v2.0.0 to v2.0.0

11 added, 55 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: synthesis-adversarial-review

- description: "Run bounded adversarial review by differently shaped agents against the principal's outcome: artifact-complete rounds, production-topology handoffs, concessions, a fail-closed finding ledger, sufficiency rulings, post-publication acceptance. Use for adversarial, cross-agent or red-team review."

+ description: "Run bounded adversarial review by differently shaped agents against the principal's outcome: artifact-complete rounds, production-topology handoffs, concessions, a markdown findings table, sufficiency rulings, post-publication acceptance. Use for adversarial, cross-agent or red-team review."

license: "Apache-2.0"

depends_on: ["synthesis-grounding-discipline", "synthesis-anti-shortcuts", "synthesis-project-management"]

metadata:

author: "Rajiv Pant"

version: "2.0.0"

source_repo: "github.com/synthesisengineering/synthesis-skills"

source_type: "public"

format: v5

---

# Synthesis Adversarial Review

Differently shaped agents attack the same work from different blind spots, in bounded rounds, to deliver what the principal asked to ship.

- Before freezing or accepting a package, apply the mandatory [domain contracts and replay scorecard](references/domain-review-contract.md); validate exact source bindings with `scripts/review_contract.py` and retain the existing ledger/action owners.

+ Before freezing or accepting a package, apply the mandatory [domain contracts and replay scorecard](references/domain-review-contract.md).

## Binding rules

- The headings below are the protocol's sections, in the order `scripts/protocol_acceptance.py` checks. [references/protocol.md](references/protocol.md) holds each section in full.

- ### Purpose

+ The rules follow the protocol's sections in order, Purpose through Completion Report; [references/protocol.md](references/protocol.md) holds each section in full.

1. **The review exists to deliver the principal's outcome:** the artifacts and enforced boundaries the principal asked to ship, at the accepted quality bar. Reviewer satisfaction, control growth and a large finding count are not completion criteria.

2. **The review grants no publication, deployment, communication or repair authority.** Apply the shared [decision ownership contract](../synthesis-thinking-framework/references/decision-ownership.md) and record the technical sufficiency owner first.

3. **For [typed domain review](../synthesis-autopilot/references/domain-quality.md), freeze the accepted requirement, source universe, domain method and rubric before the attempt.** Replacing a reviewer without changed work or a concrete open risk does not justify another round.

- ### Before Round One: Proportionality Contract

4. **Record the contract before dispatching a reviewer:** the principal outcome; the Closed review universe; consequence and depth; a Round-trip budget that counts principal courier crossings; and the Stop rule.

- ### Roles and Blind-Spot Rotation

5. **Executor and Adversarial reviewer are separate roles.** Rotate the blind spot, not the agent name. Concession is health: record what each side conceded.

- ### Adjudication and Separation of Duties

6. **An adjudicator settles surviving disagreements** and owns ledger transitions. The repairer never edits, moves or deletes the reviewer's reproducer without the adjudicator's recorded approval.

- ### Goal-Focused Round

7. **Every goal-focused round runs five terminal stages:**

1. **Contract.** Restate the outcome, decision owners, approval gates, artifact universe and attack plane.

2. **Attack.** Derive counterexamples from the production path; encode real defects as failing fixtures before repair.

3. **Disposition.** One terminal row per artifact and finding; prose and executable repair are not interchangeable.

4. **Concept sweep.** Search the whole evidence package for the claim a repair displaced.

5. **Sufficiency.** Record established, open, and risk of shipping now. At a principal-owned or supervised checkpoint, the principal's ruling terminates the loop.

8. **A `ship-blocking` finding stays in the delivery** until repaired, conceded or resolved by its decision owner; a `ship-improving` finding names its follow-up project. A repair reopens only its failed criteria.

- ### Sidecars, Evidence, and Handoff Topology

9. **Sidecars are claims.** Every handoff names the production entry point, the enforcing boundary, the receipt consumer, the exact artifacts, each finding's reproducer, the concept sweep owed after a provenance correction, and what the evidence does not verify.

- ### Finding Ledger

- 10. **One ledger per engagement, edited only through `scripts/finding_ledger.py`** (command below). Each finding carries a state, a classification, an authority label, a separate enforcement outcome, evidence, and a follow-up project when ship-improving.

- ### Bounded Control Depth

+ 10. **One findings file per engagement,** a markdown table in the project's `resources/` (see Findings file below). Each finding carries a state, a classification, an authority label, a separate enforcement outcome, evidence, and a follow-up project when ship-improving; only the adjudicator changes a state, and every change appends a transition line.

11. **A finding in generation N+1 of an unrequested control stops control growth;** generation N+2 needs an explicit principal decision.

- ### Bounded Post-Publication Acceptance

12. **After publication, a second agent derives the live universe from destination state** and records a per-artifact matrix. A correction beyond the current grant needs fresh approval.

- ### Agent-Principal Norms

13. **Surface a known-false claim once,** in the principal's terms. A proposed loosening nominates the loosener for review. Approval fatigue is a failure mode.

- ### Completion Report

14. **Report the principal outcome first** and name the unverified remainder. "The reviewer is satisfied" is never a completion signal.

## Contents

- - [references/protocol.md](references/protocol.md): every protocol section in full, with the reasons, the ledger field list and the post-publication steps. Read the matching section before running that stage of a review.

- - [references/domain-review-contract.md](references/domain-review-contract.md): the domain review package, its four profiles and seven records, mechanical controls and the replay scorecard. Read it before freezing or accepting any package.

- - [references/profiles.json](references/profiles.json) and [references/schemas/](references/schemas/): the review profiles and the seven record schemas that `scripts/review_contract.py` validates. Read them when building a review package.

- - [references/coverage-map.md](references/coverage-map.md): where each part of the 1.2.1 text now lives.

- - Finding ledger command: below.

- ## Finding ledger command

- Create one YAML ledger per engagement in the owning project's `resources/` directory:

+ - [references/protocol.md](references/protocol.md): every protocol section in full, with the reasons, the findings-file template and field list, and the post-publication steps. Read the matching section before running that stage of a review.

+ - [references/domain-review-contract.md](references/domain-review-contract.md): the review package, its four profiles and seven records, the checks the reviewer applies by hand, and the twelve lessons and scorecard. Read it before freezing or accepting any package.

+ - [references/coverage-map.md](references/coverage-map.md): where each part of the 1.2.1 text and each script change now lives.

+ - [references/preserved.md](references/preserved.md): the retired ledger command, validator and diagnostic text, verbatim. Read only to review the change.

+ - Findings file: below.

- ```bash

- python3 scripts/finding_ledger.py init \

- --resources-root resources \

- --file resources/<engagement>-findings.yaml \

- --engagement <id> \

- --principal-outcome '<outcome>' \

- --round-trip-budget <count> \

- --proportionality 'AGENT HEURISTIC: <bounded rationale>'

- ```

+ ## Findings file

- Use `validate` before every handoff.

+ Create `resources/<engagement>-findings.md` in the owning project from the template in [references/protocol.md](references/protocol.md#finding-ledger) (principal outcome, round-trip budget and courier crossings, proportionality, the findings table, the transitions list), and claim it with `synthesis claim <path>`. Before each transition, re-read the row and confirm its state is the one you are moving from; read the whole table back before every handoff. Git keeps its history; a transition line is never edited or deleted.