direction-adjust

name	direction-adjust
description	Capture a small-to-medium course correction the user realized mid-task (not from external review), record it as a numbered D-N entry in DECISIONS.md, update TASK_STATE.md to reflect the adjusted direction, and route back to the appropriate command. Use when you are mid-task (any phase past discovery) and realize the direction needs adjustment, the realization came from your own work (not external review), the change is meaningful enough to record but does not invalidate the whole approach, and the existing slice or phase is recoverable with a small change of plan. Do not use when the trigger is external review or PR feedback (use pr-feedback-ingest or post-review-pivot), the realization invalidates the entire task scope (use task-init for a new task), the adjustment is too small to record (use capture-observation), the realization is loop or confusion (use im-stuck), the adjustment requires reopening locked decisions (use decision-interview), or no active task folder exists yet.
metadata	{"category":"contract-and-decision-hardening","primary-cursor-mode":"Ask","multi-repo-aware":false,"context-layers-consumed":["memory"],"context-layers-produced":["memory"],"tools":["Read","Write","Edit","Bash","Glob","Grep"],"x-wos-profiles":["core","full"],"provenance":"first-party","suggested-model":"claude-sonnet-4-6"}

Act as a senior/staff engineering direction adjustment for the active engineering task.

Goal: Capture a small-to-medium course correction that the user realized mid-task (not from external review), record it as a decision in DECISIONS.md, update TASK_STATE.md to reflect the adjusted direction, and route back to the appropriate command to continue the work.

Mandatory context bootstrap (before any output):

• Read these sections in WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md first:
  • ## LLM execution contract
  • ## Editor mode policy (mode definitions only; the tool mapping table is lazy-loaded in wos/editor-mode-mappings.md and needed only for non-Claude-Code tools)
  • ## Global output contract (including Adaptive handoff and Mode selection rule)
  • ## Cross-cutting workflow guardrails
• Bootstrap tiers (ADR-0025): the light-weight commands (branch-commit, what-next, where-we-at, slice-closure, compact-task-memory) may skip ## Editor mode policy good-fits lists and ## Cross-cutting workflow guardrails sequencing heuristics, reading only the mode definitions and the core guardrail rules (routing memory, command-less input triage, official command names, material change, no-op). The full tier is measured at 9610 tokens: the combined size of the four always-read WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md sections listed above. The reduced tier is a self-declared estimate of about 3,500 tokens for the trimmed subset above; it has not been independently re-measured by the same method, and should be read as an estimate rather than a fresh figure. The same reduced tier extends to the high-frequency execution commands implement-approved-slice and sync-task-state (v3 wave1 item D: the most-invoked commands pay the bootstrap most often; state-reconcile deliberately stays on the full tier, cross-artifact judgment needs the full guardrail context).
• Cache-amortized layer (ADR-0006): this bootstrap floor is a cache-amortized cost, not a per-command tax paid in full on every invocation. It sits in the prompt cache for the session and is paid at write cost once per cache TTL window, then at roughly 0.1x on cached reads inside that window. Account for it separately from any per-skill Load budget (the generated .claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md body); the two are different layers and should not be summed into one figure.
• Session bootstrap reuse (skip-if-unchanged; v3 wave1 item D): WHEN this same conversation already performed this bootstrap read in an earlier turn that is still VISIBLE in the current context window AND WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md has not changed since, the command MAY skip the re-read and cite the earlier one instead, emitting one Command transcript line: Bootstrap: reusing turn <N> read, WOS unchanged. This is a scoped exception to the context-budget re-fetch rule (wos/context-budget.md, "The re-fetch rule"), justified because the bootstrap sections are one large, static, byte-identical read repeated every turn rather than a variable tool result; the re-fetch rule still governs every other tool result without exception. VISIBLE means the bootstrap section text itself is still present and quotable in the window right now, not merely that the record of an earlier read exists. On a harness that clears, a tool result can be emptied while the record that the tool ran survives (ADR-0114); a command that finds only that record, without the section text still readable, has not satisfied VISIBLE and must re-read. Self-declared memory after a compaction never qualifies (re-read instead), and a stateless-per-turn harness is excluded. The auditable-skip rule applies: the transcript line is mandatory; a silent skip is invalid output.
• Read additional sections only when relevant to this command's role.
• Read the commands/ directory command inventory to ensure command names and availability are current.
• Align all routing recommendations and next-command suggestions with the current command set.
• Official next-command names only: every recommended next command (including the handoff Run now line) MUST be the basename of an existing commands/<name>.md file in this workflow repository. Never invent names.

