feat(doc-standards): documentation tiers, budgets, and the ceiling gate
Standing docs accrete a paragraph per PR with nothing pushing back; the root AGENTS.md reached 8,130 words in 50 commits with the same rule stated two and three times. This encodes the counter-pressure: - docs/AGENTS.md becomes the documentation standard: the tier taxonomy (one home per fact), target word budgets, and the slop checklist. - verify-doc-budgets joins doc-sync: word ceilings for the six accretion-prone standing docs, manifest-driven, frozen at current sizes and ratcheted down as each doc is brought to target. - .agents/skills/dsh-doc-standards: the thin placement/audit/red-gate workflow over the standard, mirroring the dsh-translate-docs split. - RFC (implemented/process) records the decision, alternatives, and the first audit cycle's deferred work list. The gate's first catch was the standard itself (1,057 > 1,000); it ships condensed to 984 words rather than with a raised ceiling.
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Tianyi Cui
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# AGENTS.md — Docs
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# AGENTS.md — The documentation standard
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Conventions for authoring everything under `docs/` (architecture, RFCs, cookbook, ADRs-now-RFCs). The repo-wide Markdown rules in the root [AGENTS.md](../AGENTS.md) § "Type Safety and Documentation" still apply (one physical line per paragraph, fenced `ts` blocks must compile); the points below are docs-specific.
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This file is the contract for every Markdown surface in the repo: what each documentation tier is for, what belongs elsewhere, and the word budgets the `verify-doc-budgets` gate enforces. The repo-wide writing rules live in the root [AGENTS.md](../AGENTS.md) § "Type Safety and Documentation" and apply to everything here. The audit/apply workflow is the [dsh-doc-standards](../.agents/skills/dsh-doc-standards/SKILL.md) skill; the decision record is [the doc-tiers-and-budgets RFC](rfc/implemented/process/2026-07-04-doc-tiers-and-budgets.md).
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## The tier taxonomy: one home per fact
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Every fact has exactly one home — the tier whose job it is — and every other place that needs it links there instead of restating it. A rule restated in two files drifts word-by-word until the copies disagree; a link cannot drift, and `verify-md-links` keeps it resolving.
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| Tier | Job | Does NOT belong there |
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|---|---|---|
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| Root `AGENTS.md` | Standing orders: rules an agent needs in context in every session, one to three lines each, linking its home | Stories, worked examples, situational procedures, anything restated from a linked home |
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| Subtree `AGENTS.md` (`packages/`, `examples/`, `docs/`) | Orders specific to that subtree | Repo-wide rules the root file already carries |
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| [architecture.md](architecture.md) | The system map: layering, services, the loop, extension seams — read before changing `packages/` | Type shapes (→ core-data-structures), per-package detail (→ package READMEs), decision rationale (→ RFCs), implementation-status annotations |
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| [core-data-structures/](core-data-structures/core.md) | The type catalog: literal shapes and semantics of the spine and seam vocabulary | Behavior narration (→ architecture.md) |
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| [rfc/](rfc/README.md) | Decision records: the why and the what-was-given-up; `implemented/` RFCs describe shipped reality in present tense | Migration plans, test checklists, and spec-speak ("should…") once the decision has shipped |
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| [postmortem/](postmortem/README.md) | Incident stories — the only tier where war-story narrative belongs | — |
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| [cookbook/](cookbook/adding-a-package.md) | Step-by-step how-tos with numbered verify steps | Design rationale (→ the RFC each guide links) |
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| Package README | The per-package contract: config, semantics, limitations, extension points | JSDoc restatement, generated-catalog restatement (event/tool tables), other packages' concerns |
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| [development.md](development.md) | Human-facing setup and daily workflow; a bilingual pair under the [i18n contract](i18n/README.md) | Gate-by-gate enumerations that drift from `package.json` scripts |
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| Generated catalogs: [cordis-catalog](cordis-catalog/events-and-services.md), [tool-catalog](tool-catalog/tools.md), [module-graph.md](module-graph.md) | Exhaustive enumerations regenerated from source, freshness-gated | Hand edits of any kind |
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| Skills (`.agents/skills/`) | Workflows: how to carry out a recurring task against the contracts | The contracts themselves (→ docs) |
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Placement test: a story about a bug → postmortem. Why we chose X → RFC. How to do task Y → cookbook. What type Z looks like → core-data-structures. What package P promises → its README. A rule every agent must always obey → root AGENTS.md, one line, linking the home that holds the why.
