Engineering evolution: supervised, evidence-backed local changes

[TheAmericanMaker]

Outcome

Deliver a supervised, host-executed, evidence-backed in-place change with zero mandatory library references, durable attempts, current proof, independent review, and explicit human acceptance. This is a staged implementation tracker, not a shipped-capability claim or authorization to merge/release/deploy changes automatically.

Start here

Agent-ready handoff · vision · record contract · implementation plan · sanitized dogfood evidence. Documentation baseline PR #410 is merged at bbdf6b1a8b3bc348aa9e8f20a409c66df087af13. E01 remains the active foundation task; E09 is on maintainer hold, and other tasks remain dependency-gated.

Dependency-ready order

E01 may proceed. E09 is paused by maintainer request; do not start it without explicit resume, even though it has no dependency prerequisites. E01 owns the schema and trusted human-approval contract. Then follow native blocked-by links and the plan; do not reopen legacy completed pipelines or weaken synthesis gates.

Work items

• E01 — [E01] Freeze v1 engineering record and approval contracts #399
• E02 — [E02] Persist isolated changes and immutable attempts #400
• E03 — [E03] Bind records to stable input and candidate snapshots #401
• E04 — [E04] Plan a repository-local change without a library #402
• E05 — [E05] Ingest observed proof without promoting claims #403
• E06 — [E06] Enforce freshness, review, and acceptance gates #404
• E07 — [E07] Expose the experimental engineering MCP surface #405
• E08 — [E08] Drive supervised Traverse from a capable host #406
• E09 — [E09] Add slice-to-scenario traceability to planning artifacts #407
• E10 — [E10] Assess verification seams and agent addressability #408
• E11 — [E11] Verify the end-to-end loop and second-change continuity #409

Milestone acceptance

A real bounded fix and feature complete through a capable host; meaningful RED/GREEN proof and fresh independent review; actual human acceptance; interrupted attempt resumes; missing/wrong/stale proof is refused; a second change preserves prior history. Tests and fake approval fixtures alone do not establish the human/host outcome. Unsupported human interaction is a visible incomplete boundary, not a bypass.

Deferred planning gates

Reference-backed reviewed synthesis; knowledge refresh and second-project reuse; richer host/Pi build UX; team coordination and bounded autonomy; PR/release/deployment integration. These are not secretly included in this milestone. Scope separately after the local loop proves useful.

[TheAmericanMaker]

Documentation and roadmap merged in #410 at bbdf6b1a8b3bc348aa9e8f20a409c66df087af13. Start at docs/engineering/README.md.

Ready to start independently: #399 (E01: record/approval contract) and #407 (E09: slice-to-scenario traceability). All other tasks retain native blocked-by dependencies. E01 must close fully, including the reviewed host-approval contract; no schema-only bypass.

Verification: local build and 939 tests passed; production audit reported no vulnerabilities; independent privacy and plan reviews approved; all ten published files read back and match scanned committed bytes; eleven child issues and dependency edges verified. Exact PR-head CI passed on Node 22/24 and CodeQL. The reporting-only Windows job has the same ten failures as the base branch, tracked in #393–#395.

This is a documentation delivery, not a runtime feature release. No implementation child is closed and no tag or deployment was created.

Post-merge verification: CI run 35271846746 completed successfully for exact merge commit bbdf6b1; Node 22/24 jobs passed. The existing reporting-only Windows job remains failed and separately tracked.