git:20261015.6c0dec1 to git:20261106.2de3a36

16 added, 2 removed. Audit A to A.

---

name: rem-investigate-project

description: The steps for investigating a project's page, composed after rem-investigate when the subject is under projects/.

---

# Investigating a project

+ ## Research beyond the mailbox

+ Follow `rem-investigate` for research tools, privacy, own browser tab, the

+ LinkedIn prohibition and saved captures. Establish what the project actually is, its current state and collaborators through repository/public sources as well as the owner’s messages. Lead with the answers; preserve supported repository URL, status, start date, history and open threads.

+ When the project serves an outside party, the 1–3 research questions must include

+ who the customer/organisation is and what it does. Follow the public company name

+ or domain to its official site; repository work alone does not answer this.

+ The lookup ledger must include at least one outside lookup (tool, query/URL,

+ result, including empty or unavailable results), or explicitly say why none

+ applies. A private/internal project with no outside party may explain that;

+ an existing repository snapshot is not an outside lookup.

A project is told by two witnesses: the owner's messages say what they wanted,

decided and saw; the repository's current line says what was built and when.

Join them; neither alone is the page.

1. **Start from the current line.** `checkout-state` names it (usually

`origin/main`) and whether the working tree lags; the history packet lists

its commits and the unmerged branches committed lately. A working tree on

an old branch is not the project: read files at the named revision with

`git show`, never from the checkout.

2. **Hear the owner.** Read every supplied message: why they started it,

the choices they made (price, scope, audience, people), what they

reversed. These are the page's voice, quoted; the repository verifies

them. Purpose comes from those words or the README at that revision.

3. **Close every thread you can.** For each ask, issue or plan in the

messages, look for its outcome: later messages, commit subjects

(`git log --all --grep '<term>'`), branch names. A commit after the ask

that does what it asked closes it; cite both and date the close. Only what

nothing closed, and is recent, stays open.

4. **Date where it stands** from the newest commits and messages. A request

newer than every verified change is the current goal, not done work.

5. **Inspect code only for what the page claims** (purpose, flow, commands,

a conflict with what the owner said). Do not tour files.

**Citing**

- Cite supplied `project-source:`, `codex:` or `claude-code:` IDs. A file you

inspect at a commit is `git:/absolute/mapped/repository:<full-commit-sha>:relative/file`;

a live file is `file:/absolute/path@<sha256>` from `shasum -a 256`.

`origin: git:`, command output and bare paths are not source IDs.

- Only files under the page's mapped `Paths` can support it.

- `investigation:*` items (page, coverage, inventory, repositories, scope)

are reading guides, never citable.

- Keep existing `Paths` and their `Sessions`, `First seen` and `Last seen`

lines exactly. A new path needs a retained source.

- Search limits go in your reply, not the page.

**Whose project a message is about**

- A session's folder says where an agent ran, not what the message concerns.

Use a message here only when it names a distinctive project, file, version

or behaviour of this repository; an unnamed follow-up only when an earlier

input in that session establishes this project.

- - With zero assigned session inputs, keep `Insight` and `Open threads` bare

- `Unknown`; dated commits may still say where the code stands.

+ - With zero assigned session inputs, keep `Open threads` bare `Unknown` unless

+ other originals establish an ask; `Insight` may use researched evidence or

+ labelled inference. Dated commits may still say where the code stands.

- Keep actors, nouns and scope exact: "ask the owner" is not calling agents;

more property listings are not more details per property.

- A `Website` Fact needs an original that connects the site to this project.

- A request is not permission, delivery or completion; a source comment about

a test is not a run.