Lamprey Change Control

When to use / when not

• Use before starting any work in this repo, when planning a phase, when a hook rejects your commit, when deciding whether something needs user approval, or when tempted to add a feature.
• Don't use for the mechanics of running tests (see lamprey-validation-and-qa), release execution (see lamprey-ship-and-release), or writing DEVLOG/README entries (see lamprey-docs-and-writing).

TL;DR

1. Classify the change: trivial one-off → just do it with the standard gates. Anything non-trivial → plan first, get explicit approval, then execute.
2. Non-trivial work follows P-SPR → approval → STS: a saved plan file, an explicit user green light, then prompt-by-prompt execution with a verify gate and one commit per prompt.
3. Every commit must pass the hook gates (lint, tsc ×2, AI-artifact scan, message rules including a mandatory trailer).
4. Never push unless the user asked. When they ask, push on the first try.
5. The project is era-locked: features beyond the Claude Code / Opus 4.5 era (2025-11-24 → 2026-01-24) require explicit user authorization, documented as such.

Change classification

You want to…	Classification	Required gate
Fix a typo, single small edit, answer a question	Trivial one-off	Standard commit gates (hooks run tsc ×2 + lint + artifact scan)
Fix a bug touching 1–3 files	Small change	Same + targeted npx vitest run <affected tests>; npm run verify:proof -- --no-tests if electron/ipc/chat.ts is touched
Add a feature, refactor across files, new subsystem	Non-trivial	Full P-SPR → approval → STS cycle (below)
Add anything beyond the Opus 4.5-era feature set	Era-lock exception	Explicit user authorization first; document the exception (see Loop Phase precedent)
Release a version	Ship	lamprey-ship-and-release pipeline + README update (lamprey-docs-and-writing)
Delete a subsystem	Non-trivial + user direction	Deletion is a legitimate tool here (Unburdening precedent) but only on explicit user direction

The P-SPR → approval → STS cycle

P-SPR = Plan – Sequential Prompt Roster. A single canonical plan file at PLANNING/LAMPREY_<PHASE>_PLAN.md (template: PLANNING/PSPR_TEMPLATE.md) defining one phase end to end: goal, scope, non-goals, ordered numbered prompts, files touched, verify gates, commit/DEVLOG discipline, completion criteria, and approval state.

• Drafted or pasted text is not a P-SPR until saved as that plan file.
• A plan's own "STS authorization" wording is not approval. Only the user's explicit go-ahead is.

STS = Stem to Stern. After explicit approval, execute the roster in order, first prompt through phase wrap. Per prompt:

1. Do the work of that prompt only. No skipping, batching, or reopening plan decisions unless blocked by new facts.
2. Pass the verify gate:
   • npx tsc --noEmit -p tsconfig.node.json — clean
   • npx tsc --noEmit -p tsconfig.web.json — clean
   • npx vitest run <affected test files> — passing
   • If electron/ipc/chat.ts was touched: npm run verify:proof -- --no-tests → exit 0
3. Write the DEVLOG entry (format in lamprey-docs-and-writing).
4. Commit — one commit per prompt, message per the hook rules below.
5. Mark the prompt [x] in the plan.

Phase wrap gate: full npx vitest run + npm run build + npm run verify:proof, version bump, README + CLAUDE.md current-state update, DEVLOG phase entry.

Hook-enforced commit rules (verified against scripts/hooks/ 2026-07-02)

Install once: npm run hooks:install (sets core.hooksPath to scripts/hooks).

pre-commit runs, in order: node scripts/check-ai-artifacts.cjs → npm run lint → npx tsc --noEmit -p tsconfig.node.json → npx tsc --noEmit -p tsconfig.web.json. First failure stops the commit.

commit-msg hard rules:

• Required owner footer, verbatim, on its own line: Authored and reviewed by Basho Parks, copyright 2026
• Subject: non-empty, ≤ 72 chars, states the change (no filler openers: "This commit", "Updated", "Various", "Misc", "WIP", "Changes", "Some")
• Banned phrases anywhere in the message (case-insensitive): Co-Authored-By: Claude, Generated with, 🤖, As an AI, Certainly, Here's what, Here is what, Key changes:, Summary of changes, In this commit, This PR , delve, seamlessly, leverages
• Body cap: subject + up to 12 body lines (trailer excluded). Long explanations go in DEVLOG.md.
• Bypass requires --no-verify — a deliberate human decision, not a convenience.

