philosophy-enforcer

name	philosophy-enforcer
description	Capture, maintain, and enforce the SCMessenger product and engineering philosophy through a required interview and gate-based compliance review. Use when users ask to define repo philosophy, align plans or code to philosophy, review whether a change matches app principles, or request enforcement of standards and intent across docs, architecture, UX, and implementation.

Philosophy Enforcer

Run a disciplined workflow that first collects philosophy from the user, then turns it into an enforceable canon, then checks requested work against that canon with explicit pass/fail gates.

Workflow

1. Run the required interview before enforcement unless a current canon already exists and the user explicitly says to skip interview updates.
2. Write or update the philosophy canon at reference/PHILOSOPHY_CANON.md in the repo.
3. Derive enforceable rules from the canon using the rubric in references/enforcement-rubric.md.
4. Evaluate the requested change against each rule.
5. Block, revise, or approve work based on gate outcomes.

Required Interview

Use references/interview-protocol.md and ask questions in small batches.

Interview goals:

• Extract non-negotiable principles, not vague preferences.
• Capture explicit tradeoffs and anti-goals.
• Resolve conflicts between performance, privacy, usability, reliability, and velocity.
• Confirm examples of "good" and "bad" outcomes.

If the user is unavailable or declines details, proceed with best-effort assumptions, mark every assumption explicitly, and lower enforcement confidence.

Canon Format

Maintain reference/PHILOSOPHY_CANON.md with these sections:

• Mission and product intent
• User promises and trust boundaries
• Engineering principles
• UX and interaction principles
• Security and privacy posture
• Reliability and operability posture
• Performance posture
• Explicit anti-goals
• Prioritized tradeoff matrix
• Decision examples (accepted and rejected)

Keep each rule testable and concise. Reject soft language like "generally" or "prefer" unless tied to a measurable condition.

Enforcement Mode

For each relevant requested change (code, docs, architecture, tests, release plan):

1. Map the change to canon rules.
2. Score each rule: PASS, CONDITIONAL, or FAIL.
3. For non-pass results, provide concrete remediation.
4. Refuse final approval if any rule marked non-negotiable is FAIL.
5. Report residual risk when CONDITIONAL results remain.

Output Contract

Return results in this order:

1. Interview deltas (new or changed philosophy)
2. Canon updates made
3. Enforcement table (rule -> status -> evidence)
4. Required remediations
5. Final verdict (APPROVE, APPROVE WITH CONDITIONS, REJECT)

References

• Interview script and capture template: references/interview-protocol.md
• Enforcement gates and scoring rules: references/enforcement-rubric.md