| name | analyze |
| description | Use when constitution, spec, plan and tasks all exist and you want them cross-read against each other before any code is written โ the rsc-sdd pre-implementation gate. Reports coverage gaps, contradictions, duplication, ambiguity and scope drift; edits nothing. NOT the task breakdown (that is `tasks`), NOT the coding (that is `implement`), NOT the post-code test gate (that is `verify`), NOT resolving ambiguity (that is `clarify`). |
| tags | ["sdd","analyze","consistency"] |
| recommends | ["implement"] |
| profiles | ["core","full"] |
| origin | risco |
Analyze โ the pre-implementation consistency gate
You have a constitution, a spec, a plan and a task list. Four artifacts written at four different moments, by a mind that drifted a little each time. analyze reads all four against each other and surfaces where they disagree. It is the cheapest place in the whole chain to catch a problem โ a contradiction found here costs a sentence; the same contradiction found mid-implement costs a rewrite.
Sixth phase of the rsc-sdd chain (constitution โ specify โ clarify โ plan โ tasks โ analyze โ implement); the method itself lives in ../sdd/SKILL.md. It is a gate, not a worker: it produces a report and stops. The user reads the findings and decides what to fix, and which phase to send each fix back to.
Report only. Resolve nothing. Never edit the constitution, spec, plan or tasks; never open a code file to "just fix it"; never silently reconcile a contradiction by picking a side. This one is absolute because a gate that quietly fixes things stops being a gate: the user never learns the spec was wrong, the plan built on the old assumption stays stale, and the "consistency check" has manufactured a new inconsistency. Name the conflict, show both sides with locations, propose where it should be resolved, hand the decision back.
Model tier: heavy (adversarial cross-reading). Resolve and apply it per ../sdd/references/model-routing.md; routing is off unless models.enabled: true in 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/config.yaml.
Accompaniment dial. Read 02-DOCS/wiki/harness/user-profile.md before reporting โ default to L2 and say the harness has not gauged the user yet if there is no profile. The dial flexes how the report reads, never what gets checked; the six analyses always run in full.
| Dial | The report renders as |
|---|
| L0 | Finding table only: severity, the two artifacts, the conflict in one line. No prose. |
| L1 | + a one-line why it matters per CRITICAL/HIGH finding. |
| L2 | + per finding, the recommended resolution phase and the trade-off of leaving it. |
| L3 | + full walk-through: quote both sides, explain the consequence at implement time in plain language, lay out the options so a non-technical user can choose. |
Inputs โ locate the four artifacts
Read all four before analyzing. The rsc-sdd artifacts live under 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/, indexed from 02-DOCS/wiki/index.md (the Knowledge map; root CLAUDE.md keeps only a short pointer to it):
| Artifact | Canonical location | Role in the check |
|---|
| Constitution | 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/constitution.md | The non-negotiables. Everything below must obey it. |
| Spec | 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/specs/<slug>.md | WHAT & WHY. The source of truth for requirements. |
| Plan | 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/plans/<slug>.md | HOW. Must cover every spec requirement, add nothing the spec didn't ask for. |
| Tasks | task list inside the plan artifact | The ordered, verifiable steps. Must implement the plan, no more. |
If any artifact is missing, stop and say so โ analyze cannot gate what isn't there. Name the missing one and the phase that produces it. If a <slug> is ambiguous (several specs), ask which feature is being gated; do not analyze all of them blindly.
The six analyses
Run every one. Each compares a specific pair (or the whole set against the constitution) and emits findings.
- Constitution compliance โ does any spec requirement, plan decision or task violate a non-negotiable (stack canon, quality bar, convention)? A constitution breach is the highest-severity finding there is; the constitution wins by definition.
- Requirement coverage (spec โ plan โ tasks) โ map every spec requirement forward. Each must trace to at least one plan section and at least one task. A requirement with no task is a gap (it will silently not ship). Build the coverage map below.
- Scope drift (tasks/plan โ spec) โ map backward. Any plan section or task that satisfies no spec requirement is drift โ work the spec never asked for. Flag it; the fix is either cut the work or amend the spec, and that is the user's call.
- Contradiction โ direct disagreements between two artifacts: the spec says Postgres, the plan says SQLite; the spec says "no auth in v1", a task adds login. Quote both sides.
- Duplication โ the same requirement stated twice in conflicting words, or two tasks doing the same job. Duplication is where contradictions breed later.
- Ambiguity / underspecification โ requirements or tasks too vague to implement or to verify ("handle errors gracefully", "make it fast" with no number, a task with no done-check). These do not block by themselves but feed back to
clarify (spec) or tasks (missing done-check).
