emerging-pattern-monitor

name	emerging-pattern-monitor
version	2.2.0
description	Monitors analysis-doc lifecycle in all three lanes — EMERGING→PRODUCTION promotion, PRODUCTION→RETIRING/RETIRED retirement (replacement-readiness as robust community/vendor elements mature), and follow-lane upkeep (followed canons' advance triggers + liveness, per ABSORPTION-MAP.md)
triggers	["review emerging patterns","check pattern promotion","evaluate emerging","promote pattern","review retirement candidates","replacement readiness","what can we retire","follow-lane check","absorption sweep"]
auto_load	false

Emerging Pattern Monitor Skill

Purpose: Monitor EMERGING patterns in analysis documents, track promotion criteria, and recommend when patterns are ready for PRODUCTION status.

When to Use:

• Weekly automated checks (recommended)
• Before quarterly audits
• When Anthropic blog post validates approach
• When production case study published
• User says "review emerging patterns" or similar

What This Skill Does:

1. Identifies analysis topics marked as EMERGING in analysis/ docs and SOURCES.md
2. Evaluates against promotion criteria
3. Tracks evidence accumulation over time
4. Recommends promotion when criteria met
5. Creates promotion proposals

---

Promotion Criteria

To promote from EMERGING to PRODUCTION, a pattern must achieve all three:

1. Tier A Source Validation

Requirement: Approach validated by authoritative source

Acceptable sources:

• Anthropic engineering blog post
• Anthropic official documentation endorsement
• Peer-reviewed research (published in ACM, USENIX, IEEE)
• OWASP or NIST standard

Verification:

• Check SOURCES.md for Tier A attribution
• Verify URL is from anthropic.com/engineering or code.claude.com/docs
• Confirm publication date (within 2 years for relevance)

2. Production Validation

Requirement: Pattern used successfully in production

Acceptable evidence:

• 2+ independent case studies from different organizations, OR
• 1 Tier A case study (Anthropic, Fortune 500, named enterprise)

Case study quality criteria:

• Named organization or practitioner
• Quantified outcomes (measurements, time savings, etc.)
• Duration: 30+ days production use
• Publicly verifiable (blog post, conference talk, etc.)

Verification:

• Search SOURCES.md for case study citations
• Check evidence tier (B or higher)
• Verify measurements are specific and dated

3. Community Maturity

Requirement: Pattern or framework shows stability

For frameworks/tools:

• Version 1.0+ released
• Active maintenance (commits/releases within 3 months)
• 100+ GitHub stars OR 10+ contributors
• Documentation exists (README with examples)

For methodology patterns (non-code):

• Referenced by 2+ independent sources
• Stable definition (not rapidly changing)
• Clear usage examples in SOURCES.md

---

Workflow

Phase 1: Identify EMERGING Topics

Search strategy:

1. Grep analysis/ docs for EMERGING status markers
2. Review SOURCES.md for "EMERGING PATTERN" markers
3. Check analysis docs with confidence scores below production threshold

Expected output:

EMERGING Topics Found:
1. Reinforcement Learning from Memory (RLM)
   - File: SOURCES.md:430-454
   - Status: EMERGING since 2025-10-15

2. Claude-Flow multi-agent framework
   - File: analysis/orchestration-comparison.md (Framework Selection section, merged 2026-07-16)
   - Status: EMERGING since 2025-11-20

Phase 2: Evaluate Each Topic

For each EMERGING topic, create evaluation scorecard:

## Topic: [Name]

**Status**: EMERGING
**First Mentioned**: [date]

### Promotion Criteria Evaluation

#### 1. Tier A Source Validation
- Status: [ACHIEVED / IN PROGRESS / NOT MET]
- Source: [name]
- Evidence Tier: [A/B/C]

#### 2. Production Validation
- Status: [ACHIEVED / IN PROGRESS / NOT MET]
- Case studies: [count] of 2 required

#### 3. Community Maturity
- Status: [ACHIEVED / IN PROGRESS / NOT MET]
- Framework version: [version]

### Overall Assessment
**Promotion Ready?**: [YES/NO] ([count] of 3 criteria met)
**Recommendation**: [Promote / Keep as EMERGING / Downgrade]

