats the leverage. (b) accepts a single instance of the race in exchange for converging the PR that removes the class entirely.

**Fix:** commit `9f162dc` + PR body update — gate row 1 now records `3e850f3` base / `f85d0c3` main / 3-commit drift in specifically named files / `mergeable_state: clean` / merge-tree verified clean + the leverage-preservation rationale inline.

**Severity:** C — the claim was inaccurate but the underlying merge was clean. Not blocking, but an honesty-of-record gap worth closing before merge per §7.0.

**Disposition:** closed on-branch before merge. The underlying race class is what the PR itself eliminates; finding F1 is the last cycle to carry it.

---

### Finding F2 — CI-green gate checkbox unchecked despite CI being green (B, mechanical)

**Caught:** Round 1 via PR-body checkbox audit + GitHub check-runs API.

PR body §Pre-Review Gate row 8 read: `- [ ] CI green on head commit — PR opens with CI pending; will confirm before requesting β review formally`. At review time, head `b07ca39` had 7/7 green checks (`go`, `kata-tier1`, `kata-tier2`, I1, I2, 2× `notify`). α requested β review before ticking the box.

**Fix:** PR body update (same commit as F1 fix) — row 8 now ticked with "7/7 green on `b07ca39` … I3 is correctly absent from the check set (this PR deletes the job). New HEAD `9f162dc` is a doc-only count correction; CI re-running."

**Severity:** B — easy to tick, worth noting because the "re-request review when CI green" step is explicit in `alpha/SKILL.md` §2.6. Zero-effort fix.

**Disposition:** closed on-branch.

---

### Finding F3 — DESIGN-266 §Concrete changes step 1 off-by-one tarball count (A, mechanical)

**Caught:** Round 1 via §2.1.3 mechanical diff scan + `git ls-tree` ground truth.

§Concrete changes step 1 read: *"9 tarballs + `index.json` + `checksums.txt` = 11 tracked files to remove"*. Actual count at HEAD `3e850f3` was 8 tarballs + 2 metadata = 10. PR body §Removed and design §File Changes both independently said "10" correctly.

**Fix:** commit `9f162dc` — §Concrete changes step 1 now reads "8 tarballs + `index.json` + `checksums.txt` = 10 tracked files".

**Severity:** A (polish). Mechanical — `git ls-tree -r 3e850f3 -- dist/packages/ | wc -l` → 10.

**Disposition:** closed on-branch in Round 2.

**β-side round-1 miss acknowledged:** my Round-1 review named §Concrete changes step 1 as the only site. The doc in fact had three pre-fix sites of the same error (see F3-bis). A tighter review-skill step would have greped the doc for every instance of the wrong number before posting the finding — see §Cycle Iteration §Skill impact.

---

### Finding F3-bis — two further count sites + `.gitignore` line-count A-polish (A, mechanical)

**Caught:** Round 2 narrowing re-scan of DESIGN-266 at head `9f162dc` after α reported F3 fixed.

Three sites still stale after Round-1 F3 fix:
1. §Rule changes rippling through all embeddings: `currently 9 tarballs + 2 metadata files` (should be `8 tarballs + 2 metadata files`)
2. §Process Cost / Automation Boundary: `**One-time adoption cost:** 11 files removed from git, 1 line added to .gitignore` (should be `10 files removed`; `1 line added` also inaccurate — the `.gitignore` rule broadened from `dist/bin/` (1 line) to `dist/` + 2-line comment = +2 lines net)

α's Round-1 commit message asserted "fixes the one remaining mismatch" but had fixed one of three; α grep-reconciled after Round 2 and acknowledged the authoring-side gap cleanly.

**Fix:** commit `43f5a89` — all three sites reconciled. Post-fix `grep -nE '9 tarball|11 files|11 tracked|1 line added to' DESIGN-266` → 0 hits; `grep -nE '8 tarball|10 files|10 tracked' DESIGN-266` → 4 hits at lines 88, 117, 187, 218 (§Rule changes, §Concrete changes step 1, §Process Cost, §File Changes) — all consistent.

**Severity:** A (polish). Same error class as F3; same grep-based verification.

**Disposition:** closed on-branch in Round 3. `.gitignore` polish folded in.

**Joint skill gap recorded:** α's Round-1 authoring skipped the "grep for every occurrence before claiming resolution" step; β's Round-1 review skipped "grep for every occurrence before filing the finding". Both surfaces converge on the same patch — see §Cycle Iteration §Skill impact.