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## Budgets and the ceiling gate
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Standing docs accrete: every PR has a lesson it wants to append, and without displacement pressure nothing ever leaves. The gate is that pressure. [scripts/doc-budgets.manifest.json](../scripts/doc-budgets.manifest.json) lists the accretion-prone standing docs with a word ceiling each; `pnpm run verify-doc-budgets` (part of `doc-sync`, so CI and pre-push run it) fails when a doc exceeds its ceiling, and fails when a budgeted file is missing so a rename cannot orphan its budget.
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- Ceilings are an enforcement frontier: a ceiling starts at the doc's current size (freezing further growth) and ratchets down as the doc is brought to its target. Target budgets: root `AGENTS.md` ≤ 1,500 words; `architecture.md` ≤ 1,800; each subtree `AGENTS.md` ≤ 600, except this file (which carries the standard) ≤ 1,000; `packages/README.md` ≤ 600.
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- When the gate goes red, the fix is to relocate or condense per the taxonomy above. Raising a ceiling is the last resort: the PR description must justify it, and the manifest diff is the reviewable act.
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- Unbudgeted tiers (package READMEs, RFCs, reference matrices) have no ceiling — length is legitimate there when every row is a fact. Review and the slop checklist govern them instead.
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## The slop checklist
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Hunt these in any doc you write or review; the [dsh-doc-standards](../.agents/skills/dsh-doc-standards/SKILL.md) skill runs this list as an audit:
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- The same rule stated in more than one home. Grep a distinctive phrase; keep one home, convert the rest to links.
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- Narrated history: "previously", "now", "no longer", "used to", "renamed", "was moved", references to PRs or commits. State the current fact; the why belongs in an RFC, the story in a postmortem or git.
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- A war story told inline where a one-line rule plus a postmortem/RFC link would do.
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- Implementation-status annotations in prose or diagrams ("implemented!", "future: …"). Status rots; the repo layout and package manifests carry it.
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- Hand-restating a generated catalog or JSDoc: event tables, tool arg tables, method signatures. Link instead.
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- Paragraph walls: one paragraph carrying several rules and parenthetical asides. Split it, or demote the detail to the linked home.
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- Emphasis inflation: bold, CAPS, or "critically" everywhere means nothing stands out. Reserve emphasis for the clause that changes behavior.
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- Spec-speak in `implemented/` RFCs: "should", migration plans, acceptance checklists. An implemented RFC describes what is, per [rfc/implemented/AGENTS.md](rfc/implemented/AGENTS.md).
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## Cross-reference with machine-checkable links, never free prose
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When one doc refers to another doc, an RFC, a package README, or any file in the repo, link it with a **relative Markdown link** to the actual path — `[capability seams](rfc/implemented/architecture/2026-06-13-capability-seams.md)`, `[architecture.md](architecture.md)`. Do NOT refer to it by bare prose or by a number ("see ADR 0009", "per RFC 005"): a number is not checkable, goes stale the moment a file is renamed, and forces the reader to go hunting. A relative link is verified mechanically — `pnpm run verify-md-links` (part of `doc-sync`, see [the cross-link lint RFC](rfc/implemented/process/2026-06-18-markdown-cross-link-lint.md)) fails CI and the pre-push hook if any relative target does not exist, so a rename that orphans a link is caught before review rather than rotting silently.
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When one doc refers to another doc, an RFC, a package README, or any file in the repo, link it with a relative Markdown link to the actual path — never bare prose or a number ("see RFC 005"), which is uncheckable and rots on rename. `pnpm run verify-md-links` (part of `doc-sync`; see [the cross-link lint RFC](rfc/implemented/process/2026-06-18-markdown-cross-link-lint.md)) fails when a relative target does not exist, so a rename that orphans a link is caught before review. This is also why RFC files carry dates and topics instead of stable numbers: they survive moves between lifecycle and class folders without dangling references.
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This is why the RFC tree carries no stable numbers: files are named `yyyy-mm-dd-topic-title.md` and referred to by link, so they survive moves between lifecycle folders (`proposed/`/`implemented/`/`rejected/`) and class folders without a dangling reference. When you move or rename a doc, the gate tells you every inbound link you still need to fix.
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The gate checks file *existence*, not `#anchor` validity — a link to a real file with a wrong heading fragment still passes. Prefer linking the file (and a heading when it helps the reader), but don't rely on the gate to catch a stale anchor.
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## RFCs
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Design decisions and proposals live in [rfc/](rfc/) — one kind of doc, grouped by lifecycle (`proposed/`/`implemented/`/`rejected/`) then by class (`feature`/`bug-fix`/`simplification`/`architecture`/`process`/`testing`). See [rfc/README.md](rfc/README.md) for the class definitions, the naming scheme, and when to write one.
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The gate checks file existence, not `#anchor` validity — a stale heading fragment on a real file still passes, so verify anchors yourself when linking to one.
