Exact-size ceilings turned every two-word wording fix into a gate
event. The policy amends to: a ceiling sits at least 5% above the
doc's current size (pre-rewrite) and keeps that margin when ratcheted
to target — routine edits pass, real growth still trips the gate.
Amended together in all four policy homes (docs/AGENTS.md § Budgets,
the doc-tiers RFC, the gate script's module comment, the skill's
ratchet rule) plus the manifest values, so prose and mechanics stay
consistent.
Applies the documentation standard to its biggest offender. Every rule
survives as one to three lines plus a link to its durable home; the
stories, duplicate statements, and re-narrations go:
- Situational clusters evict to new homes: docs/testing.md (tiers,
with-key policy, real-over-mock, world-verification, real-entry-path
guards), docs/defensive-patterns.md (the bug-class rules), and
docs/cookbook/responding-to-pr-review-on-a-stack.md (the stacked-PR
review procedure).
- Doc-authoring rules consolidate into docs/AGENTS.md § Writing rules
(current-state-never-history, md-wrap, ts-block compilation, @mode,
catalog same-change, pair same-change).
- packages/README.md drops to the group table + the extension-vs-bundle
dependency rule; the hand ASCII graph yields to the generated
module-graph.md; group READMEs are the canonical per-package map.
- packages/AGENTS.md keeps only its packages-specific rules (export
shape, ctx.get, real-Loader coverage); examples/AGENTS.md repoints
its with-key-policy link; rfc/README.md loses a narrated-history
aside; dsh-code-review / dsh-find-simplifications / verify-md-wrap
references follow the moved content.
- Budget manifest ratchets: AGENTS.md 8200 -> 1500 (now 1,495 words),
packages/README.md 1900 -> 600, packages/AGENTS.md 600 -> 450; the
two new eviction docs join the budget set (testing 800, defensive
550); docs/AGENTS.md raises 1000 -> 1250 for the absorbed writing
rules (the one justified increase). The doc-tiers RFC's deferred list
prunes the two items this change ships.
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.