Phase 3: Take Action

If promotion ready (all 3 criteria met):

1. Update analysis document status to PRODUCTION
2. Remove EMERGING markers from documentation
3. Update cross-references in related analysis docs
4. Document promotion in DECISIONS.md

If blockers exist:

1. Document blockers clearly
2. Set next review date (1-3 months)
3. Monitor for triggering events

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Retirement Monitoring (PRODUCTION → RETIRING → RETIRED)

The inverse lane. This project is designed to prune itself as the ecosystem matures (see CONTRIBUTING.md § Retiring a doc) — coverage shrinking is success, not decay — so PRODUCTION docs are also monitored for whether a robust community/vendor element has caught up enough to take over a slice.

Phase R1: Scan PRODUCTION docs for replacement candidates

Triggers to check:

• A new Anthropic first-party feature/command that overlaps a doc's slice (changelog, engineering blog, a new /-command)
• A community tool reaching GA + real adoption that covers a doc's slice
• A periodic obsolescence sweep — "what did the market just ship that we no longer need to carry?"

Phase R2: Apply the robustness bar (retire only when ALL four clear)

1. Supported — first-party (Anthropic) or robustly community-maintained (active, 1.0+, real adoption)
2. GA, not preview — generally available, not a research preview/beta
3. Covers the slice's substance — does the actual work the doc covered, not a superficial overlap
4. Citeable — a stable source to cite (vendor doc, changelog, named feature)

All four clear → recommend RETIRING (defer the slice; keep only what the replacement does not cover). Replacement fully carries the load → RETIRED (tombstone pointer).

Phase R3: Take action (per CONTRIBUTING.md § Retiring a doc)

1. Set status: RETIRING/RETIRED + replacement-by: frontmatter
2. Add the Replacement-status banner; register the replacement in SOURCES.md with its boundary (what it does / does not do)
3. Update AUDIT-CONTEXT.md routing to defer to the replacement
4. Log the retirement in the SOURCES.md refresh log + PLAN.md

Completed retirements: session-quality-tools.md → first-party /insights + native claude doctor (RETIRING 2026-06-04; completed + archived 2026-07-10 — the lane's first full cycle). Watch list: the single watch list now lives in ABSORPTION-MAP.md — one row per routable doc with absorber, lane, robustness-bar state, retained delta, and advance trigger (the former in-file items migrated there 2026-07-16: MCP/skills cost-economics ← /usage became the map's retire-toward row; install-health ← /doctor sits in the map's non-doc watch notes, a slice this project never claimed). Do not maintain a second list here.

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Phase F: Follow-lane monitoring (quarterly)

The third lane. Docs with a follows: frontmatter field (see CONTRIBUTING.md § Following a Canon) track an external canon that carries the conceptual load for their slice while the doc keeps only its delta. Quarterly, for each follow-lane row in ABSORPTION-MAP.md:

1. Advance-trigger check — has the row's named observable event happened (e.g., the canon's practice productized by a Supported tool, or first-party docs absorbing the slice)? If yes and all four robustness bars now clear, propose converting follows: → replacement-by: + RETIRING via Phase R3.
2. Canon liveness check — is the canon still active (posts/commits within ~6 months)? A frozen canon (the HumanLayer 12-factor precedent: no push since 2025-09) is grounds to recommend dropping the pointer, not to keep following.
3. Output — either "no change; Verified dates bumped for the rows actually re-checked" or a new drafts/ABSORPTION-SCAN-YYYY-QQ.md proposing a wave. A wave is NOT mandatory every quarter (Decision 9's negative precedent: don't over-apply reshaping to well-built docs).

This phase is judgment work and belongs in the quarterly cadence; the weekly review only runs mechanical map-consistency greps (weekly-review step 5b).

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Related Analysis

• Evidence Tiers - Tier A source criteria
• Pattern Version Updater - Coordinates on version requirements

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Skill Maintenance

Update this skill when:

• Promotion criteria change
• New evidence tier definitions added
• Anthropic guidance on pattern validation changes

Last Updated: 2026-07-16 (added Phase F follow-lane monitoring; watch list migrated to ABSORPTION-MAP.md as the single store) Skill Version: 2.2.0