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@@ -2,5 +2,5 @@
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# side as of the last confirmed-consistent state. Both languages carry equal authority;
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# after editing either side, bring the other along and re-record with:
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# pnpm run verify-translation-pairing --write
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development.md: 3e11ae594759e6251e46f3bf9e0b021d9e1555c5
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development.zh.md: e8cea20a713767411304c2a3c97099004b9392c3
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development.md: 28babca2b59c844690750d767c242c08c37bf702
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development.zh.md: b34c52cebd3f333b6554ca2b5ebd66463e436572
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@@ -100,7 +100,8 @@ pnpm run gen-cordis-catalog # regenerate docs/cordis-catalog/events-and-serv
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pnpm run verify-cordis-catalog # fail if the cordis events/services catalog is stale
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pnpm run verify-md-wrap # fail on hard-wrapped prose paragraphs in docs/README markdown
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pnpm run verify-type-equiv # fail if a ```ts type-equiv doc block drifts from its source type
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pnpm run doc-sync # doc-typecheck, cordis-catalog freshness, markdown wrap/link, and type-equiv verification
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pnpm run verify-doc-budgets # fail if a budgeted standing doc exceeds its word ceiling
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pnpm run doc-sync # all Markdown/doc gates; see the doc-sync script in package.json for the full list
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pnpm run gen-module-graph # regenerate docs/module-graph.md from package peerDeps
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pnpm run verify-module-graph # fail if docs/module-graph.md is stale
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pnpm run build # emit lib/types intermediates, then bundle lib/index.* runtime files
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@@ -100,7 +100,8 @@ pnpm run gen-cordis-catalog # regenerate docs/cordis-catalog/events-and-serv
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pnpm run verify-cordis-catalog # fail if the cordis events/services catalog is stale
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pnpm run verify-md-wrap # fail on hard-wrapped prose paragraphs in docs/README markdown
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pnpm run verify-type-equiv # fail if a ```ts type-equiv doc block drifts from its source type
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pnpm run doc-sync # doc-typecheck, cordis-catalog freshness, markdown wrap/link, and type-equiv verification
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pnpm run verify-doc-budgets # fail if a budgeted standing doc exceeds its word ceiling
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pnpm run doc-sync # all Markdown/doc gates; see the doc-sync script in package.json for the full list
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pnpm run gen-module-graph # regenerate docs/module-graph.md from package peerDeps
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pnpm run verify-module-graph # fail if docs/module-graph.md is stale
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pnpm run build # emit lib/types intermediates, then bundle lib/index.* runtime files
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@@ -154,6 +154,7 @@ Do NOT write one for a mechanical or local choice (a variable name, a one-file r
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| [Classify RFCs by kind via path-encoded subdirectories](implemented/process/2026-06-20-rfc-classification.md) | 2026-06-20 |
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| [Generated tool-schema catalog (boot-and-harvest)](implemented/process/2026-07-02-tool-schema-catalog.md) | 2026-07-02 |
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| [Bilingual documentation via paired sibling files and a pairing gate](implemented/process/2026-07-02-bilingual-docs-and-pairing-gate.md) | 2026-07-02 |
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| [Documentation tiers, budgets, and the ceiling gate](implemented/process/2026-07-04-doc-tiers-and-budgets.md) | 2026-07-04 |
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### Testing
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# Documentation tiers, budgets, and the ceiling gate
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## Context
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The repo's standing docs accrete. Root `AGENTS.md` reached 8,130 words through 50 commits in two and a half weeks — each PR appending its own lesson, none displacing anything — until the same rule was stated two or three times inside one file (the pushed-branch rewrite ban ~600 words across two sections; the with-key e2e policy ~400 words across two), an incident already recorded in [postmortem 0001](../../../postmortem/0001-acp-default-export-drops-inject.md) was retold inline at ~750 words, and the per-package one-liner map existed in five places. [architecture.md](../../../architecture.md) grew the same way: paragraph walls re-narrating RFCs it already links, plus implementation-status annotations that were stale the week after they were written. The writing rules that forbid this (document current state, never history) predate the drift and sat in the very file violating them — prose rules alone do not hold against accretion pressure. The repo's standing answer to an invariant of this kind is a mechanical check ([quality gates](2026-06-11-quality-gates.md), [doc-sync enforcement](2026-06-11-doc-sync-enforcement.md)).
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## Decision
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- **A tier taxonomy with one home per fact.** [docs/AGENTS.md](../../../AGENTS.md) is the documentation standard: it assigns every Markdown tier a single job (standing orders, system map, type catalog, decision records, incident stories, how-tos, per-package contracts, generated catalogs, workflows), forbids restating a fact outside its home tier (link instead), and carries the slop checklist used when writing or reviewing any doc.
