synthesis-adversarial-review v2.0.0A

Immutable. This exact content never changes and is served at /api/v1/blob/98d5697b9629aa5f.

---
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."
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.

## 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

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

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:

```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>'
```

Use `validate` before every handoff.