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AC self-check must walk the proposal's authoritative AC list, not the task-file's coarsened summary #505

@lukstafi

Description

@lukstafi

Summary

The task-file shows a coarsened summary of acceptance criteria (e.g. three bullets for an Imbue-study task), while the authoritative AC list lives in the proposal file (e.g. AC1–AC6). When the coder's AC self-check enumerates the task-file bullets rather than the proposal ACs, the reviewer flags the gap as blocking — exactly what happened in gh-ocannl-270 round 2. This is a recurring failure mode worth a structural fix.

Data Points

  • "AC self-check walks the proposal's ACs, not the task-file bullets. The task-file shows a coarsened summary; the authoritative ACs live in the proposal file. When the proposal expands the task-file's N bullets into M > N ACs, the self-check must enumerate all M with separate evidence lines. Skipping the proposal-vs-task delta is a recurring failure mode and the reviewer treats it as blocking." (from gh-ocannl-270 / coder, 2026-05-05)

Raw Excerpts

Original feedback
  • AC self-check walks the proposal's ACs, not the task-file bullets. The task-file shows a coarsened summary; the authoritative ACs live in the proposal file. When the proposal expands the task-file's N bullets into M > N ACs, the self-check must enumerate all M with separate evidence lines. Skipping the proposal-vs-task delta is a recurring failure mode and the reviewer treats it as blocking.
    gh-ocannl-270--workflow-feedback-coder.md
  • "Issue is updated" means post a comment, not "the linked file mentions the issue." AC6-style criteria of the form "the GH issue is updated to link to X" are satisfied only by an actual GH-side update (comment or body edit) — a one-way cite from the docs to the issue does not close the loop.
    gh-ocannl-270--workflow-feedback-coder.md
    (Note: separately captured in docs/swe-textbook.md Entry A; cited here as same precipitating round.)

Suggested Action

Add a coder-skill instruction (pair-coder-work.md or worker-conventions.md) explicitly directing the AC self-check to read the proposal file and enumerate every AC there, with a one-line guidance that the task-file bullets are non-authoritative. Could also add a tiny mechanical lint that, in the coder's .peer-sync/ self-check artefact, the count of AC<N> evidence lines is >= the count of ^- AC or ^### AC lines in the linked proposal.

Related: #338 (traceability artifacts belong in proposal, not task file) — same root cause, sibling consequence.


Filed by ludics-feedback-digest

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