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- **A narrow, hard budget gate.** [scripts/verify-doc-budgets.ts](../../../../scripts/verify-doc-budgets.ts) joins `doc-sync`: every doc listed in [scripts/doc-budgets.manifest.json](../../../../scripts/doc-budgets.manifest.json) must stay under its word ceiling (`wc -w` semantics, whole file), and a budgeted file that is missing fails the gate so a rename cannot silently orphan its budget. Scope is deliberately only the accretion-prone standing docs — the root and subtree `AGENTS.md` files, `architecture.md`, `packages/README.md`. Reference docs, RFCs, and package READMEs are unbudgeted: length is legitimate there when every row is a fact, and review plus the slop checklist govern them.
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- **Ceilings are an enforcement frontier that ratchets.** A ceiling starts at the doc's current size, freezing growth from day one, and ratchets down as the doc is brought to its target budget (root `AGENTS.md` ≤ 1,500 words; `architecture.md` ≤ 1,800; subtree `AGENTS.md` ≤ 600; `packages/README.md` ≤ 600) — the same rollout mechanism as the [translation-pairing `required` list](2026-07-02-bilingual-docs-and-pairing-gate.md). When the gate goes red the fix is to relocate or condense per the taxonomy; raising a ceiling is permitted only with explicit justification in the PR description, the manifest diff being the reviewable act.
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- **A thin workflow skill, contracts in docs.** [.agents/skills/dsh-doc-standards](../../../../.agents/skills/dsh-doc-standards/SKILL.md) carries the placement/audit/red-gate workflow and defers to the standard as its source of truth, the same split as [dsh-translate-docs](../../../../.agents/skills/dsh-translate-docs/SKILL.md) over the i18n contract.
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## Alternatives considered
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- **Skill and review discipline without a gate** — rejected: the accretion above happened while the current-state rule and reviewer attention already existed; a prose rule with no mechanical backstop demonstrably does not hold here, and this repo's own [quality-gates stance](2026-06-11-quality-gates.md) says invariants worth keeping are worth encoding.
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- **A broad gate over every doc tier** — rejected: a blanket ceiling punishes exactly the right kind of long doc (a feature matrix or type catalog where every row is a fact, e.g. `packages/ui/acp/acp-feature-support.md`) and generates per-file override churn that trains contributors to rubber-stamp raises.
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- **Housing the standard inside the skill** — rejected: contracts live in docs and workflows in skills; a standard packed into SKILL.md is invisible to an agent that edits docs without invoking the skill, and `docs/AGENTS.md` already loads as subtree instructions for anyone working under `docs/`.
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## Consequences
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- Adding to a budgeted doc now requires displacement: relocate the addition to its taxonomy home with a pointer, or condense existing prose to pay for it. Growth without pruning fails CI.
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- The bring-under-target rewrites land as stacked follow-ups that ratchet the manifest down as they merge; until each lands, its doc's frozen ceiling only prevents further growth.
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- Word count is a crude proxy accepted deliberately: it cannot judge quality, but it forces the relocation decision at exactly the moment content is being added, which is when the author has the context to place it correctly.
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## Deferred work
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The first audit cycle under the standard, in rough priority order (evidence gathered in the survey that motivated this RFC):
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- Root `AGENTS.md` rewrite to the ≤ 1,500-word target: rules stay as one-liners plus links; situational clusters move to `docs/testing.md`, `docs/defensive-patterns.md`, and a cookbook guide for responding to review across a stacked PR chain; doc-authoring rules consolidate into `docs/AGENTS.md`.
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- `architecture.md` rewrite to the ≤ 1,800-word target: seam narration compressed to pointers, the MVP feature-to-mechanism checklist moved de-statused into [the extension cookbook](../../../cookbook/extension-cookbook.md), the stale layering-diagram row fixed.
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- `packages/README.md` reduced to the group table plus the dependency rule; the hand-maintained ASCII dependency graph yields to the generated [module-graph.md](../../../module-graph.md); group READMEs become the canonical per-package map.
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- Package README trims where generated catalogs or JSDoc are restated or history is narrated: `packages/ui/acp`, `packages/core/tools`, `packages/bash/tool-bash`, `packages/core/session`, `packages/compact/compact-basic`, `packages/session-persistence/session-persistence`.
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- [The web capability seam RFC](../architecture/2026-06-24-web-capability-seam.md) converted from spec-speak to shipped reality (drop the migration plan and test enumeration, "should" → "is").
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- `docs/core-data-structures/core.md`: drop the JSDoc walls from the `Agent`/`GenerateOptions` type-equiv pastes per that page's own stated rule.
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- [Postmortem 0001](../../../postmortem/0001-acp-default-export-drops-inject.md): merge the overlapping Executive summary and Summary sections.
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