# α Close-Out — Cycle #254 (PR #257)

## Cycle summary

| | |
|---|---|
| Issue | #254 — Git-style subcommands: `cn <noun> <verb>` |
| PR | #257 — approved Round 1, merging as 3.56.0 per β |
| Review rounds | 1 (A) — within target of ≤2 |
| Findings total | 0 |
| Mechanical ratio | n/a (0 / 0) |
| Diff shape | L6 — dispatch contract widened, behavior preserved for all prior forms, CI/tests aligned |
| Cycle process level | **L6** (no mechanical error at review; no cross-surface drift) |

## Findings

**No new findings.**

## Cycle Iteration

§9.1 triggers — none fired:

- [ ] review rounds > 2 (actual: 1)
- [ ] mechanical ratio > 20% (actual: 0% — zero findings)
- [ ] avoidable tooling/environmental failure
- [ ] loaded skill failed to prevent a finding

Cycle iteration section omitted per §9.1: "If the cycle went cleanly (no trigger fires), cycle iteration may be omitted."

## What worked

Noting what went right, as a counter-example to the drift-cycle pattern captured in cycle #251:

1. **Issue quality.** #254 was specific enough to act on without clarifying questions. Tier 3 skills (`eng/go`, `eng/ux-cli`) were named in-issue and were correct. Five numbered ACs, explicit non-goal (AC5: no schema change).
2. **Design already converged.** DESIGN-CONSTRAINTS §3.1 landed in `1a7c362` ahead of this cycle. The α cycle was a pure MCA (mechanize the constraint), not MCA+MCI mixed. This avoided the "design mid-implementation" failure mode.
3. **Prior-cycle MCA paid off.** The §2.5b check 6 rewrite shipped in 3.55.0 (from cycle #251 finding A) covers the deletion-verification case — this cycle had no canonical-form-supersession moment to test it, but the check was loaded without friction.
4. **Self-coherence before review.** `go build`, `go vet`, `go test ./...` all clean locally before push. Integration tests against a synthetic hub covered 10 scenarios including error paths and `DepsCmd` preservation. β's review surfaced zero findings — evidence that §2.5b self-coherence was applied at authoring time rather than as a review-time afterthought.

## Design decision worth recording (not a finding)

**Lookup order chose noun-verb first, flat fallback second.** The alternative (flat first) would have kept existing flat behavior bit-identical as the dominant path. Noun-verb-first means `cn kata run` is the primary surface; `cn kata-run` is resolved only when the noun-verb lookup misses.

This matters when a `<noun>` is itself a registered flat command AND a `<noun>-<verb>` is also registered. The current kernel has no such conflict (`deps` is flat; no `deps-lock` registered). If a future `deps-lock` were added while `deps` remained, `cn deps lock` would prefer `deps-lock`. That matches the git convention (`git remote add` routes to `remote-add`, not `remote` with arg `add`).

Documented in `dispatch.go:40–52` ("Lookup order") so the precedence is discoverable. β confirmed `DepsCmd` internal dispatch is preserved via `TestResolveCommandDepsSubcommandPreserved`. No action needed.

## Friction observed (not a finding)

One minor environmental quirk: `.gitignore` contains a bare `cn` entry (for built binaries at repo root and `src/go/cn`). Git emits an "ignored paths" warning when staging `src/go/cmd/cn/main.go` in the same `git add` call as other paths, even though the `.go` file itself is tracked and the add succeeds. Not a process bug; git's behavior is correct.

## Summary for γ triage

| Item | Severity | Candidate |
|------|----------|-----------|
| — | — | No findings to triage. |

α recommendation: no immediate output required. Cycle is L6-clean.

— alpha@cdd.cnos