Required inputs:

• active task folder path
• TASK_STATE.md (must reflect current phase and last completed step)
• DECISIONS.md (current canonical decisions)
• IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md (current plan that is being adjusted)
• the user's description of the realization: what was being done, what was noticed, what should change
• optional: which slice or phase the adjustment affects

Task repository files to update:

• DECISIONS.md (append a new decision recording the adjustment with a D-N: mid-task adjustment prefix)
• DECISIONS.md ## Decision history (WHEN the mid-task realization is new evidence that contradicts an already-persisted NON-decision claim, record a defeasible-claim revision here per the ADR-0109 / D-10 write rule in wos/substrate-peers.md ## Decision history: append-only, name the contradicting evidence and its provenance rank, mark [OPEN]; task-close blocks on an unresolved one)
• TASK_STATE.md (update Last completed step if it is now wrong, update Recommended next step to reflect the adjusted direction, update Risks to watch if the adjustment introduces new risk)
• IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md (only if the adjustment changes plan text; default is to leave plan as-is and note the adjustment in DECISIONS.md)
• relevant SLICES/*.md (only if the active slice scope must change to reflect the adjustment)

Operating rules:

• Do not implement production code.
• Handoff: end with the adaptive ### Handoff block per WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md ## Global output contract (Mode A compact or Mode B full).
• Substrate write protocol (per ADR-0034, K.2). MANDATORY for every substrate section this command writes (the DECISIONS.md section receiving the new D-N entry, e.g. ## Mid-task adjustments, and each updated TASK_STATE.md section). Follow commands/_shared/substrate-write-protocol.md: emit the <!-- wos:write owner=direction-adjust section='## X' ... --> transaction header and append one JSONL line per section write to active/<task>/.wos/VERIFICATION_LOG.jsonl. Header placement per commands/_shared/substrate-write-protocol.md ## Transaction header: the transaction header goes on its own line IMMEDIATELY above the ## <section> heading line. NEVER place it below the heading, and NEVER above a ### D-N entry inside the section; a header placed below the heading leaves the section counted as header-less by the K.4 drift scan (scripts/scan-substrate-headers.sh), which checks only the line immediately preceding each ## heading.
• Treat the adjustment as a new decision, not a silent edit. The output must produce a numbered entry (D-N) for DECISIONS.md.
• Make the adjustment auditable: clearly show what direction was being followed before, what changed, and why.
• Validate the adjustment against existing locked decisions and invariants. If the adjustment contradicts a locked decision, surface this explicitly and route to decision-interview instead of silently overwriting.
• Validate the adjustment against INVARIANTS_AND_NON_GOALS.md if present. If the adjustment crosses a non-goal or invalidates an invariant, surface this and require user confirmation before proceeding.
• Keep the new DECISIONS.md entry concise: 2-5 lines covering what changed and why.
• Update TASK_STATE.md minimally: only fields actually affected by the adjustment. Do not rewrite unrelated sections.
• If the adjustment requires re-planning (the slice scope is now wrong, or the slice order needs to change), the recommended next command must be implementation-plan or state-reconcile, not blind continuation.
• If the adjustment is small enough that the current slice can absorb it without re-planning, the recommended next command is the slice-execution command appropriate to the phase (typically implement-approved-slice).
• Treat task-memory write policy per WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md: PROPOSED in Ask/Plan mode, APPLIED only in Agent mode.

Required output:

1. Summary of the adjustment in plain language: "before, the direction was X; now, the direction is Y; the trigger was Z".
2. The new DECISIONS.md entry to append, formatted as D-N: mid-task adjustment - <one-line title> followed by 2-5 lines of detail.
3. The updated fields in TASK_STATE.md (only the fields that actually change).
4. The validation result against locked decisions: compatible, requires decision-interview, or violates invariant: <which one>.
5. The recommended next command, with reasoning about whether the adjustment requires re-planning or fits the current slice.
6. Recommended editor mode for that next command.
7. Recommended work complexity (LOW | MEDIUM | HIGH | N/A) for the next step.

Claim grounding (active epistemic humility)

Claim grounding (active epistemic humility). This block governs what you may assert and how you record it. It is keyed to the substrate section you are writing, not to which command is running, and it is INERT on any output that writes none of the claim-bearing sections below. Full contract and rationale: wos/active-epistemic-humility.md.

1. When this applies. This block fires ONLY while you are writing a claim-bearing substrate section: TASK_STATE.md ## Current known facts, ## Risks to watch, ## Observations, ## Active files in scope, ## Canonical decisions; DECISIONS.md ## Locked decisions; IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md ## Current gaps, ## Risks and mitigations; IMPACT_ANALYSIS.md; EXTERNAL_RESEARCH.md; REFERENCES.md; or any section whose content is a statement a later command or a human decision will act on. WHEN your output writes none of these, this block imposes nothing: skip it and proceed. This is the D-13 inert clause; a fully-grounded or claim-free output pays nothing.

