| name | decision-lifecycle |
| description | Author and track Architecture Decision Records. Routed to when the user invokes /adr to record a new decision or /adr-status to list ADR health. Authors numbered, dated, user-attributed ADRs under .codearbiter/decisions/, maintains supersede chains, and reports status read-only. Never authors an ADR as its own judgment — every ADR carries explicit user attribution. |
decision-lifecycle
Author and track ADRs. Routed to when the user invokes /adr "<title>" (author a new ADR) or /adr-status [--adr N] (list ADR health, read-only). Every ADR is user-attributed — this skill never records a decision the user did not explicitly make.
The append-only decision-log format (entry fields, supersession protocol) lives in {{PLUGIN_ROOT}}/includes/smarts/decision-log-format.md. Read it before writing a log line; do not restate it here.
Boundary with decision-variance. This skill owns ADR authoring and status (/adr, /adr-status) — recording a decision the user has already made, and reporting ADR health. decision-variance owns arbitration — detecting variances between artifacts and the scaffold, scoring options via SMARTS, and the decision log itself. The two share the canonical SMARTS reference under {{PLUGIN_ROOT}}/includes/smarts/ (core.md for scoring, decision-log-format.md for the log) and one ADR template (references/adr-template.md); they are one domain split by responsibility, not duplicated. When a decision needs making (competing options), route to decision-variance; when it needs recording (already decided), stay here.
Pre-flight
Read these, or STOP and surface the gap — never guess a path:
{{PROJECT_DIR}}/.codearbiter/decisions/ — the ADR directory and existing records. Create it on first /adr if absent.- For
/adr: confirm the user explicitly authorized this decision and supplied (or confirmed) its content. An ADR is never authored as the disposition of a routine finding.
Phase 1 — Index · gate: BLOCK
Scan {{PROJECT_DIR}}/.codearbiter/decisions/ for existing NNNN-*.md ADR files. Record each by number, title, and status. Determine the next sequential number (no gaps) for /adr; for /adr-status this is the working set.
Gate: the existing ADRs are indexed and, for /adr, the next number is fixed.
Phase 2 — Author (/adr) · gate: STOP
Confirm the decision content with the user — context, the decision itself, alternatives, consequences. MUST NOT fill these from inference. Surface any unknown as an inline [CONFIRM-NN] placeholder; do not resolve it by guessing.
Drop the authoring marker first. The pre-write/pre-edit hooks block any write to .codearbiter/decisions/NNNN-*.md unless a fresh authoring marker is present — that block is the mechanism enforcing "ADRs only via /adr" (ORCHESTRATOR §3), so the sanctioned path must arm it itself. Immediately before writing, create the marker at the path the hooks check (project root = git top level):
mkdir -p "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.codearbiter/.markers"
touch "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.codearbiter/.markers/adr-authoring-active"
The marker is honored for 30 minutes. Then write {{PROJECT_DIR}}/.codearbiter/decisions/NNNN-<slug>.md using the canonical ADR template — {{PLUGIN_ROOT}}/skills/decision-lifecycle/references/adr-template.md (the single source of truth for the ADR shape, shared with decompose). Author it with status: proposed. If this decision supersedes an existing one, set supersedes: to that ADR's number; leave the prior ADR's file untouched (forward-only chain — do not edit it to add a back-reference).
After writing the ADR, append a corresponding entry to the decision log per the format in {{PLUGIN_ROOT}}/includes/smarts/decision-log-format.md — Decided by: names the user. Status transitions (proposed → accepted → superseded | rejected) require explicit user instruction; never advance status on this skill's own judgment.
governs: makes the decision live. When an ADR names path globs in governs:, the post-write
hook surfaces a one-line notice on any Write/Edit touching a matching file — "this file is governed
by ADR-NNNN" — so a recorded decision pushes back at edit time instead of waiting for a checkpoint
sweep. Offer the field whenever a decision constrains identifiable files; omit it for decisions
without a file footprint. Globs are fnmatch-style against repo-relative forward-slash paths.
Once the ADR file and its log entry are written (and any user-instructed status edit is applied), remove the marker — it exists only for one authoring pass:
rm -f "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.codearbiter/.markers/adr-authoring-active"
Gate: the ADR file is written with a real decided-by user attribution, numbered without a gap, and its log entry is appended. An ADR with no user attribution, or authored as the disposition of a finding, does not pass — STOP.
Phase 3 — Status (/adr-status) · gate: BLOCK
Read-only. For each ADR (or the --adr N target), report: number, title, status, date, and supersession state — found by scanning forward for any later ADR whose supersedes: names it. Surface every unresolved [CONFIRM-NN] placeholder found in any ADR; MUST NOT resolve it.
If a supersession candidate contradicts an accepted ADR with no clear direction, do not pick one — flag it for /conflict.
## ADR Status — YYYY-MM-DD
### Active
- ADR-NNNN — <title> — <status> (<date>)
### Superseded
- ADR-NNNN — <title> — superseded by ADR-MMMM
### Unresolved CONFIRM-NN
- ADR-NNNN — [CONFIRM-NN]: <text>
An empty section is marked "None" — not omitted. MAY dispatch decision-challenger ({{PLUGIN_ROOT}}/agents/decision-challenger.md) to stress-test an ADR; optional, never forced.
Gate: every indexed ADR appears with its current status and supersession state; no [CONFIRM-NN] resolved; no file modified.
Hard rules
- MUST author an ADR only via
/adr with explicit user attribution. MUST NOT author an ADR as the disposition of a routine finding — an out-of-scope finding gets an inline [NEEDS-TRIAGE] marker instead.
- MUST NOT record a decision the user did not explicitly make. "Use your best judgment," "I trust you" are declined.
- MUST NOT resolve a
[CONFIRM-NN] placeholder by guessing. Surface it and stop.
- MUST NOT advance an ADR's status without explicit user instruction.
- MUST NOT edit a prior ADR or a prior decision-log entry to add a back-reference — supersession is a forward-only chain; append a new record whose
supersedes: names the prior one.
- MUST NOT number an ADR with a gap.
- MUST NOT modify any file under
/adr-status — it is read-only.
- MUST NOT force the
decision-challenger agent — its dispatch is MAY only.