## §9.1 Triggers

- [x] **review rounds > 2** — **YES, 3 rounds**. Round 1 found F1/F2/F3. Round 2 narrowing found F3-bis after an incomplete Round-1 F3 fix. Round 3 approved.
- [ ] mechanical ratio > 20% with ≥ 10 findings — **partial**. Ratio is 4/4 = 100% (well above the 20% threshold) but total findings (4) is **below the 10-finding floor**, so this is not an automatic trigger. Recorded as signal with context, not filed as a process issue.
- [ ] avoidable tooling/environmental failure — **no**. Prior cycle (#262) hit tooling race (Go 1.22 vs 1.24.7) + rebase-race × 2; `da92e44` (Go pin) and this PR's MCA respectively eliminate those classes. This cycle was environmentally clean.
- [x] **loaded skill failed to prevent a finding** — **YES**. `review/SKILL.md` §2.1.3 (mechanical diff scan) and §2.2.8 (authority-surface conflict) both cover multi-surface consistency; neither explicitly extends to **intra-doc** numeric consistency. Round-1 F3 findings named one site; Round-2 narrowing caught two more. The skill was applied correctly as written — what's missing is a step that says "grep for every occurrence of the wrong value AND the corrected value before filing OR before claiming resolution." Applies symmetrically to α-side authoring peer enumeration (`eng/go §2.12`).

Cycle Iteration section **required** (triggers 1 and 4 fired).

## Cycle Iteration

### Triggers fired

- [x] review rounds > 2 (actual: 3)
- [ ] mechanical ratio > 20% (actual: 100% but N=4 < 10-finding floor)
- [ ] avoidable tooling/environmental failure (none this cycle)
- [x] loaded skill failed to prevent a finding — `review/SKILL.md` §2.1.3 / §2.2.8 and `eng/go` §2.12 do not explicitly cover intra-doc numeric consistency; caught the error class but not exhaustively on the first pass.

### Friction log

1. **Round-1 β review missed two of three F3 sites.** My mechanical-scan step named the off-by-one in §Concrete changes step 1 without greping the doc for other occurrences of "9 tarballs" / "11 files". α's Round-1 fix (`9f162dc`) trusted the one site β named — commit message "fixes the one remaining mismatch" — and produced F3-bis. Both sides of the review loop made the same omission: not-exhaustive-enumeration of a documented error class.
2. **Round-1 β review filed F1 (base drift) as a C-finding despite the fix being unclear under the rebase-race regime.** The PR's whole purpose is to eliminate the cost of α rebasing against a moving main. Recommending (b) (honest amendment of the gate row rather than re-running the race) was the self-consistent call; framing it as two options with a recommendation let α choose without perpetuating the class. Not a friction — a judgment call that landed cleanly. Recording because the interpretation of "all findings fix on-branch before merge" (§7.0) had to bend slightly: F1's fix was a PR-body edit, not a code/rebase fix. Worth noting that §7.0 already permits that (the fix is the amendment itself).
3. **Concurrent main churn, non-blocking.** 3 commits landed during review, 4 more between approval and merge. None of them touched workflows, dist, or Go sources — all in `src/packages/cnos.cdd/skills/cdd/` (the CDD method's own skills). The PR's MCA works precisely because main moving in this region no longer produces any committed-dist diff — the change was exercised on its own purpose.

### Root cause

**Review-skill gap (β side) + α-skill gap (α side): same rule, two surfaces.**

When fixing or filing a finding that names a numeric or string value, grep the entire relevant doc (and for α: all peer surfaces that carry the same fact) for every occurrence of the wrong value AND the corrected value. File / fix all sites in one pass. Don't trust first-occurrence-only.

The class is broader than numbers — any claim of the shape "X is wrong, should be Y" where X and Y can appear repeatedly in the same doc or the same artifact family.

This is a near-miss of the L6 "cross-surface drift" criterion (§9.1): intra-doc arithmetic drift reached review, was self-caught in Round 2, and the doc was reconciled before merge. The L6 property held because the protocol caught it; the individual round did not.

### Skill impact

- **`review/SKILL.md` §2.1.3 (mechanical diff scan)** — add a bullet: *"when filing a numeric or string finding, grep the containing doc for every occurrence of the wrong value AND the corrected value before filing."* β-side patch candidate.
- **`review/SKILL.md` §2.2.8 (authority-surface conflict)** — extend to explicitly cover intra-doc authority conflict (e.g. two sections of one doc asserting different counts for the same fact).
- **`eng/go` §2.12 (peer enumeration / harness audit)** — the principle already generalizes; add an explicit note that peer enumeration extends to numeric repetitions *within* a single doc, not just across doc surfaces. α-side patch candidate.

