flywheel

name	flywheel
description	Outer loop for Laboratory research work. Picks a backlog item, shapes it, delivers it, settles it, ships it through PR, monitors evidence, and reflects. Trigger: /flywheel.
argument-hint	[--max-cycles N]

/flywheel

Run bounded Laboratory research cycles. This repository ships experiments, analysis, reports, and harness improvements; it does not deploy an app by default.

Cycle

1. Pick the next ready item from backlog.d/.
2. /shape if the item lacks a falsifiable oracle.
3. /deliver the item to merge-ready.
4. /yeet only when the user requested commits/pushes.
5. /settle until review, make ci-smoke, refactor, and QA are clean.
6. /ship through the repo's branch/PR workflow when the user asked to land.
7. /monitor the relevant evidence surface after shipping or a run.
8. /reflect and capture any follow-up backlog or harness changes.

Laboratory Invariants

• Scientific workflow is the product: hypothesis, harness, data, analysis, traces, and deliverables.
• Simulated data is QA evidence only. It never supports publishable claims.
• Live runs require explicit --live, provider preflight, budget cap, and trace artifacts.
• make ci-smoke is the default gate unless a touched surface names a narrower additional command.
• Spellbook owns workflow primitives. Laboratory owns experiment semantics.

Non-Goals

• No semantic workflow engine or hidden scheduler.
• No deployment phase unless the user points at an actual site/service change.
• No live API spend merely because a cycle reached an experiment item.
• No backlog archival without file or command evidence.

Output

For each cycle, report the item, phase verdicts, commands run, artifacts inspected, residual risk, and the next concrete step.