Gate Trace

Deterministic quality gate that combines traceability coverage and blind-spot data into a single PASS/FAIL/CONCERNS/WAIVED decision before release.

Decision Rules

Rule	Condition	Verdict
R1	Any undone story with 0 code tags	FAIL
R2	Any story done but no verify evidence	CONCERNS
R3	P0 story (top WSJF quartile) with 0% coverage	FAIL
R4	Overall coverage < 60%	CONCERNS
R6	P0 story + eNN-TEST_PLAN_LATEST.md exists + zero SC-eNNsYY-P0-* in test files	CONCERNS
R5	Overall ≥ 80% + no critical gaps + all verify → PASS	PASS

Oracle Confidence Downgrade

TEA-inspired: if trace links rely on heuristics rather than explicit tags, confidence drops.

Heuristic Ratio	Downgrade
> 50% links from heuristics (file-name or task-reference)	One level (PASS→CONCERNS, CONCERNS→FAIL)
> 80% links from heuristics	Two levels (PASS→FAIL, CONCERNS→FAIL)

Process

1. Pre-flight: Ensure scripts/trace-stories.sh --json has been run (produces specs/traceability-matrix.json). If not present, run it.
2. Ensure scripts/check-blind-spots.sh has been run (produces specs/blind-spots.json). If not present, run it.
3. Read specs/traceability-matrix.json and specs/blind-spots.json.
4. Apply decision rules R1–R5 in order (first match wins).
5. Apply oracle confidence downgrade based on the heuristic link ratio from the matrix's oracle_stats.
6. Drift check (e39s03): If specs/drift-report.json exists and has suspect links, mark verdict as CONCERNS with note: "Drift detected — some implementing files are newer than their specs. Run scripts/check-spec-drift.sh for details."
7. Output verdict + rationale to stdout.
8. Adversarial refute check (e45s32): Before emitting PASS, attempt to refute the verdict — list at least one concrete traceability gap that would block merge if it were real. If the gap is real, downgrade the verdict. Rubber-stamping is prohibited; every PASS must survive one refutation attempt.
9. Completeness critic (e45s05) — Run adversarial gap-finding:

bash scripts/lib/completeness-critic.sh

Classify output as BLOCKER / WARNING / FILLED. BLOCKER overrides any PASS verdict → FAIL. Append critic summary to rationale. 10. Update specs/execution-status.yaml with gate-trace result.

Verdict Semantics

Verdict	Meaning	Action
PASS	All gates satisfied	Proceed with merge
CONCERNS	Non-critical issues found	Requires explicit human override in state.yaml
FAIL	Critical traceability gap	Block merge — fix gap first
WAIVED	Cannot evaluate (missing inputs)	Skip gate — data not available

Output Format

gate_trace:
  verdict: PASS|CONCERNS|FAIL|WAIVED
  generated_at: "<ISO 8601>"
  rationale: "<human-readable explanation>"
  heuristic_ratio: <0.0–1.0>
  downgrade_applied: <true|false>

Integration Points

• release-branch SKILL.md — pre-PR gate (FAIL blocks merge).
• sync-skills.yml — runs trace-stories.sh --strict as its "Traceability gate" step (FAIL blocks pipeline), which shares this skill's coverage data (traceability-matrix.json) but does not invoke a gate-trace PASS/CONCERNS/FAIL/WAIVED verdict directly.
• verify-work SKILL.md — runs blind-spot checks; gate-trace consumes the result.

References

• BMAD TEA traceability approach (market survey 2026-07-02).
• scripts/trace-stories.sh (e38s01) — produces traceability-matrix.json.
• scripts/check-blind-spots.sh (e38s04) — produces blind-spots.json.
• specs/execution-status.yaml — output target for gate result.

Handoff

Gate: READY → next: release-branch (final step before merge) Writes: state.yaml handoff.next_skill = release-branch

Verify

→ verify: test -x scripts/run-gate-trace-verify.sh && bash scripts/run-gate-trace-verify.sh --self-test && echo OK