ceremony-budget ยท diff
git:20260706.272cc3e to git:20260710.fcc9208
104 added, 51 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: ceremony-budget
description: Choose the smallest workflow that still buys back enough attention and safety for the task.
---
# Ceremony Budget
## Purpose
- Route a task to the smallest safe workflow before the agent starts creating
- artifacts or editing files.
+ Spend ceremony only when it buys back attention or safety. Route a task to a
+ workflow that replaces the default larger route; do not append a second process
+ contract.
## When to use
- Use at the start of a task when it is not obvious whether the work needs no
- artifact, a short route, or a fuller workflow.
+ Use when the safe route is not already obvious. If the task or wrapper already
+ supplies an execution-sized route, use it without re-deriving the route.
## Inputs
- - User request
- - Known constraints
- - Expected blast radius
- - Verification burden
- - Resume or handoff risk
- - Decision or irreversibility risk
+ - User request and any task-wrapper instructions
+ - Scope boundary and expected blast radius
+ - Verification target and failure risk
+ - Ambiguity, irreversibility, and resume risk
## Workflow
- 1. Check whether the task is reversible, bounded, and already unambiguous.
- 2. Check whether failure would mostly waste time or would affect users, data,
- decisions, compatibility seams, or future sessions.
- 3. Check whether the task is likely to drift without a scope boundary or explicit
- verification target.
- 4. Choose the lowest level that still protects against the real failure mode.
- 5. Select the skill route for that level.
- 6. Name the skills or artifacts intentionally skipped.
- 7. Reserve the minimum proof needed before stopping.
- 8. Stop routing once the decision block is good enough to start the work.
+ 1. Check whether the task is bounded, reversible, and already explicit.
+ 2. Identify the concrete implementation, reproduction, or inspection action and
+ its proof target.
+ 3. Choose the lowest level that protects the actual failure mode.
+ 4. Select one replacement route and name only the missing guard, if any.
+ 5. Start the next action immediately once the boundary and proof target are clear.
+ ### Replacement rule
+
+ Ceremony budget selects a route that replaces the default larger workflow. Do not
+ regenerate the full route after a wrapper has already made it explicit. It must
+ not:
+
+ - append a second workflow contract to an already explicit route
+ - restate task-wrapper instructions
+ - invoke several skills merely because they are available
+ - require a budget ledger merely to prove ceremony was budgeted
+ - create process work whose only purpose is documenting the process choice
+
+ When an existing route is sufficient, prefer:
+
+ ```text
+ Route already explicit; no additional ceremony block needed.
+ ```
+
+ If one guard is missing, provide only that delta:
+
+ ```text
+ Route already explicit.
+ Missing guard: stop after verification and required proof pass.
+ Next action: implement the named seam.
+ ```
+
+ ### Startup discipline
+
+ For Level 0 and Level 1, do not create a durable planning artifact by default or
+ run commands solely to document route selection. Identify the concrete action,
+ then begin it once the boundary and proof target are clear.
+
+ For Level 2, allow one compact acceptance block only when real ambiguity exists.
+ Implementation must follow immediately; do not create secondary artifacts before
+ the first implementation attempt.
+
+ Level 3 may retain fuller safeguards when the risk genuinely warrants them.
+
## Outputs
- Produce a short routing block. Do not create a durable file by default.
+ Use at most this six-line block, and omit it when the existing route is enough:
```text
- CEREMONY BUDGET
+ CEREMONY ROUTE
Level: 0 | 1 | 2 | 3
- Why: ...
+ Next action: ...
Use: ...
Skip: ...
- Proof reserve: ...
- Stop rule: ...
+ Proof and stop: ...
```
- Level guide:
+ Do not create `CEREMONY_BUDGET.md` or a budget ledger by default.
- - Level 0: tiny reversible patch; usually no durable artifact
- - Level 1: one bounded slice; inline boundary plus proof
- - Level 2: small multi-step or ambiguity-prone slice; compact spec and
- verification
- - Level 3: decision-impacting, autonomous, user-facing, risky, or multi-slice
- work; full guarded route
+ ### Level guidance
- Escalate when:
+ - Level 0: direct patch -> one sanity check -> stop
+ - Level 1: inline boundary -> build-one -> targeted verify -> stop
+ - Level 2: compact mini-spec -> build-one -> targeted test -> verify-contract -> stop
+ - Level 3: fuller guarded route for genuinely high-risk, multi-slice, or
+ decision-impacting work
- - ambiguity blocks implementation
- - scope is starting to drift
- - verification is weak or hand-wavy
- - context is likely to be lost before completion
- - another session must resume safely
- - changes are hard to undo or affect decisions, users, or public seams
+ Use `handoff` only when another session actually needs to resume, work remains
+ unresolved, or durable continuation state buys real safety. It is not automatic.
- De-escalate when:
+ ## Compatibility reserve
- - the task is a tiny reversible edit
- - the route is creating artifacts that are not buying clarity or safety
- - one shorter proof path would cover the same risk
- - the next skill would only restate what is already explicit
+ For each named preserved behavior, non-goal, or adjacent compatibility seam,
+ reserve the cheapest relevant negative or regression check when one is available.
+ Light routing may omit planning artifacts. It must not omit a cheap check that
+ protects an explicitly preserved behavior. Reserving that check is proof work; it
+ does not by itself require a larger route.
+
## Stop conditions
- - The lowest safe level is chosen.
- - The selected route and proof reserve are explicit.
- - Do not continue routing once the next step is clear.
+ Stop when all are true:
+ 1. required verification has passed
+ 2. required proof is valid
+ 3. no named acceptance criterion or risk remains unresolved
+
+ After that, do not rerun an already passing proof validator without a concrete
+ reason, repeat Git or status commands for reassurance, rewrite valid artifacts for
+ style, continue because turns remain, add a ceremony retrospective, or expand
+ verification beyond the named risk without evidence that it is needed.
+
+ ## Failure discipline
+
+ After a targeted check fails:
+
+ 1. inspect the first actionable traceback or mismatch
+ 2. inspect the actual import, call, or data path implicated by the failure
+ 3. make the smallest related correction
+ 4. rerun the narrow check
+ 5. escalate ceremony only if the failure reveals genuine ambiguity, broader
+ scope, or higher risk
+
+ Do not respond to one failed check by generating additional planning artifacts.
+
## Anti-patterns
- Treating more artifacts as automatically better process.
- - Creating `SPEC.md`, `PLAN.md`, or `HANDOFF.md` for a trivial reversible fix.
- - Creating `CEREMONY_BUDGET.md` by default.
- - Escalating because the repo has a skill available, not because the task needs it.
- - Using Level 0 or 1 when the task is decision-impacting or hard to resume safely.
+ - Making the six-line block mandatory when no route delta is needed.
+ - Deriving a full route after a wrapper has already made it explicit.
+ - Requiring `scope-freeze`, `handoff`, a ledger, or a durable artifact for every
+ Level 1 task.
+ - Omitting a cheap regression check for an explicitly preserved behavior.
+ - Stopping before required proof is valid.
+ - Using Level 0 or 1 when the task is decision-impacting or genuinely unsafe to
+ resume without durable state.