- Carrier completeness (isolated-implementer check). Because
implement/parallel dispatch tasks to context-isolated developer subagents that see only their own task, also confirm the plan carries a ยง0 Global Constraints block (verbatim project-wide values) and that every task whose correctness depends on a contract it doesn't own has an Interfaces block (Consumes/Produces, exact signatures). A constraint or neighbor-signature that lives only in prose is invisible to the blind worker โ flag a missing carrier as AMBIGUOUS (it will surface as drift or breakage at implement time). See ../plan/references/plan-template.md ยง0 and ../tasks/SKILL.md (Per-task Interfaces).
Requirement coverage map (build this every run)
A copy-able table that makes gaps and drift visible at a glance:
REQ-ID | Spec requirement (short) | Plan section | Task(s) | Status
------ | ------------------------------- | ------------ | ------- | ----------
R1 | Email/password sign-up | ยง3 Auth | T2,T3 | covered
R2 | Rate-limit login (5/min/IP) | ยง3 Auth | โ | GAP
R3 | โ | ยง5 Webhooks | T9 | DRIFT
R4 | "Fast" search | ยง4 Search | T6 | AMBIGUOUS (no metric)
GAP โ spec requirement with no task โ it won't be built.
DRIFT โ plan/task with no spec requirement โ unrequested scope.
AMBIGUOUS โ covered but not specific enough to verify later.
covered โ traces cleanly spec โ plan โ task.
Severity scale
Rank every finding so the user triages fast:
- CRITICAL โ constitution violation, or a contradiction that makes the artifacts un-implementable as written. Must resolve before
implement.
- HIGH โ a coverage GAP on a core requirement, or scope DRIFT that adds real cost. Resolve before implement.
- MEDIUM โ duplication, or AMBIGUOUS items with no number/done-check. Resolve or consciously accept.
- LOW โ wording mismatches, cosmetic inconsistencies. Note and move on.
Output โ the report (and where it goes)
Produce a single consistency report:
- Verdict line โ
GATE: PASS (zero CRITICAL/HIGH) or GATE: BLOCKED (one or more CRITICAL/HIGH), with the counts.
- Coverage map โ the table above.
- Findings table โ
# | Severity | Type | Artifact A (loc) | Artifact B (loc) | Conflict | Resolve in (phase).
- Recommended routing โ group fixes by the phase that owns them (
clarify for spec ambiguity, plan for missing architecture, tasks for a missing done-check, constitution if a principle itself is wrong). If findings pour in across all six checks, the artifacts diverged badly โ recommend re-running clarify/plan before a line-by-line analyze is even useful.
Write the report to 02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/analysis/<slug>.md (create the dir if absent) and index it in 02-DOCS/wiki/index.md under the sdd/ topic, so the next phase and the harness can find it. It is an OKF v0.1 wiki article: open it with YAML frontmatter carrying a non-empty type: (use type: analysis), a timestamp in ISO 8601, and standard markdown links โ never wikilinks. The report is the artifact analyze owns โ it is the only thing analyze writes. Per-run point-in-time; overwrite on re-run, the wiki keeps history.
Render it at the dial's verbosity. Do not log a decision to decisions.md โ analyze decides nothing; the phase that resolves the finding logs its own decision.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Why it breaks the gate / do instead |
|---|
| Fixing a "trivial" contradiction in the spec yourself | Then you are clarify/plan/tasks, not analyze. Report it; the user resolves. |
| Starting to code because nothing CRITICAL turned up | Analyze never transitions to code. Hand the verdict to implement; that phase starts the work. |
| Waving through plan work the spec never asked for because it's obviously a good idea | That is DRIFT. Flag it. Good ideas still need the spec amended (user's call), or they are silent scope creep. |
| Siding with the plan when it contradicts the constitution | The constitution wins by definition โ flag CRITICAL. If the principle itself is wrong, that is a constitution change the user makes, not a quiet override here. |
| Guessing what a vague requirement meant | Guessing defeats the gate. Mark AMBIGUOUS and route to clarify; do not encode your guess. |
Result envelope
End with the parseable block every SDD phase shares, so the dispatcher can chain without
interpreting prose (contract: ../sdd/SKILL.md):
{
"status": "complete|blocked|failed",
"executive_summary": "Cross-read of spec/plan/tasks against the constitution; findings ranked.",
"artifact": "02-DOCS/wiki/sdd/analysis/<slug>.md",
"next_recommended": "implement",
"risk": "low|medium|high",
"skill_resolution": {
"used": ["analyze"],
"missing": [],
"fallback": [],
"compact_rules": ["Read adversarially across artifacts, not inside one.", "A finding without a location is an opinion."]
},
"evidence": ["report path exists", "blockers listed with artifact + location"
Next in the chain
On GATE: PASS (or once the user consciously accepts the remaining MEDIUM/LOW findings), proceed to implement โ execute the tasks with TDD discipline, delegating concrete test tooling to the relevant stack skill (fastapi, nextjs, go, flutter, postgresdb). On GATE: BLOCKED, route each CRITICAL/HIGH finding to its owning phase (clarify, plan, tasks, or constitution), let the user resolve, then re-run analyze. The gate only opens once.