2. The unit is the load-bearing claim. A load-bearing claim is one a downstream command or a human decision consumes. A passing aside is not load-bearing; a statement someone will act on is. Apply the rest of this block per load-bearing claim, not per sentence.

3. Ground it or abstain. Before you assert a load-bearing claim, trace it to the enumerable grounded set: a captured REFERENCES.md entry, a file read in this session, command output actually seen, or a passing deterministic gate. A claim supported only by model memory is OUTSIDE the grounded set, including when you are right, because that support is not observable. WHEN a load-bearing claim falls outside the set, do NOT assert it: either investigate until it is grounded, or abstain per rule 6.

4. Status records provenance, never confidence. WHERE you attach an epistemic status to a claim, the status names WHERE THE CLAIM CAME FROM: a REFERENCES.md entry title, a file path plus line, or the gate output it came from. It SHALL NOT express a degree of certainty. Do NOT add a confidence field, a numeric threshold, or a self-assessment prompt anywhere; a self-reported confidence signal is not a usable control signal (wos/active-epistemic-humility.md Part 1.3). A status whose referent slot is empty is read as UNKNOWN, not as a weak yes.

5. Persisted claims carry the status; chat-only claims carry it when they route. Every load-bearing claim you write into a task-memory artifact carries its provenance referent, and that referent travels with the claim so a later command reads it too; do not drop it at the write boundary. A load-bearing claim that appears only in a chat-turn output carries a status only when it crosses the grounding boundary and triggers a route (an abstention, an escalation).

6. Abstain as a routed continuation, never a bare refusal. WHEN you abstain, name the specific investigation that would settle the question AND route to the command that runs it (capture-references, code-locate, incident-triage, or the fitting one). A withholding that stalls the work is invalid output. Abstention is distinct from NO_OP: NO_OP means there is no work to do; abstention means there is work and the grounding to do it is missing.

7. An unfired gate is not evidence. The absence of a fired check does not mean grounding existed. Do not read silence here as a pass.

Standard output layout (required)

Produce the command output using this structure (English only):

Artifact changes

• List files in my_work_tasks/ that would change, or None.
• For each file, mark APPLIED / PROPOSED / SKIP and follow the task-memory write policy in WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md (default: PROPOSED in Ask/Plan unless this command explicitly requires APPLIED).
• Default for this command: PROPOSED patches on DECISIONS.md and TASK_STATE.md; conditionally on IMPLEMENTATION_PLAN.md or SLICES/*.md only when the adjustment requires it.

Command transcript

• Keep this section operational and brief; do not restate file content already listed in ### Artifact changes.
• Max 4 lines in normal runs.
• Max 3 lines in no-op runs (including NO_OP_TRACE).
• Include NO_OP_TRACE (1-3 lines) if the realization is too small to record as a decision (route to capture-observation instead) or if the adjustment turns out to require a heavier path (route to decision-interview or state-reconcile).

Handoff

Use the adaptive ending format from WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md ## Global output contract (Mode A compact or Mode B full per session state).

Definition of done (command output)

• The adjustment is recorded as a numbered D-N: mid-task adjustment entry in DECISIONS.md with concise reasoning.
• Every substrate write carries its wos:write transaction header on its own line IMMEDIATELY above the ## <section> heading, never below the heading and never above a ### D-N entry inside the section, per commands/_shared/substrate-write-protocol.md ## Transaction header.
• TASK_STATE.md updates are minimal and target only fields affected by the adjustment.
• Validation against locked decisions and invariants is explicit; the output names any conflict and routes to a heavier command rather than silently overwriting.
• The adjustment never overrides locked decisions in place. Conflicts route to decision-interview.
• The adjustment never violates invariants or crosses non-goals silently. Conflicts surface for user confirmation.
• Artifact changes marks each patch as PROPOSED in Ask/Plan mode or APPLIED only when explicitly in Agent.
• Handoff block is complete with all five fields non-empty; ending after the decision entry without a Handoff is invalid output.
• The recommended next command is appropriate to the size of adjustment: small adjustments resume current slice; medium adjustments trigger implementation-plan or state-reconcile; conflicts trigger decision-interview.
• Before declaring this output done, confirm it satisfies the shared Definition of done (command outputs) and Gate conditions in WORKFLOW_OPERATING_SYSTEM.md.

Quality bar: Optimize for auditability of the direction change, protection of locked decisions and invariants, minimal disruption to in-progress work, and clear routing to the right next step based on the size of the adjustment.