vertical-slice-gate

name	vertical-slice-gate
description	Enforce bottom-up vertical-slice completion checks before advancing to higher-layer features.

Vertical Slice Gate

When to use

• Starting or closing any slice (P0, P1, ...).
• Temptation to move upward before lower-level reliability is proven.

Protocol

1. Declare slice boundary and acceptance criteria.
2. Implement only minimal cross-layer scope for that slice.
3. Run mandatory checks:
   • build/regression command(s)
   • slice smoke test(s)
4. Log evidence in docs/operations/progress.md.
5. Only then move to next layer.

Required checks in this repo (minimum)

• dotnet build dotnet/DoclingDotNet.Examples.slnx
• powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\test-docling-parse-cabi-smoke.ps1 -SkipConfigure

Neighbor-feature rule

When touching low-level code, also complete nearby low-level improvements that reduce future churn:

• script robustness
• deterministic error handling
• reproducible clean/test workflow

Exit criteria

• Slice checks pass.
• Progress log contains concise Changed / Validation / Next outcomes.
• Additional docs updates are required only for milestone or contract/workflow changes.