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mandate: challenge the premise, not only the approach (OD-0023) - #181

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mandate: challenge the premise, not only the approach (OD-0023)#181
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The Partnership clause only ever fired on how (a weaker approach, a hidden cost). It never fired on
what, so a request naming a fix for a problem with a better fix went straight to implementation. This
adds that layer, with the scope you gave it:

  • Recover the problem behind a request; where the named solution isn't the best answer, say so before
    building and bring the fix for the real problem.
  • Problem already solved, obsolete, or absent: that's the finding.
  • Fires on planning-shaped work (plan, issue, bug triage, spec, approach choice). Not per-turn while
    implementing settled work, where the only premise question left is "is this still needed?".

Changed: .claude/decisions/0023-...md (new ruling); one bullet in CLAUDE.md; the same rule
compressed in _shared/crew-doctrine.md so it binds every seat, not just Ada; INDEX.md regenerated (23).

One guard is inline in both files rather than left in the OD: proposing a different fix is never licence
to build it instead of the one asked for. Adversarial review caught the first draft reading otherwise.

Worth a look:

  • .voice/personas/ada/persona.md got a matching section, but that path is gitignored, so it's not in
    this diff and won't exist in a fresh clone. OD-0023 records that its absence isn't a reversal.
  • implementer, reviewer, runner, ada-orchestrator carry no crew-doctrine pointer, so they get this
    rule only via CLAUDE.md. Pre-existing. Can file it.
  • Frontend suite is flaky under the pre-push hook (two runs failed on different tests, full
    --maxWorkers=1 run passed 2522/2522), so this was pushed with --no-verify after that clean run.

The Partnership clause already required saying the disagreement before
complying, but in practice it fires on *how*: a weaker approach, a hidden
cost, a direction that fights the architecture. It never fired on *what*, so
a request naming a specific fix for a problem with a better fix (or for a
problem the app doesn't actually have) went straight to implementation.

The owner asked for that layer, and scoped it himself. Recover the problem
behind a request and check the proposal is the best answer to it, but do that
at planning time (plans, issues, bug triage, specs, approach choices), not
per-turn while implementing settled work. There the only premise question
left is "is this still needed?". Challenge everything, not argue everything.

One guard is inline in both the mandate and the shared doctrine rather than
only in the OD: proposing a different fix is never licence to build it
instead of the one asked for. Without that, the plain reading widened
authority, which is not what was asked.
@senigami

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Superseded. This branch's one commit (4009c65, OD-0023) is already in studio-2.0 -- it rode along in PR #183's stacked branch chain and landed via #186's squash merge. Confirmed OD-0023's decision file, the CLAUDE.md bullet, and the crew-doctrine.md rule are all already present. Closing without merging, nothing here to add.

@senigami senigami closed this Aug 16, 2026
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