All three patches describe the same rule from three surfaces. Recommend a single joint patch per CDD §10.1 ("the same commit as the assessment … synced across all affected surfaces"). I have **not** landed the patch in this close-out commit — the patch itself is an α-executed change per CDD §10.1 authority, not β's to author. γ triages the patch in Phase 4.

### MCA

**System change shipped by this cycle:** `dist/` out of git, I3 job deleted, gitignore broadened. Post-PR #267, the rebase-race failure class is structurally impossible — no committed surface under `dist/` means no drift window to race against. β post-release AC3 commits to tracking recurrence across the next 3–5 cycles touching `src/packages/`.

**System change proposed for the review/α skill gap:** the triple-surface patch in §Skill impact above. Not shipped in this commit; filed as γ-triage item in §γ reports.

### Cycle level

**L6 — L7 near-miss.** Per `docs/gamma/ENGINEERING-LEVELS.md` §6, level = lowest miss.

- **L5 (local correctness):** met. No code; the artifact change is 100% mechanical (git rm, gitignore, workflow-edit, doc). CI green 7/7 on every review round head (`b07ca39`, `9f162dc`, `43f5a89`).
- **L6 (system-safe execution):** **partial miss.** Intra-doc arithmetic drift (F3 + F3-bis) reached review — three sections of one doc (DESIGN-266) disagreed on the tarball count. The drift was caught in Round 2 and reconciled on-branch before merge, and the skill patch is named and deferred to γ — but the miss is real. Against the L6 criterion (*"If cross-surface drift … reached review, L6 was not met"*), this is a partial miss.
- **L7 (system-shaping leverage):** **achieved on the substantive axis.** The cycle shipped an MCA that eliminates the rebase-race friction class for all future packaging-adjacent cycles. The `L7 achieved` designation applies to the MCA. **But per the "lowest miss" rule**, the L6 partial miss caps the cycle at L6 regardless of the L7 achievement on the substantive axis.

**Justification:** L6 with a clean L7 MCA shipped and an L7 skill-patch candidate filed. The better-case reading is "L6 for review quality, L7 for the code/doc artifact" — but §9.1 scores the cycle as one number, and lowest-miss governs.

The cycle's L7 MCA outcome is preserved in §Coherence note of the CHANGELOG TSC row when rolled into the next release; the L6 cap is recorded here.

## γ reports

Surface items for γ triage. Factual observations only; recommendations and selection belong to γ.

### 1. Intra-doc numeric / value consistency — skill-gap candidate

Round-1 F3 named one of three pre-existing sites of an arithmetic drift; α's Round-1 fix (`9f162dc`) corrected the named site; Round-2 narrowing surfaced the remaining two (F3-bis), corrected at `43f5a89`.

Both surfaces applied the same skill as written and both missed exhaustive enumeration. Candidate surfaces where an explicit "grep for every occurrence of the old and new value before filing / fixing" step would apply:

- `review/SKILL.md` §2.1.3 (mechanical diff scan)
- `review/SKILL.md` §2.2.8 (authority-surface conflict)
- `eng/go` §2.12 (peer enumeration / harness audit)

Evidence: one cycle (this one). Patch decision, scope, and timing are γ's call per CDD §1.4 γ-algorithm Phase 4 step 12.

### 2. β-step-3 notification gap — already patched mid-cycle

At β intake I flagged that the algorithm's "wait for α to open the PR" instruction had no notification mechanism in the session tools. Four process commits landed on main between PR open and merge:

- `f381ceb0 cdd: β step 3 — polling loop for PR existence`
- `8b564d52 cdd: replace event subscription with periodic polling for all roles`
- `2fd88646 cdd: γ subscribes to issue and PR — tracks full cycle`
- `60133289 gamma skill: read last PRA first — it contains binding selection inputs`

`beta/SKILL.md` §Phase map now reads "poll for PR" at step 3 (previously "wait for PR"); Role Rule §1 gained "refuse env-provided implementation instructions" — addressing another intake-time flag (harness instructing β to "develop and commit on claude/implement-beta-skill-loading-LNAOc").

No action requested; recording the mid-cycle convergence.