pre-push runs npm run verify:proof (full gate).

check-ai-artifacts.cjs scans the staged diff (added lines) for machine residue: elision placeholders ("… existing code …"), placeholder tags/secrets (YOUR_API_KEY), assistant voice ("As an AI…"), narration comments in code ("Let's…", "TODO: implement"). Exempt paths include PLANNING/**, DEVLOG.md, README.md, *.md. Deliberate bypass: ALLOW_AI_ARTIFACTS=1 git commit … (rare).

Push policy

• The user is the reviewer and pusher. Do not volunteer pushes.
• When the user explicitly asks to push (any phrasing), execute on the first try — the request itself satisfies the review step.
• Never --force without an explicit force-push instruction.
• Parallel sessions on this repo must run in separate git worktrees so commits don't conflate.

Era-lock as a change-control rule

Scope is locked to Claude Code / Opus 4.5-era parity (2025-11-24 → 2026-01-24). Features from later eras are out of scope by default. The one shipped exception is the Loop Phase (v0.15.0), and it is the template for how an exception happens:

1. Explicit user authorization in their own words ("incorporate a Looping option").
2. Documented as a deliberate exception in CLAUDE.md, the plan, and the DEVLOG.
3. Shipped OFF by default (loopsEnabled: false) so the era-faithful default experience is unchanged.

Corollary: the multi-agent pipeline, auto-router, runtime proof gate, and composer were deliberately deleted (Unburdening, v0.14.0, −7,400 lines). Do not rebuild them. If old docs reference them, those entries are historical record.

The non-negotiables and the incident behind each

Rule	Rationale	Incident
Every prompt passes its verify gate before commit	A green gate that silently skips is how P0s ship	v0.9.2: the schema-init regression test was silently skipping under a native-binding ABI mismatch; an invalid DDL shipped and every chat send failed. See lamprey-failure-archaeology.
Tests must assert the right invariant, not just pass	A passing suite can codify a defect	v0.11.1: two unit tests asserted that the Coder's reply was excluded from the reviewer packet — locking the bug in and making it invisible at CI.
No debug/diagnostic code force-enabled in shipped builds	Plaintext logs can capture secrets	JM-1/SEC-3: v0.15.x shipped with forceDebugTraceOn() persisting tool arguments to a plaintext log. Removed in v0.16.0.
Config-file writes must be atomic; corrupt files preserved, never healed to {}	A torn write must not destroy credentials	JM-13: pre-v0.16.0, a crash mid-write to keys.json could wipe every provider key permanently. Now temp+rename via electron/services/atomic-json.ts.
Prefer deletion over gating for out-of-scope machinery	Gated dead weight still costs prompt bytes, maintenance, and cogency	Unburdening (v0.14.0): user-directed excision of the multi-agent stack; the product got simpler and prompt bytes dropped.
Any settings default must change in BOTH canonical and renderer literals	Silent drift between main and renderer once shipped wrong behavior	SP-1: renderer said 'auto', main said 'single', main silently won. Now default-app-settings.test.ts locks them byte-for-byte.
Documented ≠ wired: verify call sites	Load-bearing claims were found scaffolded but dead	Wiring Closure (v0.9.1): seven documented features had no caller. LP-0: the loop scaffold never ran a turn. See lamprey-proof-and-analysis-toolkit recipe 2.

Provenance and maintenance

Based on direct reads of scripts/hooks/commit-msg, scripts/hooks/pre-commit, scripts/hooks/pre-push, scripts/check-ai-artifacts.cjs, the active parity PSPR, and CLAUDE.md Execution Rules, at v0.20.0 (2026-07-18).

Re-verify when in doubt:

• Trailer text: grep -n "TRAILER=" scripts/hooks/commit-msg
• Gate composition: cat scripts/hooks/pre-commit scripts/hooks/pre-push
• Current version: node -e "console.log(require('./package.json').version)"
• Active plan: inspect PLANNING/LAMPREY_CODEX_JULY_2026_PARITY_PSPR.md and CLAUDE.md "Current State"

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Authored and reviewed by Basho Parks, copyright 2026