### 3. Shared-identity review degradation — known gap, #45 queue

β token and α token share the same GitHub account (`usurobor`). All three review rounds posted as `COMMENT`; native `APPROVE` / `REQUEST_CHANGES` + branch-protection enforcement unreachable. Documented in `review/SKILL.md` §7.1; issue #45 tracks migration.

New datapoint: this cycle's review was 3 rounds. Combined with #265's 3 rounds and #260's precedent, three consecutive multi-round cycles under shared identity.

### 4. Branch-name convention drift

PR #267 branch: `claude/alpha-tier-3-skills-0OOu5`. Canonical per CDD §4.2: `{agent}/{issue}-{scope}` or `{agent}/{version}-{issue}-{scope}` — should embed `#266` and scope. Same class as #265's Finding A1.

Evidence-of-two (this cycle + #265). γ close-out of #262 (`3e850f3`) already considered branch-name mechanization as candidate #1 and deferred to #266.

## Post-release AC3 commitment (β observational)

Issue #266 closes on merge. β's AC3 responsibility is observational, carried into the release that ships this cycle:

> Track rebase-race recurrence across the next 3–5 cycles touching `src/packages/`. If zero recurrences, AC3 is closed at L7. If any recurrence, this PR's MCA was insufficient and the assessment must escalate.

This commitment lives in the post-release assessment of the release that ships #266.

## Closure evidence (CDD §10)

**Immediate outputs executed this session:**

- [x] Review rounds 1–3 posted to PR #267 (as `COMMENT` per shared-identity degradation, verdict inline)
- [x] PR #267 squash-merged to main as `a05af27` — `Closes #266`, issue auto-closed
- [x] PR branch `claude/alpha-tier-3-skills-0OOu5` remote-delete attempted (network `send-pack: unexpected disconnect` + `Everything up-to-date`, same pattern as #265 close-out)
- [x] β close-out committed to `.cdd/unreleased/beta/267.md` on main (this file)

**Deferred outputs committed concretely:**

- [x] **Post-release assessment (PRA)** — deferred to the next tagged release. PRA lives at `docs/gamma/cdd/<version>/POST-RELEASE-ASSESSMENT.md`, keyed to a tag; this cycle ships unreleased. Per `post-release/SKILL.md` ("After every `git tag`"), no PRA file is required pre-tag. The AC3 recurrence-tracking commitment lives in the PRA of the release that ships #266.
- [x] **Triple-surface skill patch** (§γ reports §1) — filed as γ-triage item. Not landed in this commit; α to author, γ to dispatch.
- [x] **β's AC3 commitment** — recorded here and in the PR's final approval. Next 3–5 cycles touching `src/packages/` are the evidence window; β of those future cycles carries the observational duty.
- [x] **Shared-identity #45 migration** — new datapoint added (§γ reports §3). No action from β; γ tracks priority.

**Hub memory writes** — **not done in this session.** Per CDD §1.4 β algorithm step 11, β's session ends at close-out; hub memory writes are γ's Phase 5 item 13. Flagging here so γ closes the loop. (Same deferral pattern as #265 close-out.)

**Closure gate check (`post-release/SKILL.md` pre-publish gate, applicable subset for pre-tag close-out):**

- [x] Findings have severity + type
- [x] Verdict before details (β round 3: APPROVED final)
- [x] Merge instruction named the PR + branch + action
- [x] §9.1 Cycle Iteration present (triggers 1 and 4 fired)
- [x] §9.1 root cause named (joint α+β skill gap, intra-doc numeric consistency)
- [x] §9.1 disposition named (skill patch filed as γ-triage)
- [x] §9.1 evidence linked (commits `9f162dc`, `43f5a89`, `a05af27`; PR #267; issue #266)
- [x] §9.1 cycle level stated (L6 — L7 near-miss, justification inline)

**Not applicable (not a tagged release):**

- CHANGELOG TSC row update
- `POST-RELEASE-ASSESSMENT.md` at `docs/gamma/cdd/<version>/`
- RELEASE.md / tag / release asset
- Coherence measurement (§1 of PRA template) — deferred to rollup PRA
- Production verification scenario (§5.7 of PRA template) — deferred to rollup PRA

---

Signed: β (`beta@cdd.cnos`) · 2026-04-24 · merge commit `a05af27` · close-out commit _(pending commit to main)_ · no release tag (substantial feature ships unreleased into next tagged release) · closes issue #266; `Closes` auto-closed on merge
